| How do great powers cope with relative decline? What strategies do they employ to counter or mitigate adverse shifts in the balance of power, and under what conditions will they favor one strategy over another? While scholars have developed sophisticated models of the relationship between changing power differentials and the prospects for preventive war, we lack carefully constructed hypotheses on the full range of strategies that declining great powers employ to preserve the status quo. This dissertation identifies four, ideal-typical strategies of system management: competitive, conciliatory, commercial, and conservatory. It argues that the choice and timing of strategy depends on leader discount rates and relative threat. To examine how my dyadic discounting model fares against alternative explanations, the dissertation conducts within-case process tracing and cross-case comparisons of Britain in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and France during the interwar years. The dissertation concludes with a discussion of the theoretical and policy implications of my argument, its applicability to contemporary cases, and directions for future research on the typology of shocks and their differential impact on leader time horizons. |
