Jack Snyder

Chain gangs and passed bucks: predicting alliance patterns in multipolarity

Contemporary balance-of-power theory has become too parsimonious to yield determinate predictions about state alliance strategies in multipolarity. Kenneth Waltzs theory predicts only that multipolarity predisposes states to either of two opposite errors, which this article characterizes as chain-ganging and buck-passing. To predict which of these two policies will prevail, it is necessary to complicate Waltzs theory by adding a variable from Robert Jerviss theory of the security dilemma: the variable of whether offense or defense is perceived to have the advantage. At least under the checkerboard geographical conditions in Europe before World Wars I and II, perceived offensive advantage bred unconditional alliances, whereas perceived defensive advantage bred free riding on the balancing efforts of others.

Trials and Errors: Principle and Pragmatism in Strategies of International Justice

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Democratic Transitions, Institutional Strength, and War

The relationship between democratization and war has recently sparked a lively debate. We find that transitions from autocracy that become stalled prior to the establishment of coherent democratic institutions are especially likely to precipitate the onset of war. This tendency is heightened in countries where political institutions are weak and national officials are vested with little authority. These results accord with our argument that elites often employ nationalist rhetoric to mobilize support in the populist rivalries of the poorly-institutionalized democratizing state but then get caught up in the belligerent politics that this process eventually unleashes. In contrast, we find that transitions that quickly culminate in a fully coherent democracy are much less perilous. Further, our results refute the view that transitional democracies are merely the targets of attack due to their temporary weakness: in fact, they tend to be the initiators of war. We also refute the view that any regime change is likely to precipitate the outbreak of war: transitions toward democracy are significantly more likely to generate hostilities than transitions toward autocracy.

The Cost of Empty Threats: A Penny, Not a Pound

A large literature in political science takes for granted that democratic leaders would pay substantial domestic political costs for failing to carry out the public threats they make in international crises, and consequently that making threats substantially enhances their leverage in crisis bargaining. And yet proponents of this audience costs theory have presented very little evidence that this causal mechanism actually operates in real—as opposed to simulated—crises. We look for such evidence in post-1945 crises and find hardly any. Audience cost mechanisms are rare because (1) leaders see unambiguously committing threats as imprudent, (2) domestic audiences care more about policy substance than about consistency between the leaders words and deeds, (3) domestic audiences care about their countrys reputation for resolve and national honor independent of whether the leader has issued an explicit threat, and (4) authoritarian targets of democratic threats do not perceive audience costs dynamics in the same way that audience costs theorists do. We found domestic audience costs as secondary mechanisms in a few cases where the public already had hawkish preferences before any threats were made.

Incomplete Democratization and the Outbreak of Military Disputes

Whereas most research on the democratic peace has focused on relations within pairs of states, research on the relationship between democratization and armed conflict has centered primarily on the behavior of individual states. Moreover, the existing literature has placed primary emphasis on explaining the effects of democratization on war, rather than military disputes more generally. In this article, we find that certain types of democratic transitions markedly increase the risk of such disputes within dyads, even when economic and political relations between states are taken into account. Particularly prone to violence are dyads in which either state undergoes an incomplete democratic transition; that is, a shift from an autocratic to a partially democratic (or anocratic) regime that stalls prior to the establishment of consolidated democratic institutions.

One World, Rival Theories

he U.S. government has endured several painful rounds of scrutiny as it tries to figure out what went wrong on Sept. 11, 2001. The intelligence community faces radical restructuring; the military has made a sharp pivot to face a new enemy; and a vast new federal agency has blossomed to coordinate homeland security. But did September 11 signal a failure of theory on par with the failures of intelligence and policy? Familiar theories about how the world works still dominate academic debate. Instead of radical

The Sequencing "Fallacy"

Abstract:Countries taking the initial steps from dictatorship toward electoral politics are especially prone to civil and international war. Yet states endowed with coherent institution’s such as a functioning bureaucracy and the elements needed to construct a sound legal system, have often been able to democratize peacefully and successfully. Consequently, whenever possible, efforts to promote democracy should try to follow a sequence of building institutions before encouraging mass competitive elections. Democratizing in the wrong sequence not only risks bloodshed in the short term, but also the mobilization of durable illiberal forces with the capacity to block democratic consolidation over the long term.

Post-Soviet political order : conflict and state building

1. Introduction: Reconstructing Politics Amidst the Wreckage Of Empire Jack Snyder 2. After Empire: Competing Discourses and Interstate Conflict in Postimperial Eastern Europe Alexander J. Motyl 3. The Great War and the Mobilization of Ethnicity in the Russian Empire Mark von Hagen 4. Will Russia Survive? Center and Periphery in the Russian Federation Steven Solnick 5. Ethnolinguistic and Religious Pluralism and Democratic Construction in Ukraine Jose Casanova 6. Possibilities for Conflict and Conflict Resolution in Post-Soviet Central Asia Rajan Menon and Hendrik Spruyt 7. Russian Hegemony and State Breakdown in the Periphery: Causes and Consequences of the Civil War in Tajikistan Barnett R. Rubin 8. Conclusion: Managing Normal Instability Barnett R. Rubin

The Gorbachev Revolution: A Waning of Soviet Expansionism?

M a n y Americans have long believed that Soviet expansionism stems from pathological Soviet domestic institutions, and that the expansionist impulse will diminish only when those institutions undergo a fundamental change.’ The Gorbachev revolution in Soviet domestic and foreign policy has raised the question of whether that time is close at hand. At home, Mikhail Gorbachev, General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, has attacked many of the old Stalinist institutions as obsolete and self-serving, while promoting greater freedom of expression, contested elections at local levels, and an increased role for market mechanisms in the Soviet economy.2 Abroad, Gorbachev has made some substantial concessions from former Soviet positions, especially in accepting the Reagan Administration’s “zero option” as the basis for an agreement on Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF). In a more fundamental departure, he has also proposed to restructure NATO and Warsaw Pact conventional force postures and operational doctrines along strictly defensive lines.3 In assessing these developments, I will address the following questions. First, how fundamental and permanent are Gorbachev’s domestic changes, and why are they occurring? Second, how new and how permanent is the

Time to Kill: The Impact of Election Timing on Postconflict Stability

Elections constitute a fundamental element of postconflict peacebuilding efforts in the post–cold war era and are often held soon after conflicts end. Yet, the impact of early elections on postconflict stability is the subject of sharp debate. While some argue that early elections facilitate peace agreements, hasten democratization, and ensure postconflict stability, others suggest that they undermine genuine democracy and spark a renewal in fighting. In this study, we argue that holding elections soon after a civil war ends generally increases the likelihood of renewed fighting, but that favorable conditions, including decisive victories, demobilization, peacekeeping, power sharing, and strong political, administrative and judicial institutions, can mitigate this risk. We attempt to reconcile the extant qualitative debate on postconflict elections through a quantitative analysis of all civil wars ending in the post–World War II period.