Withdrawal, Opposition, and Aggression

2020 ◽  
pp. 36-56
Author(s):  
Joslyn Barnhart
Keyword(s):  
International System ◽  
Third Party ◽  
High Status ◽  
State Behavior ◽  
Military Conflict ◽  
Overall Stability ◽  
International Behavior

This chapter discusses why it is expected of humiliating events to alter state behavior. It outlines the various responses that states may have to humiliating events, ranging from withdrawal to direct military conflict. The chapter addresses how responses to humiliating events can affect the behaviors of other states as well as the overall stability of the international system. It shows that the effects of national humiliation on state behavior are not so straightforward. Not all states respond to humiliating events in the same ways. Some states pursue direct military revenge, whereas others may pursue symbols of high status or initiate conflict against third-party states. The chapter also discusses why exactly humiliating events affect international behavior and describes possible reactions to national humiliation.

Humiliation and Third-Party Aggression

2017 ◽  
Vol 69 (3) ◽  
pp. 532-568 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joslyn Barnhart
Keyword(s):  
Great Powers ◽  
Third Party ◽  
High Status ◽  
Risk Averse ◽  
State Behavior ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Drive State ◽  
Risky Option ◽  
Recent Attention ◽  
Do So

There is a growing consensus that status concerns drive state behavior. Although recent attention has been paid to when states are most likely to act on behalf of status concerns, very little is known about which actions states are most likely to engage in when their status is threatened. This article focuses on the effect of publicly humiliating international events as sources of status threat. Such events call into question a state's image in the eyes of others, thereby increasing the likelihood that the state will engage in reassertions of its status. The article presents a theory of status reassertion that outlines which states will be most likely to respond, as well as when and how they will be most likely to do so. The author argues that because high-status states have the most to lose from repeated humiliation, they will be relatively risk averse when reasserting their status. In contrast to prior work arguing that humiliation drives a need for revenge, the author demonstrates that great powers only rarely engage in direct revenge. Rather, they pursue the less risky option of projecting power abroad against weaker states to convey their intentions of remaining a great power. The validity of this theory is tested using an expanded and recoded data set of territorial change from 1816 to 2000. Great powers that have experienced a humiliating, involuntary territorial loss are more likely to attempt aggressive territorial gains in the future and, in particular, against third-party states.

Choosing anarchy: institutional alternatives and the global order

2014 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 28-67 ◽  
Author(s):  
Moonhawk Kim ◽  
Scott Wolford
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
International Institutions ◽  
International System ◽  
International Relations Theory ◽  
Third Party ◽  
Global Order ◽  
Political Units ◽  
Self Enforcement ◽  
Interaction Density

The international system may be anarchic, but anarchy is neither fixed nor inevitable. We analyze collective choices between anarchy, a system of inefficient self-enforcement, and external enforcement, where punishment is delegated to a third party at some upfront cost. In equilibrium, external enforcement (establishing governments) prevails when interaction density is high, the costs of integration are low, and violations are difficult to predict, but anarchy (drawing borders) prevails when at least one of these conditions fail. We explore the implications of this theory for the causal role of anarchy in international relations theory, the integration and disintegration of political units, and the limits and possibilities of cooperation through international institutions.

scholarly journals Punishing the privileged: Selfish offers from high-status allocators elicit greater punishment from third-party arbitrators

PLoS ONE ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (5) ◽  
pp. e0232369
Author(s):  
Bradley D. Mattan ◽  
Denise M. Barth ◽  
Alexandra Thompson ◽  
Oriel FeldmanHall ◽  
Jasmin Cloutier ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Third Party ◽  
High Status

Stories States Tell: Identity, Narrative, and Human Rights in the Balkans

Slavic Review ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 72 (2) ◽  
pp. 306-326 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jelena Subotić
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
International System ◽  
Western Balkans ◽  
State Behavior ◽  
Human Rights Abuses ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
Discourse Practices ◽  
Political Choices ◽  
Rights Discourse ◽  
Human Rights Discourse

Jelena Subotić explores how the states of the Balkans construct their “autobiographies“—stories about themselves—and how these stories influence their contemporary political choices. By understanding where states’ narratives about themselves—stories of their past, their historical purpose, their role in the international system—come from, we can more fully explain contemporary state behavior that to outsiders may seem irrational, self-defeating, or simply, inexplicable. Subotić specifically addresses ways in which states of the western Balkans have built their state narratives around the issue of human rights. She explores, first, how a particular narrative of state and national identity produced—or made locally comprehensible—massive human rights abuses. She then analyzes why contemporary identity narratives make postconflict human rights policies very difficult to institutionalize. The article focuses specifically on the human rights discourse, practices, and debates in Serbia and Croatia.

Japanese Foreign Economic Policy Formation: Explaining the Reactive State

1988 ◽  
Vol 40 (4) ◽  
pp. 517-541 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kent E. Calder
Keyword(s):  
Economic Policy ◽  
Technology Policy ◽  
International System ◽  
Policy Formation ◽  
Institutional Characteristics ◽  
Foreign Economic Policy ◽  
State Behavior ◽  
Economic Interests ◽  
Middle Range ◽  
Energy Trade

The concept of the “reactive state” is useful in understanding the foreign economic policy behavior of Japan and certain other middle-range powers deeply integrated in the global political economy, particularly during periods of economic turbulence when international regimes do not fully safeguard their economic interests. The essential characteristics of the reactive state are two-fold: (1) it fails to undertake major independent foreign-policy initiatives although it has the power and national incentives to do so; (2) it responds to outside pressure for change, albeit erratically, unsystematically, and often incompletely.In the Japanese case, reactive state behavior flows from domestic institutional characteristics as well as from the structure of the international system. Domestic features such as bureaucratic fragmentation, political factionalism, powerful mass media, and the lack of a strong central executive have played an especially important part in Japanese financial, energy, trade, and technology policy formation since 1971.

scholarly journals The Condensed Courtship Clock: How Elite Women Manage Self-development and Marriage Ideals

2018 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. 237802311775348 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katherine Fallon ◽  
Casey Stockstill
Keyword(s):  
Family Formation ◽  
Third Party ◽  
High Status ◽  
Heterosexual Women ◽  
Self Development ◽  
Third Party Policing ◽  
Gendered Expectations ◽  
College Educated ◽  
Depth Interviews ◽  
Initial Focus

As elite, heterosexual women delay marriage, complete higher education, and pursue high-status careers, are they able to de-center the other-oriented roles of wife and mother in their lives? Using in-depth interviews with 33 single, college-educated women, the authors examine how elite women balance expectations for self-development and family formation. Participants constructed a timeline with three phases: the self-development phase, the readiness moment, and the push to partner. Women’s initial focus on self-development ends with a shift toward feeling ready to search for a spouse. Classed norms for family formation and a perceived biological deadline for childbearing leave a narrow window to achieve family goals. The authors call this narrow window the condensed courtship clock. The clock results in self-scrutiny and third-party policing for women who are off schedule. The class advantages that allow elite women to engage in concerted self-development after college come with intense classed and gendered expectations for family formation.

scholarly journals Evolution of theories of resolution of armed conflicts in the second half of the XX century

2021 ◽  
pp. 37-42
Author(s):  
Andrii Baginskyi
Keyword(s):  
Conflict Resolution ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Second Generation ◽  
International System ◽  
Social Systems ◽  
Armed Conflicts ◽  
Third Party ◽  
Political Realism ◽  
Temporal Dimension ◽  
Peace And Conflict

We can distinguish two approaches to the periodization of peace and conflict theories. Both are related to the separation of “generations of theories” with their characteristic accents, conceptual apparatus, paradigms. Generations of theories differ both in their understanding of the external factors of peace formation and in their varying degrees of consideration of internal societal factors in conflict resolution. The first generation of theories uses the basic features of political realism in maintaining peace – the main actors in peacekeeping processes are states that contribute to the end of the conflict at the international level, interacting with other states through diplomacy. The second generation of theories of peace and conflict seeks to move away from the imperatives of the Westphalian international system and focuses on basic human needs and the structural causes of conflict. Thus, the second generation of theories has expanded both methodological approaches and levels of conflict resolution analysis, postulating positive peace as the desired goal of conflict management. In the 1980s, influential theories emerged that not only referred to the deep social determinants of conflict, explored negotiations and mediation, but also drew attention to the temporal dimension of conflict. The concepts of “intractable conflict” and “ripeness of conflict” refer to the next stage in the development of theories of conflict and peace, when, on the one hand, the presence of long-term multilevel conflicts reduces scientists’ optimism about their rapid transformation, and on the other hand can change the dynamics of the conflict towards peaceful processes. The emergence of these theories was the result of paradigm shifts in practical peacekeeping - improving methods of conflict resolution, the transition from a policy of negative peace to a policy of conflict transformation provided a broader interpretation and reinterpretation of social relations within conflict societies. State-centric models of peace, which could be imposed in a rather unilateral way by a third party, were difficult for the international side to extend to the local traditional specifics of social systems and did not ensure the onset of lasting peace.

Neoclassical Realist Analyses of Foreign Policy

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michiel Foulon
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
International System ◽  
System Level ◽  
Neoclassical Realism ◽  
State Behavior ◽  
Unit Level ◽  
Policy Choices ◽  
Theoretical Approaches ◽  
Domestic Level ◽  
Level Of Analysis

Neoclassical realism offers insights into why particular foreign policy choices are made, and under what systemic conditions unit-level factors are likely to intervene between systemic stimuli and state behavior. Neoclassical realism brings a multilevel framework that combines both systemic incentives and mediating unit-level variables to arrive at conclusions about foreign policy choices in particular cases. It sets the relative distribution of capabilities in the international system as the independent variable and adds mediating variables at the unit level of analysis. Variables at the domestic level of analysis, such as the role of ideology, the foreign policy executive’s perceptions, resource extraction, and domestic institutions, add explanatory power to system-level approaches. Neoclassical realism accounts for state behavior in a way that a more parsimonious systems-level theory is unable to achieve. But this rich theoretical framework also faces controversies and criticisms: Is neoclassical realism distinct from other theories and what is its added value? Neoclassical realism overlaps only to a small extent with alternative theoretical approaches. The domestic level of analysis dominates Foreign Policy Analysis (a subfield of International Relations). Unit-level variables suffice to explain state behavior in bottom-up approaches, and opening the structure of the international system for fundamental rethinking is central to constructivism. Neither explains the system-level conditions under which unit-level variables mediate between systemic stimuli and foreign policy. Neoclassical realism analyzes and explains a given foreign policy that more parsimonious or alternative theoretical approaches cannot.

Small States

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yee-Kuang Heng
Keyword(s):  
Soft Power ◽  
Structural Changes ◽  
International System ◽  
Great Powers ◽  
Small States ◽  
International Studies ◽  
Small State ◽  
Military Conflict ◽  
Strategic Competition ◽  
Endogenous Variables

Scholarship in international studies has usually tended to focus on the great powers. Yet, studying small state behavior can in fact reveal deep-seated structural changes in the international system and provide significant insights into the management of power asymmetries. Overcoming the methodological limitations of gigantism in scholarship and case study selection is another epistemological benefit. Rather than conventional assumptions of weaknesses and vulnerabilities, research on small states has moved in fascinating directions toward exploring the various strategies and power capabilities that small states must use to manage their relationships with great powers. This means, even in some cases, attempts to forcibly shape their external environments through military instruments not usually associated with the category of small states. Clearly, small states are not necessarily hapless or passive. Even in terms of power capabilities that often define their weaknesses, some small states have in fact adroitly deployed niche hard power military capabilities and soft power assets as part of their playbook. These small states have projected influence in ways that belie their size constraints. Shared philosophies and mutual learning processes tend to underpin small state strategies seeking to maximize whatever influence and power they have. These include forming coalitions, principled support for international institutions, and harnessing globalization to promote their development and security interests. As globalization has supercharged the rapid economic development of some small states, the vicissitudes that come with interdependence have also injected a new understanding of vulnerability beyond that of simply military conflict. To further complicate the security environment, strategic competition between the major powers inevitably impacts on small states. How small states boost their “relevance” vis-à-vis the great powers has broader implications for questions that have animated the academy, such as power transitions and the Thucydides Trap in the international system. While exogenous systemic variables no doubt remain the focus of analysis, emerging research shows how endogenous variables such as elite perceptions, geostrategic locations and availability of military and economic resources can play a key role determining the choices small states make.

Putin, Putinism, and the Domestic Determinants of Russian Foreign Policy

2020 ◽  
Vol 45 (2) ◽  
pp. 95-139
Author(s):  
Michael McFaul
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
International System ◽  
Balance Of Power ◽  
The United States ◽  
Russian Foreign Policy ◽  
Complete Understanding ◽  
The West ◽  
New Era ◽  
Vladimir Putin ◽  
International Behavior

Why did Russia's relations with the West shift from cooperation a few decades ago to a new era of confrontation today? Some explanations focus narrowly on changes in the balance of power in the international system, or trace historic parallels and cultural continuities in Russian international behavior. For a complete understanding of Russian foreign policy today, individuals, ideas, and institutions—President Vladimir Putin, Putinism, and autocracy—must be added to the analysis. An examination of three cases of recent Russian intervention (in Ukraine in 2014, Syria in 2015, and the United States in 2016) illuminates the causal influence of these domestic determinants in the making of Russian foreign policy.

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