About
Jana von Stein is interested in how international institutions reflect and affect governments' interests. In a series of pieces published in The American Political Science Review, in a Cambridge Press volume, and in the ISA Compendium, she looks at compliance and whether it is 'good news' for international cooperation. In another piece published in the Journal of Conflict Resolution, she considers ratification of two core climate change agreements, demonstrating that while governments are willing to make 'soft' commitments readily, they are much more wary of taking on 'hard' obligations when compliance would be difficult. Flexibility mechanisms help to some extent. She has also co-edited a special issue of the Journal of Conflict Resolution and published a piece with Shanna Kirschner in the journal Civil Wars.
Jana's most recent research focuses on international human rights law. Her Database of Universal Human Rights Agreements provides information on signature, ratification, entry into force, and other parameters for approximately 50 UN human rights accords. She has various working papers, available on her personal webpage, that look at when and why governments ratify human rights agreements. She is particularly interested in the ratification and compliance behavior of autocracies.
Jana von Stein joined the faculty at Michigan in September 2005. She received her B.A. at UC Berkeley, her Diplôme d'Études Approfondies at the Institut d'Etudes Politiques in France, and her Ph.D. at UCLA.
Selected Publications
Do Treaties Screen or Constrain? Selection Bias and Treaty Compliance. American Political Science Review 99: 611-22, August 2005.
The International Law and Politics of Climate Change: Ratification of the UN Framework Convention and the Kyoto Protocol. Journal of Conflict Resolution 51: 243-68, April 2008.
The Pieces of Peacemaking: Understanding Implementation of Civil War Settlements. Civil Wars 11: 279-301, September 2009. With Shanna Kirschner.
The Engines of Compliance. In Jeffrey Dunoff and Mark Pollack (eds.), Interdisciplinary Perspectives on International Law and International Relations: The State of the Art. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012.
