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Alliances from the inside out: A theory of domestic politics and alliance behavior

Posted on:2007-04-01Degree:Ph.DType:Dissertation
University:State University of New York at BinghamtonCandidate:Kimball, Anessa LFull Text:PDF
GTID:1456390005479984Subject:Political science
Abstract/Summary:
This project is motivated by two empirical puzzles: why do alliances endure beyond the reasons that first motivated their formation and why do states form alliances in the absence of security threats? These puzzles arose as a response to observed empirical evidence that appears to contradict arguments put forth by realism, a dominant theory in world politics, which suggest that alliances are fragile institutions that only form when states face external threats. I provide a revised theory of alliance formation that integrates elements of the political survival literature (Bueno de Mesquita et al. 2003) and the distributional dilemma literature (Powell 1999).; I examine the implications of my claims on all country-pairs between 1816 and 2000. Results provide robust support for the claim that domestic demands for social security expenditures increase the chances that a dyad allies. Because alliances can be motivated by domestic demands states seek out alliance partners with whom the joint provision of security is efficient, thus not all states are compatible as potential alliance partners. I develop an alliance compatibility profile based on power, regime, and location and, then, I condition an analysis of the number of alliance commitments exchanged between a pair of states in a given year on the probability that the pair of states is compatible as potential alliance partners. Results suggest that potential partner compatibility consequentially shapes alliance behavior. In particular, the findings suggest that both common interests (as measured by the number rivals the dyad shares) and if the states in the dyad are both weak and contiguous increase the chances a dyad is compatible as potential alliance partners. I also find that if a state in the dyad is militarily weak or autocratic, then the states are less likely to be compatible potential alliance partners. Moreover, domestic demands for social security allocation continue to strongly affect alliance behavior even after accounting for partner compatibility. Finally, the causal mechanism that the contracting theory attributes as a cause of alliance formation, domestic demands for social security expenditures, must also shape how leaders allocate resources between arms expenditures and alliance policies. Thus, implicit in the framework of the contracting theory is a claim about the relationship among the sources of national security (arms and alliances). In fact, the direction and nature of this link is the micro-foundation of the contracting theory---that domestic demands for social security policies can cause states to shift (excess) resources away from armaments and towards alliance policies suggests that this link between arms and alliances does occur at the margins. I examine these arguments on a set of country-years after 1950. Results suggest that social security policy demands make states more likely to ally and are negatively associated with changes in a state's level of military expenditures. Moreover the predicted probability of alliance formation is positively associated with changes in a state's level of military expenditures while changes in the predicted probability of alliance formation are inversely associated with changes military expenditures providing support for my claim that these security goods are complements but states substitute alliances for military expenditures at times. Finally, the results presented here clearly suggest that domestic political concerns play a crucial role in how leaders design their security policy portfolios in mixing arms and allies. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)...
Keywords/Search Tags:Alliance, Domestic demands for social security, Theory, States, Associated with changes, Formation, Military expenditures
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