The Effects of Rivalry on Rivalry: Accommodation and the Management of Threats

Abstract

The paper investigates how states manage multiple rivalries when faced with immediate threats. We argue that accommodation of one rival allows states to shift resources from the management of another rival to deal with the costs of immediate threats. By examining enduring rivalries from 1966 to 1999, we show that states' reliance on accommodation in response to threats varies depending on the number of severe threats and the relative capabilities between the states and the threat‐issuing rivals. Findings show that when faced with severe but few threats, states prefer to accommodate rivals that did not issue the threat. They are also more likely to give larger concessions to such rivals and to those issuing less severe threats. Finally, the greater the military capability of a rival issuing a severe threat relative to that of the challenged state, the more likely that a threatening rival is accommodated.

Research Perspectives and Boundaries of Thought: Security, Peace, Conflict, and the Anthropocene

“…Secondly, the study of international rivalries has so far hardly paid any attention to environmental factors and especially environmental cooperation (Rasler et al 2013), but would be well advised to do so. Contrary to realist theory, which is still very popular in this research field (Akcinaroglu et al 2014), such cooperation can facilitate reconciliation and eventually rivalry termination, if only to a certain degree and in certain contexts.…”

“…Research has so far identified a number of factors facilitating rivalry termination (and hence more peaceful international relations), such as additional threats emerging for the involved states (Akcinaroglu et al 2014), systemic shocks (Rasler et al 2013) and economic recession in at least one of the respective countries (Clary 2015). But with a few exceptions, the theoretical frameworks underlying such studies usually emphasise threats to national security, state capabilities and regime survival, hence broadly fitting a realist theoretical framework (Prins and Daxecker 2008;Rasler et al 2013).…”

Deadly Triangles: The Implications of Regional Competition on Interactions in Asymmetric Dyads

“…We identify rivals using the expanded Diehl and Goertz rivalry dataset produced by Klein et al (2006). While there is an extant debate over the definition of rivalry, we use their definition as it offers a clear set of breakpoints for the end and beginning of rivalry based on MID interaction-ultimately the event that matters for our asymmetric dyads (Akcinaroglu et al 2013;Lu and Thies 2013).…”

Multilateral Institutions and Conflict Resolution

“…The number of territorial disputes in which a country is involved at a certain point in time is therefore an important characteristic of that state, one that affects its approach to peaceful resolution of any individual dispute. Indeed, recent literature has shown that the number (Melin and Grigorescu ) and relative salience (Akcinaroglu, Radziszewski, and Diehl ) of states’ ongoing disputes impacts their behavior in a particular dispute. Based on these arguments we hypothesize that:

H 3 : The more disputes states are simultaneously involved in, the less likely they are to seek peaceful resolution to one such dispute through an IO.H 3A : The more disputes states are simultaneously involved in, the more likely they are to seek peaceful resolution to one such dispute through a state third party than through an IO.H 3B : The more disputes states are simultaneously involved in, the less likely they are to seek peaceful resolution to one such dispute through a third party than through bilateral negotiations.

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“…Th e number of territorial disputes in which a country is involved at a certain point in time is therefore an important characteristic of that state, one that aff ects its approach to peaceful resolution of any individual dispute. Indeed, recent literature has shown that the number (Melin and Grigorescu 2014 ) and relative salience (Akcinaroglu, Radziszewski, and Diehl 2014 ) of states' ongoing disputes impacts their behavior in a particular dispute. Based on these arguments we hypothesize that: H 3 : Th e more disputes states are simultaneously involved in, the less likely they are to seek peaceful resolution to one such dispute through an IO.…”