Moyer, J., Meisel, C., Szymanski-Burgos, A., Scott, A., Casiraghi, M., Kurkul, A., Hughes, M., Kettlun, W., McKee, K., Matthews, A., (2025, March 17). When heads of government and state (HOGS) fly: Introducing the country and organizational leader travel (COLT) dataset measuring foreign travel by HOGS. International Studies Quarterly, Volume 69, Issue 2, June 2025, sqaf013, https://doi.org/10.1093/isq/sqaf013

Despite representing a crucial day-to-day diplomatic tool, travel by heads of government and state (HOGS) has remained an under-investigated topic in international relations, inhibiting our ability to better understand how these visits change foreign aid, interstate conflict, diplomatic affinities, and more. Here, we fill that gap by introducing the first global dataset on the foreign visits of state leaders, the Country and Organizational Leader Travel (COLT) dataset, which allows us to present descriptive analysis and assess the monadic and dyadic drivers of foreign travel by HOGS. We find evidence consistent with previous literature explaining the motives of leader travel: development, trade, conflict, institutional co-membership, and regime type. In addition, we show a potential further application of the dataset, presenting original results on the relation between diplomatic visits and international trade. Overall, these data represent a unique indicator of international interaction that cuts across levels of analysis.

Meisel, C., & Mckee, K. (2023, September 14). Coups are making a comeback. The Hill. https://thehill.com/opinion/international/4201818-coups-are-making-a-comeback/

The recent coup d’état in Gabon marks the latest casualty of the “coup contagion” spreading across the African continent. Given the frenetic pace of the minute-by-minute news cycle of the social media era, it’s easy to lose track of longer-term trends. Sure, it feels like there have been more coups than average lately, but is that just availability and vividness bias talking – humans’ known tendency to pay more attention to more recent, more prominent, and more sensational information than that which is less so?

No, it’s not just your imagination — coups are making a comeback.

Meisel, C., & McKee, K. (2023, August 2). The trouble with labeling China an 'enemy'. The Hill. https://thehill.com/opinion/international/4131578-the-trouble-with-labeling-china-an-enemy/

“I think China’s an enemy. I think we have to take them incredibly seriously,” Nikki Haley recently said. Haley, the former U.N. ambassador and current GOP presidential candidate, had other incendiary remarks to share on CNBC’s “Squawk Box,” accusing China of “killing Americans,” a reference to Beijing’s failure to curb shipment of fentanyl precursor chemicals to Mexico, which are then smuggled into the U.S.