POLI 12 Lecture Notes - Lecture 16: Rebel Alliance, Bandwagoning, Collective Security
Lecture 15:
Alliances:
They provide standards of behavior and come with provisions for monitoring compliance and
provisions for settling distribution issues, like how provides what in a war, who provides troops or
supplies, etc. They can be either defensive or offensive, but more likely defensive. No one can enforce
them, theres no international legal entity that can enforce them. So they are not legally binding. So
this leads to a commitment problem as you dont know whether they are going to be effective since
states will consider their own interests and decide whether or not it makes sense to follow through.
Why do states participate?
Protection: Bandwagoning of smaller states with larger states
Leverage in bargaining: Strategic reasons like to be able to deploy troops in a country closer to the
point of contention. Or if you’re taking an offensive state and you’re looking to gain territory and
another state comes in to help, the value of war increases as you have a higher probability of victory
and also decreases the cost of war as it is being shared by another.
Compatible interests: States with compatible interests, both states may want the same thing agreeing
both that a third state may need to be contained or want the same territory for natural resources
Balance of power: Alliances are formed to balance against an adversary.e.g: the rebel alliance forms to
balance the empire
Not always good at predicting what kinds of alliances form because:
• States bandwagon with powerful states: while balance of power says small states would try to
balance out the larger powers but instead they band together with the larger states to be on the
winning side.
• States can choose to ally with others according to ideology eg: the cold war, with the communist
states allying vs the capitalist states
• Does not explain why states don’t balance against the US:
We would expect the US is a dominant superpower and states may want to keep it in check baby
forming alliances against it, its because maybe the states don’t see the US as a threat to them, but if
we look at the EU which is essentially a giant alliance, they could potentially fight against the US.
Alliances and Bargaining:
Alliances increase the value of the war to participants buy decreasing costs.
Alliances have to be credible for them to impact bargaining leverage - a state must believe that
another state will fight on behalf of its adversaries.
Probability of war can increase when an adversary isn’t sure what a third party will do
Alliances increase the probability of asymmetric information, it could lead to preemptive action.
More states result in a higher probability for information problems, like WWI but in the Cold War,
there were 2 superpowers leading less scope for miscalculation.
Credibility:
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
They provide standards of behavior and come with provisions for monitoring compliance and provisions for settling distribution issues, like how provides what in a war, who provides troops or supplies, etc. They can be either defensive or offensive, but more likely defensive. No one can enforce them, theres no international legal entity that can enforce them. So this leads to a commitment problem as you dont know whether they are going to be effective since states will consider their own interests and decide whether or not it makes sense to follow through. Protection: bandwagoning of smaller states with larger states. Leverage in bargaining: strategic reasons like to be able to deploy troops in a country closer to the point of contention. Compatible interests: states with compatible interests, both states may want the same thing agreeing both that a third state may need to be contained or want the same territory for natural resources.
