| This project investigates why some international alliances endure while others dissolve. Three perspectives on alliance persistence are elucidated: neorealism, neoliberal institutionalism, and a neoclassical realist view which is grounded in the traditional realist thought of authors such as Reinhold Niebuhr, George Kennan, and Hans Morgenthau. These perspectives are tested on a set of Middle Eastern cases from the end of the Second World War until 1995 and then, more intensively, on two recent regional alliances---the Gulf Cooperation Council and the Arab Cooperation Council. Although neorealism and neoliberal institutionalism provide a basic understanding of alliance dissolution dynamics, they cannot account for the durability of so many alliances in the absence of sustained shared threats or institutionalization, respectively. The wide variation in alliance durability appears to be best explained by the neoclassical realist perspective that brings the traditional realist elements of ingroup identification, state interests, and alliance leadership back into the study of international alliances. The three perspectives, however, are best employed in conjunction with one another in order to capture different alliance dynamics which one perspective alone cannot include. The findings highlight that constructivists have done the discipline of international relations a service by emphasizing the importance of perceptions and identifications, but that one does not need to assume a dichotomy between issues of identity and realism's conflict-based worldview in order to incorporate analysis of identity into international relations. For policymakers, the results imply that although building institutions is easier than skillfully managing a threat-based alliance into a shared identity relationship, institutions alone will not ensure that alliances endure. |
