Balancing, Stability, and War: The Mysterious Case of the Napoleonic International System

Rosecrance, Richard; Lo, Chang-fa

doi:10.2307/2600888

Cited by 36 publications

(20 citation statements)

References 32 publications

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“…2 Others argued that some behavior often associated with balancing is actually something else: states often fight powerful aggressors not because they balance against these aggressors but rather because they are directly attacked (Schroeder, 1994;Rosecrance and Lo, 1996; 2 Vasquez, 1997).…”

Section: Hegemonic Threats and Balancing In Europe 1495-1999mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Scholars also undertook empirical studies of particular cases to see if states balanced against threats (or power) or bandwagoned with them (Labs 1992;Kaufman 1992;Walt 1992). Schroeder (1994) broadened the categories and demonstrated that states often bandwagon, hide, or "transcend" rather than balance (see also Arquilla, 1992), andSchweller (1994) argued that while status quo states balance to preserve their security, revisionist states often bandwagon with the strong in order to secure economic gains and otherwise expand their influence.2 Others argued that some behavior often associated with balancing is actually something else: states often fight powerful aggressors not because they balance against these aggressors but rather because they are directly attacked (Schroeder, 1994;Rosecrance and Lo, 1996; 2 Vasquez, 1997).These new perspectives on balancing have been supported with historical illustrations from the last four centuries and with more detailed historical case studies. While some of these individual studies are convincing, either in support or criticism of the balancing proposition, they do not constitute, individually or collectively, anything approaching a systematic empirical test of the proposition that states systematically balance against hegemonic threats.…”

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confidence: 99%

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Hegemonic Threats and Great-Power Balancing in Europe, 1495-1999

Levy¹,

Thompson²

2005

Security Studies

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The balance of power is a venerable concept in international relations theory, but it is plagued by ambiguities about what the concept means and what the theory purports to explain, and the key proposition that states balance against concentrations of power or hegemonic threats is rarely if ever subjected to systematic empirical test. We argue that despite these ambiguities and disagreements, there is one proposition that nearly all balance of power theorists and their critics as well would accept as an accurate reflection of the theory and that provides the basis for a "most-likely" test of the theory: great powers have balanced against extreme concentrations of land-based military power in Europe, concentrations that have created the potential for hegemony over the continent.We develop and test several hypotheses linking military concentration, capability changes, and alliance responses for the European system from 1495-1999 using the Rasler and Thompson (1994) data on army concentrations and developing a new data base of great power alliances for the last five centuries. We find that European great powers have demonstrated a strong propensity to balance against the leading state when one state acquired a third or more of the total military capabilities in the system. Lower concentrations of power have been less likely to generate balancing coalitions. Not all available great powers have joined these balancing coalitions, however, so that the size of the typical balancing coalition is smaller than balance of power theory might lead us to believe.While our overall findings provide considerable support for hypotheses about balancing against high concentrations of military power in Europe, we emphasize that this is the "most likely" case for the balancing proposition, given the longstanding great power and Eurocentric biases of the balance of power tradition in international relations theory. Consequently, our findings cannot necessarily be generalized to other systems. We are particularly skeptical as to the validity of our findings for international systems dominated by maritime or global powers. 1 HEGEMONIC THREATS AND BALANCING IN EUROPE, 1495-1999The balance of power is one of the oldest and most fundamental concepts in the study of international relations. Hume regarded the balance of power as a scientific law, and Waltz argued that "if there is any distinctively political theory of international politics, balance of power is it." Although there are many variations of balance of power theory, and although there is considerable disagreement about the meaning of its key concepts and even about what the theory purports to explain (Haas, 1953;Claude, 1962), the central proposition of nearly all balance of power theories is that states tend to balance against concentrations of power or hegemonic threats. Indeed, this is one of the most widelyheld propositions in the international relations field. Even this proposition is quite ambiguous, however, and it is rarely if ever subjected to systematic empirical test. O...

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Section: Hegemonic Threats and Balancing In Europe 1495-1999mentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Hegemonic Threats and Great-Power Balancing in Europe, 1495-1999

Levy¹,

Thompson²

2005

Security Studies

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“…According to balance of power theory, states engage in balancing internally (economic and military buildup) and ⁄ or externally (alliance or coalition building) in order to accumulate or augment power (Waltz 1979:118). Since the aim of a soft-balancing strategy, on the other hand, is not to alter the share of available capabilities or resources, but rather to curb the emerging power's behavior and deter it from further practicing hostile policies without turning to hard balancing, military buildup or formal alliances are not necessarily the most appropriate remedies (Rosecrance and Lo 1996).…”

Section: Soft Balancing As Foreign Policy Strategymentioning

confidence: 99%

Soft Balancing as Foreign Policy: Assessing American Strategy toward Japan in the Interwar Period

Saltzman

2011

Foreign Policy Analysis

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Saltzman, Ilai Z. (2011) Soft Balancing as Foreign Policy: Assessing American Strategy toward Japan in the Interwar Period. Foreign Policy Analysis, doi: 10.1111/j.1743‐8594.2011.00146.x In an attempt to increase the legitimacy and traction of soft balancing in contemporary International Relations (IR) scholarship, and in order to rebuff critiques of its applicability, the concept is further clarified and applied to examine American foreign policy vis‐à‐vis Japan in the interwar period. Analysis reveals that soft balancing is not only a legitimate explanation, but also explains a major historical and theoretical puzzle—American grand strategy vis‐à‐vis Japan in interwar period—it shows that the concept is also applicable to account for patterns in non‐unipolar systems.

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“…Defensive realists (Waltz, 1979;Walt, 1987) argue, in contrast, that the most common state behavior is balancing against great-power expansion. Realist critics of the balancing proposition (Powell, 1999;Rosecrance, 2003) argue that collective action problems systematically interfere with efforts at balancing, asserting that in many cases states may find buckpassing or bandwagoning with the expanding power to be the safer course -or the more profitable one (Schweller, 1994). Our findings show that all of these courses of action are commonly followed, often to the point where they become foolish boondoggles.…”

Section: State Behavior: Expansion Balancing Buckpassing Bandwagonmentioning

confidence: 99%