Why do states contribute to alliances? Is relative size the principal factor influencing the size of contributions, as many studies suggest, or are perceptions of threat, dependencies on other alliance members, and domestic institutions and policies equally important? These questions hold unusual interest in the wake of the cold war. The end of bipolarity promises more ad hoc coalitions, which will widen opportunities for research on alliance burden-sharing beyond the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). At the same time, because the political fault lines of the cold war have disappeared, there are few accepted political criteria for sharing those security burdens that are perceived collectively.

This article employs the advocacy coalition framework (ACF), a set of concepts developed to account for policymaking primarily in the United States, to analyze factors that led China to downsize its latest big hydropower project, on the Nu River. The ACF helps us identify two conflicting coalitions based on their policy beliefs and the resources they mobilized to translate their beliefs into policy change, which the ACF also helps us explain. Conflict between state agencies contributed to the rise of a societally based environmental coalition to oppose a state-centered development coalition, and struggle and strategic learning between these coalitions led to interventions by the premier and a scaling down of the project from 13 dams to four.

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