Search

Commercial liberalism would suggest that whereas globalization was conducive to great power cooperation—or at least moderated competition—deglobalization is likely to ignite greater competition amongst the Great Powers. In reality, however, the picture is much more complex. To begin with, the intense globalization of the 1990s and 2000s is not responsible for moderating Great Power tensions; instead, it is itself a product of the security situation resulting from the end of the Cold War. Furthermore, while globalization did serve to reinforce cooperation between the United States and rising challengers, such as China, which sought to harness the economic gains of globalization to accelerate their rise, it also created or intensified fault-lines that have led to heightening tensions between the Great Powers. Finally, while we are currently witnessing increasing tensions between the US and both China and Russia, deglobalization does not appear to be the primary cause. Thus, geoeconomic conditions do not drive security relations; instead, the geoeconomic environment, which is itself influenced by Great Power politics, is better understood as a medium of Great Power competition, which may affect the character of Great Power competition and its intensity, but does not determine it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An assumption runs through this symposium that peaceful change is desirable and ought to be encouraged. We do not believe it is that simple. The term "peaceful change" itself is not well defined. The article, therefore, narrowly defines peaceful change as a process whereby a hegemon voluntarily cedes its dominant geopolitical role to a challenger in one or more regions. Drawing on neoclassical realism, we hypothesize that a declining hegemon will only accept peaceful change if: (1) it has high confidence change is inevitable because it lacks the military, economic, or political means to resist it; or (2) when domestic political or economic costs of resistance of prohibitively high; or (3) when the leadership of the hegemonic state faces domestic constraints in its ability to enact policies to resist the challenger. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why do some near crises tip over into full-blown crisis and others do not? This paper considers existing scholarship and identifies four key barriers to using quantitative analysis for tipping-point analyses: strategic indeterminacy; the incentives for conflict parties to avoid inefficiencies; the paucity of cases; and the availability of quality data. Due to these challenges, many do not perform well as immediate causes for crisis escalation. We also argue and demonstrate through two quantitative models of crisis escalation that some variables, particularly related to domestic politics, can do well in explaining why some disputes tip into crisis and others do not. As we illustrate with reference to the 1995–1996 Third Taiwan Straits Crisis, qualitative approaches that analyze the processes by which leaders and foreign policy institutions make decisions add needed explanatory power to purely quantitative models of the potential for near crises to tip into crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]