To co-opt or to coerce? How the adversaries of great power proteges respond to retrenchment
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- When great powers withdraw security from weaker proteges, how will the territorial adversaries of those proteges respond? While existing scholarship in international relations implies that adversaries will respond by coercing territorial concessions from the former proteges, the historical record shows that many adversaries actually make territorial concessions to former great power proteges in the wake of retrenchment. Scholars had not previously identified - much less explained - this puzzle. To do so, I argue that retrenchment offers adversaries a few strategic opportunities. While the loss of great power assistance weakens the protege's defenses, it also leaves the protege's foreign policy alignment ``up for grabs." Thus, the adversaries of former great power proteges have the opportunity to coerce territorial gains or to attempt to bring the protege into their sphere of influence. Because offering territorial concessions is a powerful way for the adversary to co-opt the protege's foreign policy alignment, however, pursuing both strategies simultaneously is challenging. Thus, the adversaries of the former proteges face a trade-off between gaining territory and gaining influence. I offer several predictions about the conditions under which adversaries are likely to pursue territorial coercion vs. foreign policy co-option and test my theory in two cases: (1) Britain's withdrawal of security from proteges in the Middle East after World War II and (2) the Soviet Union's withdrawal of security assistance from client states in the late 1980s. The results support my hypotheses. My theory and findings contribute to existing scholarship on alliances, alignments, territorial disputes, and retrenchment and also have important implications for current policy debates about the potential consequences of American retrenchment.
Description
| Type of resource | text |
|---|---|
| Form | electronic resource; remote; computer; online resource |
| Extent | 1 online resource. |
| Place | California |
| Place | [Stanford, California] |
| Publisher | [Stanford University] |
| Copyright date | 2022; ©2022 |
| Publication date | 2022; 2022 |
| Issuance | monographic |
| Language | English |
Creators/Contributors
| Author | Fanlo, Abby Marie |
|---|---|
| Degree supervisor | Schultz, Kenneth A |
| Thesis advisor | Schultz, Kenneth A |
| Thesis advisor | Fearon, James D |
| Thesis advisor | Tomz, Michael |
| Degree committee member | Fearon, James D |
| Degree committee member | Tomz, Michael |
| Associated with | Stanford University, Department of Political Science |
Subjects
| Genre | Theses |
|---|---|
| Genre | Text |
Bibliographic information
| Statement of responsibility | Abby Fanlo. |
|---|---|
| Note | Submitted to the Department of Political Science. |
| Thesis | Thesis Ph.D. Stanford University 2022. |
| Location | https://purl.stanford.edu/db657dt3129 |
Access conditions
- Copyright
- © 2022 by Abby Marie Fanlo
- License
- This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 3.0 Unported license (CC BY-NC).
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