BOOK PROJECT SUMMARY
Why do states choose to enter costly rivalries with one another? Perceptions of threat are foundational to our understanding of international rivalry, yet much of our understanding regarding the origins of these perceptions focuses on external factors, such as structure of the international system or the capabilities and intentions of other states.
This book project is instead interested in how internal factors, particularly perceptions of domestic control, give rise to the types of adversarial images necessary for rivalry. The project proposes that these perceptions of domestic control matter in two ways. First, and somewhat counterintuitively, decision-makers are more likely to see foreign countries as hostile, untrustworthy, and aggressive when they feel they are losing control at home. Second, perceived loss of control reshapes institutional relationships between political leaders and coercive organizations, such as the military, particularly in authoritarian regimes. Thus, international rivalries are not predetermined by the structure or characteristics of the international system, but are rather shaped by the domestic circumstances under which states define the terms of their relationship.
This project seeks to make two empirical interventions in the study of international rivalry. The first is to trace the origins of the contemporary US-China competition to critical junctures in the late 1980s and mid-2010s, but through employing a mixed-method approach that affords a systematic treatment of the case. To that end, and with funding from the Smith Richardson Foundation, the project combines quantitative and qualitative methods, ranging from analysis of archival documents collected from US presidential libraries to automated text analysis of an original corpus of over 3,000 speeches by Chinese political leaders delivered between 1978 and 2020. The second empirical contribution is to place the case of the US-China rivalry in comparative context through a medium-n analysis of the formation of rivalrous (and non-rivalrous) relations during all major power transitions since 1815. Doing so helps to highlight the similarities and differences between the emerging US-China rivalry and those that preceded it.
The project helps us to make sense of a number of puzzling questions: why did China decrease its defense spending in the 1980s despite an expanding economy, poor relations with the Soviet Union, and persistent border clashes with Vietnam? Why did China's defense budget then begin increasing in 1989, two years before the Gulf War and five years before the Third Taiwan Strait Crisis? Why did China develop an adversarial image of the United States in the 1990s, despite a series of "costly signals" from the United States? Why did American perceptions of China remain unchanged despite new and assertive Chinese behavior between 2007 and 2012? Why did American perceptions of China begin shifting only in 2017?
This book project is instead interested in how internal factors, particularly perceptions of domestic control, give rise to the types of adversarial images necessary for rivalry. The project proposes that these perceptions of domestic control matter in two ways. First, and somewhat counterintuitively, decision-makers are more likely to see foreign countries as hostile, untrustworthy, and aggressive when they feel they are losing control at home. Second, perceived loss of control reshapes institutional relationships between political leaders and coercive organizations, such as the military, particularly in authoritarian regimes. Thus, international rivalries are not predetermined by the structure or characteristics of the international system, but are rather shaped by the domestic circumstances under which states define the terms of their relationship.
This project seeks to make two empirical interventions in the study of international rivalry. The first is to trace the origins of the contemporary US-China competition to critical junctures in the late 1980s and mid-2010s, but through employing a mixed-method approach that affords a systematic treatment of the case. To that end, and with funding from the Smith Richardson Foundation, the project combines quantitative and qualitative methods, ranging from analysis of archival documents collected from US presidential libraries to automated text analysis of an original corpus of over 3,000 speeches by Chinese political leaders delivered between 1978 and 2020. The second empirical contribution is to place the case of the US-China rivalry in comparative context through a medium-n analysis of the formation of rivalrous (and non-rivalrous) relations during all major power transitions since 1815. Doing so helps to highlight the similarities and differences between the emerging US-China rivalry and those that preceded it.
The project helps us to make sense of a number of puzzling questions: why did China decrease its defense spending in the 1980s despite an expanding economy, poor relations with the Soviet Union, and persistent border clashes with Vietnam? Why did China's defense budget then begin increasing in 1989, two years before the Gulf War and five years before the Third Taiwan Strait Crisis? Why did China develop an adversarial image of the United States in the 1990s, despite a series of "costly signals" from the United States? Why did American perceptions of China remain unchanged despite new and assertive Chinese behavior between 2007 and 2012? Why did American perceptions of China begin shifting only in 2017?
Image: Beijing, 2017