Eclipsed: How democracies navigate the rise of new powers

This dissertation explains how leading democracies navigate rising power challenges. My argument begins with the following insight: binding constitutes the preferred strategy of leading democracies. Binding---enmeshing the rising power in international institutions---constrains the rising power and requires no internal mobilization.;The rising power's political system determines the risk associated with binding. An open political system---one featuring decentralized authority and transparency---enhances a rising power's predictability, clarifies its intentions, and renders it permeable to outside influence. Conversely, a closed political system---one characterized by centralized authority and opaqueness---lends unpredictability to the rising power's behavior, obscures its intentions, and limits its susceptibility to outside influence. This magnifies the risk that binding entails, so the leading democracy will also hedge.;When the rising power triggers militarized disputes, binding, a strategy requiring time horizons unclouded by war, is no longer viable. In this case, the leading democracy will favor appeasement if the rising power has an open political system. Transparency will enable the leading democracy to gauge the likely impact of concessions and distinguish between the rising power's intentions and the dispute at hand. Conversely, the leading democracy will pursue containment when the rising power has a closed political system. Without transparency, the rising power's response to accommodation is highly uncertain. Plus, its willingness to initiate a militarized dispute will appear an indicator of deep-seated antagonism.;I test the theory outlined above using seven in-depth cases studies: Great Britain's response to the simultaneous rise of the United States and Imperial Germany; British strategy toward Germany's resurgence under Nazi rule; the U.S. approach to the Soviet Union's rise; the U.S. response to Japan's economic ascendance; and U.S. and Japanese strategies toward a rising China. Across each case study, I look for anticipated correlations among the rising power's political system, the incidence of militarized disputes, and the leading democracy's strategic choices. I also determine whether observable implications generated by my theory conform to the empirical record. Based on the results of theory testing, I discuss implications for U.S. China strategy, Japan's China strategy, China's reassurance strategy, India's reassurance strategy, and democracy promotion.