(iPoster) The Dynamic Effects of Asymmetric Alliances under Great Power Competition

• In Event: Poster Session: International Security III

Abstract

When and how do great powers punish their rival’s client states? Research on great power politics has largely focused on interactions among great powers or within alliances, leaving the treatment of rivals’ protégés underexplored. This paper examines how the military capabilities of rival alliance camps affect minor powers’ economic and security environments. I argue that as a protégé’s alliance camp grows stronger, the rival great-power challenger is more likely to impose economic sanctions to harm the rival camp but less likely to initiate militarized conflict to avoid military escalation. A series of regressions on great power sanctions and militarized disputes from 1950 to 2014, including weighted regressions and placebo tests, provides evidence consistent with the theory: stronger alliance camps increase protégés’ risk of economic sanctions while reducing their risk of military conflict. These findings suggest that rising alliance-level military power mitigates protégés’ exposure to military entrapment in great power rivalry, but at the cost of heightened economic coercion.

Author

• Chamseul Yu, Texas A&M University