What Is the Enemy of My Enemy? Causes and Consequences of Imbalanced International Relations, 1816–2001

This study explores logical and empirical implications of friendship and enmity in world politics by linking indirect international relations (e.g., “the enemy of my enemy,” “the enemy of my friend”) to direct relations (“my friend,” “my enemy”). The realist paradigm suggests that states ally against common enemies and thus states sharing common enemies should not fight each other. Nor are states expected to ally with enemies of their allies or with allies of their enemies. Employing social network methodology to measure direct and indirect relations, we find that international interactions over the last 186 years exhibit significant relational imbalances: states that share the same enemies and allies are disproportionately likely to be both allies and enemies at the same time. Our explanation of the causes and consequences of relational imbalances for international conflict/cooperation combines ideas from the realist and the liberal paradigms. “Realist” factors such as the presence of strategic rivalry, opportunism and exploitative tendencies, capability parity, and contiguity increase the likelihood of relational imbalances. On the other hand, factors consistent with the liberal paradigm (e.g., joint democracy, economic interdependence, shared IGO membership) tend to reduce relational imbalances. Finally, we find that the likelihood of conflict increases with the presence of relational imbalances. We explore the theoretical and practical implications of these issues.

[1]  E. Helmreich.  The Diplomacy of the Balkan Wars, 1912-1913 , 1938 .

[2]  Gary King,et al.  Explaining Rare Events in International Relations , 2001, International Organization.

[3]  L. A. Goodman,et al.  Social Choice and Individual Values , 1951 .

[4]  James Burk,et al.  Ballots and Bullets , 1999 .

[5]  Zeev Maoz,et al.  Structural Equivalence and International Conflict, 1816-2000: A Social Networks Analysis of Affinities and Conflict , 2005 .

[6]  R. Rosecrance,et al.  Alliance and Structural Balance in the International System , 1985 .

[7]  Common Interests or Common Polities? Reinterpreting the Democratic Peace , 1995 .

[8]  Gary Goertz,et al.  War and peace in international rivalry , 2000 .

[9]  A. Tversky,et al.  Prospect theory: an analysis of decision under risk — Source link , 2007 .

[10]  Zeev Maoz,et al.  Normative and Structural Causes of Democratic Peace, 1946–1986 , 1993, American Political Science Review.

[11]  S. Walt,et al.  The Origins of Alliances , 2019 .

[12]  J. Mearsheimer.  Back to the Future: Instability in Europe After the Cold War , 1990 .

[13]  Zeev Maoz,et al.  Structural Equivalence and International Conflict , 2006 .

[14]  Norman,et al.  Structural Models: An Introduction to the Theory of Directed Graphs. , 1966 .

[15]  T. Christensen.  Perceptions and alliances in Europe, 1865–1940 , 1997, International Organization.

[16]  John A. Vasquez.  The Probability of War, 1816–1992 , 2004 .

[17]  Zeev Maoz,et al.  Network Polarization, Network Interdependence, and International Conflict, 1816–2002 , 2006 .

[18]  B. Russett,et al.  Triangulating Peace: Democracy, Interdependence, and International Organizations , 2000 .

[19]  Bruce Bueno de Mesquita,et al.  The War Trap , 1981 .

[20]  B. Healy,et al.  The Balance of Power in International History , 1973 .

[21]  Lisa L. Martin,et al.  The Promise of Institutionalist Theory , 1995 .

[22]  Nathaniel Beck,et al.  Taking Time Seriously: Time-Series-Cross-Section Analysis with a Binary Dependent Variable , 1998 .

[23]  Zeev Maoz,et al.  Defending the Holy Land: A Critical Analysis of Israel's Security and Foreign Policy , 2006 .

[24]  Z. Maoz.  Domestic sources of global change , 1996 .

[25]  Henry S. Farber,et al.  Polities and Peace , 1995 .

[26]  Kenneth N. Waltz,et al.  Theory of International Politics , 1979 .

[27]  Dina A. Zinnes,et al.  ‘The friend of my enemy is my enemy’: Modeling triadic internation relationships , 1994, Synthese.

[28]  Jack Snyder,et al.  Chain gangs and passed bucks: predicting alliance patterns in multipolarity , 1990, International Organization.

[29]  W. Thompson.  Identifying Rivals and Rivalries in World Politics , 2001 .

[30]  B. A. Farbey,et al.  Structural Models: An Introduction to the Theory of Directed Graphs , 1966 .

[31]  James D. Laing,et al.  Analysis of Ordinal Data , 2018, Statistical Analysis of Ecotoxicity Studies.

[32]  John A. Vasquez.  Mapping the Probability of War and Analyzing the Possibility of Peace: the Role of Territorial Disputes , 2001 .

[33]  Allison Astorino-Courtois.  Clarifying Decisions: Assessing the Impact of Decision Structures on Foreign Policy Choices During the 1970 Jordanian Civil War , 1998 .

[34]  Douglas M. Gibler,et al.  Measuring Alliances: the Correlates of War Formal Interstate Alliance Dataset, 1816–2000 , 2004 .

[35]  J. March,et al.  An introduction to models in the social sciences , 1975 .

[36]  Alvin M. Saperstein,et al.  “The Enemy of My Enemy Is My Friend” Is the Enemy: Dealing with the War-Provoking Rules of Intent , 2004 .

[37]  Zeev Maoz,et al.  Pacifism and Fightaholism in International Politics: A Structural History of National and Dyadic Conflict, 1816–1992 , 2004 .

[38]  J. Singer.  Reconstructing the correlates of war dataset on material capabilities of states, 1816–1985 , 1988 .

[39]  A. Tversky,et al.  Prospect theory: analysis of decision under risk , 1979 .

[40]  Paradoxes Of War , 1989 .

[41]  K. Deutsch,et al.  Multipolar Power Systems and International Stability , 1964, World Politics.

[42]  Gerald Schneider.  Russett, Bruce & John Oneal: Triangulating peace : Democracy, interdependence, and international organization , 2001 .

[43]  Michael Colaresi,et al.  Strategic Rivalries, Protracted Conflict, and Crisis Escalation , 2002 .

[44]  Zeev Maoz,et al.  NORMATIVE AND STRUCTURAL CAUSES OF DEMOCRATIC PEACE , 1993 .

[45]  Russell J. Leng.  Bargaining and Learning in Recurring Crises: The Soviet-American, Egyptian-Israeli, and Indo-Pakistani Rivalries , 2000 .