Publications

2012
Simmons BA, Lloyd P, Stewart B. Combating Transnational Crime: The Role of Learning and Norm Diffusion in the Current Rule of Law Wave. In: The Dynamics of the Rule of Law. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press ; 2012. pp. 153-180. Download Chapter
Simmons BA, Martin L. International Organisations and Institutions. In: Handbook of International Relations. Sage Publications ; 2012. pp. 326-351. ch_13_-_international_os_and_is.pdf
Simmons BA. International Law. In: Handbook of International Relations. Sage Publications ; 2012. pp. 352-378. ch_14_-_international_law.pdf
Handbook of International Relations
Simmons BA, Carlsnaes W, Risse T ed. Handbook of International Relations. 2nd ed. London: Sage Publications; 2012 pp. 902. Publisher WebsiteAbstract
The original Handbook of International Relations was the first authoritative and comprehensive survey of the field of international relations. In this eagerly-awaited new edition, the Editors have once again drawn together a team of the world's leading scholars of international relations to provide a state-of-the-art review and indispensable guide to the field, ensuring its position as the pre-eminent volume of its kind. The Second Edition has been expanded to 33 chapters and fully revised, with new chapters on the following contemporary topics: - Normative Theory in IR - Critical Theories and Poststructuralism - Efforts at Theoretical Synthesis in IR: Possibilities and Limits - International Law and International Relations - Transnational Diffusion: Norms, Ideas and Policies - Comparative Regionalism - Nationalism and Ethnicity - Geopolitics in the 21st Century - Terrorism and International Relations - Religion and International Politics - International Migration A truly international undertaking, this Handbook reviews the many historical, philosophical, analytical and normative roots to the discipline and covers the key contemporary topics of research and debate today. The Handbook of International Relations remains an essential benchmark publication for all advanced undergraduates, graduate students and academics in politics and international relations.
Simmons BA. Reflections on Mobilizing for Human Rights. Journal of International Law and Politics. 2012;44 :729-750.Abstract

NYU Law's symposium "From Rights to Reality: Mobilizing for Human Rights and Its Intersection with International Law" has been a valuable opportunity to reflect on the role that international law has played in the furtherance of human rights around the world over the past six decades. It has also been a stimulating forum to assess the state of our knowledge, experience, and research relating to the development of human rights law and its application in various settings around the world. The scholars and practitioners participating in this symposium have each made remarkable contributions to the development, interpretation, and application of human rights law internationally, and I am very grateful that they have taken the time to engage the arguments and evidence in Mobilizing for Human Rights. The editors of the Journal of International Law and Politics are to be congratulated on a stimulating symposium and a valuable volume.

In this concluding article, I will describe what Mobilizing for Human Rights set out to do, what I think it did well, and what it did not, in the end, accomplish. There is much to mention on both scores. While the book was one of the first comprehensive efforts to theorize and test empirically the effects of international legal agreements on a broad range of rights indicators, the research necessarily fails to speak to some issues, raises additional questions, and opens up new avenues for empirical research. I will also engage the observations of my colleagues in the symposium, whose supportive as well as skeptical views I very much appreciate. I hope to make clearer how the research potentially connects with strategies for rights improvements. I conclude on a very humble note: the experience represented by the symposium participants far outstrips the scholarly findings of the book, but I am hopeful that discussion of the kind we have had leads both to better scholarship and broadly informed practice.

simmons_-_nyu_44_3.pdf
2010
Simmons BA, Danner AM. Credible Commitments and the International Criminal Court. International Organization. 2010;64 (2).Abstract

The creation of an International Criminal Court (ICC) to prosecute war crimes poses a real puzzle. Why was it created, and more importantly, why do states agree to join this institution? The ICC represents a serious intrusion into a traditional arena of state sovereignty: the right to administer justice to one’s one nationals. Yet more than one hundred states have joined. Social scientists are hardly of one mind about this institution, arguing that it is (alternately) dangerous or irrelevant to achieving its main purposes: justice, peace, and stability. By contrast, we theorize the ICC as a mechanism to assist states in self-binding, and draw on credible commitments theory to understand who commits to the ICC, and the early consequences of such commitments. This approach explains a counterintuitive finding: the states that are both the least and the most vulnerable to the possibility of an ICC case affecting their citizens have committed most readily to the ICC, while potentially vulnerable states with credible alternative means to hold leaders accountable do not. Similarly, ratification of the ICC is associated with tentative steps toward violence reduction and peace in those countries precisely least likely to be able to commit credibly to forswear atrocities. These findings support the potential usefulness of the ICC as a mechanism for some governments to commit to ratchet down violence and get on the road to peaceful negotiations. Appendices are forthcoming and will be available for download.

2009
Simmons BA. Mobilizing Human Rights: International Law in Domestic Politics. Cambridge University Press; 2009.Abstract

This volume argues that international human rights law has made a positive contribution to the realization of human rights in much of the world. Although governments sometimes ratify human rights treaties, gambling that they will experience little pressure to comply with them, this is not typically the case. Focusing on rights stakeholders rather than the United Nations or state pressure, Beth Simmons demonstrates through a combination of statistical analyses and case studies that the ratification of treaties leads to better rights practices on average. Simmons argues that international human rights law should get more practical and rhetorical support from the international community as a supplement to broader efforts to address conflict, development, and democratization.

View the data for Mobilizing Human Rights on the Dataverse page.

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3.1 Survival curves 3.2 Ratification rules 3.3 Robustness checks 3.4 British correlation 3.5 Reservations 3.6 UN Conferences 5.1 Admin of justice 5.2 Death Penalty 7.1 UN investigations 7.2 High volatility regimes 7.3 Chilean court cases 7.4 Israeli court cases
2008
Simmons BA. Globalization, Sovereignty and Democracy: The Role of International Organizations in a Globalizing World. In: Nardulli PF International Perspectives on Contemporary Democracy. University of Illinois Press ; 2008. pp. 158-182.
Simmons BA, Garrett G, Dobbin F. The Global Diffusion of Markets and Democracy.; 2008. Publisher's Version bsimmons_global_diffusion.pdf
Simmons BA. The Future of Central Bank Cooperation. In: Borio C, Toniolo G, (eds.) PC Past and Future of Central Bank Cooperation. Cambridge University Press ; 2008. Publisher's Version work200.pdf
2007
Simmons BA, Dobbin F, Garrett G. The Global Diffusion of Public Policies: Social Construction, Coercion, Competition, or Learning. Annual Review of Sociology. 2007;33 (1) :449-472.
Simmons BA, Steinberg R. International Law and International Relations. Cambridge University Press; 2007.
2006
Simmons BA, Dobbin F, Garrett G. Introduction: The International Diffusion of Liberalism. International Organization. 2006;60 (4) :781-810. SimmonsDobbinGarrett2006.pdf
Simmons BA. The Future of Central Bank Cooperation. 2006.
Simmons BA, Elkins Z, Guzman A. Competing for Capital: the Diffusion of Bilateral Investment Treaties, 1960-2000. International Organization. 2006;60 (4) :811-846. Publisher's Version bsimmons_competing_capital.pdf
Simmons BA. From Unilateralism to Bilateralism: Challenges for the Multilateral Trade System. In: Newman E, Thakur R, Tirman J Multilateralism under Challenge? Power, International Order, and Structural Change. United Nations University Press ; 2006. pp. 441-459.
Simmons BA. Trade and Territorial Conflict in Latin America: International Borders as Institutions. In: Kahler M, Walter B Territoriality and Conflict in an Era of Globalization. Cambridge University Press ; 2006. pp. 251-287.
2005
Simmons BA, Elkins Z. On Waves, Clusters and Diffusion: A Conceptual Framework. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. 2005;598 :33-51. SimmonsElkins2005.pdf
Simmons BA, Guzman A. Power Plays & Capacity Constraints: the Selection of Defendants in WTO Disputes. Journal of Legal Studies. 2005;34 (2) :557-598. SSRN-id660501.pdf
Simmons BA. Rules over Real Estate: Trade, Territorial Conflict and International Borders as Institutions. Journal of Conflict Resolution. 2005;49 (6) :823-848. Publisher's Version SimmonsJCR2005.pdf

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