Explaining Third World Alignment

World Politics

Volumn 43, Issue 2, 1991, Pages 233-256

  David, Steven R ^a  

^a NONE   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

ALIGNMENT; BALANCE OF POWER THEORY; INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS; OMNIBALANCING; POLITICAL ALIGNMENT;

EID: 0026082411     PISSN: 00438871     EISSN: 10863338     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.2307/2010472     Document Type: Article

References (56)

1. For a comprehensive discussion of what connotes alignment, see George T. Duncan and Randolph M. Siverson, “Flexibility of Alliance Partner Choice in a Multipolar System, ” International Studies Quarterly 26 (December 1982), 511–38, at 518.
2. In my use of the term balance of power, I include the efforts of statesmen to counter both power and threats. For more on this point, see Stephen M. Walt, The Origins of Alliances (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1987), 5, 21-26; and Inis L. Claude, Jr., Power and International Relations (New York: Random House, 1962), 64–65.
3. Kenneth Waltz and, to a lesser extent, Hans Morgenthau base their balance of power theory on the capabilities of states. Generally speaking, the greater the capability of a state, the greater the threat it poses to other states; see Waltz, Theory of International Politics (Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1979), esp. chap. 6; and Hans Morgenthau and Kenneth. Thompson, Politics among Nations, 6th ed. (New York: Knopf, 1985), esp. chap. 11. George Liska also emphasizes the role of external threat, calling it the “primary source of alliances”; see Nations in Alliance: The Limits of Interdependence (Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1962), 13.
4. Ole R. Holsti, P. Terrence Hopmann, and John D. Sullivan, Unity and Disintegration in International Alliances: Comparative Studies (New York: John Wiley, 1973), 5. Based on an exhaustive survey of the literature, the authors concluded that most balance of power writings argue this.
5. Kenneth Waltz, “Theory of International Relations, ” in Fred I. Greenstein and Nelson W. Polsby, eds., Handbook of Political Science: International Politics (Reading, Mass: Addison-Wesley, 1975), 8:43.
6. The notion is widespread that alliance cohesion weakens when there is no external threat. See, for example, Arnold Wolfers, Discord and Collaboration (Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1962), 29; and Kenneth E. Boulding, Conflict and Defense: A General Theory (New York: Harper and Row, 1962), 162.
7. This is a major argument made by Stephen Walt, who asserts that his theory is supported by the experiences of states in the Middle East. He does, however, modify balance of power theory to focus on threats (instead of power) from other states. See Walt (fn. 2), 13-14.
8. Waltz (fn. 3), 121; and Morgenthau and Thompson (fn. 3), 228.
9. The first mention I have been able to find of “bandwagoning” in the sense used here is in Arnold Wolfers, Discord and Collaboration: Essays in International Politics (Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1982), 15. See also Walt (fn. 2), 19–21.
10. See Morgenthau and Thompson (fn. 3), chaps. 1, 3, for a concise description of realism.
11. Ibid., 4.
12. This lesson comes from the two central works of realism, Morgenthau's Politics among Nations (fn. 3) and Thucydides History of the Peloponnesian War (New York: Penguin, 1985). See also Robert O. Keohane, “Theory of World Politics: Structural Realism and Beyond, ” in Keohane, ed., Neorealism and Its Critics (New York: Columbia University Press, 1986), 163, for elaboration of this point.
13. This is in conformity with Graham Allison's Model I; see Allison, The Essence of Decisions: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis (Boston: Little Brown, 1971), 5.
14. Morgenthau and Thompson (fn. 3), 5.
15. See, for example, Morgenthau (fn. 3), esp. chaps. 1, 3, as well as Waltz (fn. 3). Although differences exist between the two interpretations, they are treated together in that they both accept the view of realism that envisions a world of international anarchy in which the principal actors are states that seek to expand and survive.
16. Morgenthau and Thompson (tn. 3), 14.
17. This study considers the Third World as including all countries except the United States, the Soviet Union, Canada, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, the European states, and the People's Republic of China. For an especially good description of the differences between Third World states, see Benjamin Cohen, The Question of Imperialism: The Political Economy of Dominance and Dependence (New York: Basic Books, 1973), 145–52.
18. J. David Singer and Melvin Small, Resort to Arms: International and Civil Wars, 1816–1980 (Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage, 1982), 92–95, 98–99, 229–32. For additional treatment of this point, see John Lewis Gaddis, The Long Peace: Inquiries into the History of the Cold War (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987), 224.
19. From 1945 to mid-1985 there were at least 183 successful coups and 174 unsuccessful coup attempts in the Third World. See Steven R. David, Third World Coups d'Etat and International Security (Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987), 1–2. These numbers are just conservative estimates; the actual number of coups and coup attempts may be much higher. For a comprehensive examination of estimates of numbers of coups, see Milton Leitenberg, “Appendix 2: World-Wide Military Coups since 1945: A Short Note on Data Collection, ” in Asbjorn Eide and Marek Thee, eds., Problems of Contemporary Militarism (London: Croom Helm, 1980), 378–85.
20. For an excellent discussion of why internal threats are so common in the Third World, see Mohammed Ayoob, “Security in the Third World: The Worm about to Turn?” International Affairs 60 (Winter 1983–84) 41–52.
21. Robert H. Jackson and Carl G. Rosberg, “Why Africa's Weak States Persist: The Empirical and the Juridical in Statehood, ” World Politics 35 (October 1982), 1-24; Mutiah Alagappa, The National Security of Developing States: Lessons from Thailand (Dover, Mass.: Auburn House, 1987), 4-6; Christopher Clapham, Third World Politics (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1985), 8.
22. Caroline Thomas, In Search of Security (Boulder, Colo.: Rienner, 1987), 2.
23. For an excellent discussion of the role of subnational groups in Third World states (in this case, West Africa), see I. William Zartman, International Relations in the New Africa (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1966), 47–48.
24. Alagappa (fn. 21), 9. The problems of weak legitimacy are as common to the “old” Third World states of Latin America as they are to the newer states of Africa and Southeast Asia.
25. Clapham (fn. 21), 39–43.
26. Joel S. Migdal, “Internal Structure and External Behaviour: Explaining Foreign Policies of Third World States, ” International Relations 4 (May 1974), 519–20.
27. Clapham (fn. 21), 19.
28. On foreign involvement in internal conflicts, see James Rosenau, ed., International Aspects of Civil Strife (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1964); Asti Suhrke and Lela N. Garner, eds., Ethnic Conflict in International Relations (New York: Praeger, 1977); and Herbert K. Tillema, “Foreign Overt Intervention in the Nuclear Age, Journal of Peace Research 26 (1989), 179–85.
29. Even threats such as coups d'etat, which are thought of as strictly internal, frequently have a foreign dimension. From 1945 to mid-1985 foreign involvement played a significant role in the support of at least twenty-four successful and unsuccessful coup attempts and in efforts to suppress fourteen coups in the Third World. Foreign involvement was thus involved in slightly over 10% of the total of all coups and coup attempts. See David (fn. 19), 2.
30. According to Stephen Krasner, Third World states behave alike in global negotiations, not out of a common desire for economic development, but rather out of a common need for regime security. This view supports the contentions that one can generalize about the Third World and that concerns over survival assume central importance in Third World decision making. See Krasner, “Third World Vulnerabilities and Global Negotiations, ” Review of International Studies 9 (October 1983), 235—251.
31. Morgenthau and Thompson (fn. 3), 190.
32. See ibid., 189–92, for a concise description on why internal balancing is supposedly fundamentally different from balancing between states.
33. For an intriguing argument that order is more common between Third World (in this case, African) states than within them, see Jackson and Rosberg (fn. 21).
34. politics, For an argument of why states should be considered the main actors in international see Waltz (fn. 3), 93-95; and see also Keohane (fn. 12), 160.
35. Waltz (fn. 3), 81.
36. Morgenthau and Thompson (fn. 3), 227–28.
37. For a thorough examination of neorealism, see Keohane, ed., Neorealism and Its Critics (fn. 12); see also Robert O. Keohane, “Alliances, Threats, and the Uses of Neorealism, ” International Security 13 (Summer 1988), 169–76, at 173.
38. Ayoob (fn. 20), 43. On the background of the 1971 Indo-Pakistani War (including Indian support of the East Bengalis), see Robert Jackson, South Asian Crisis: India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh: A Political and Historical Analysis of the 1971 War (New York: Praeger, 1975); and Pran Chopra, India's Second Liberation (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1974). On the need of the Pakistani leadership to prevent the secession of East Pakistan in order to survive in power, see Jackson, 26—27.
39. For background on why Mengistu aligned with the Soviet Union, see Marina Ottaway, Soviet and American Influence in the Horn of Africa (New York: Praeger, 1983); David A. Korn, Ethiopia, the United States, and the Soviet Union (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1986); Colin Legum and Bill Lee, The Horn of Africa in Continuing Crisis (New York: Africana, 1979); and Paul B. Henze, Russians and the Horn: Opportunism and the Long View, European-American Institute for Security Research, The EAI Papers, No. 5 (Marina del Ray, Calif.: European American Institute, 1983).
40. Korn (fn. 39), 8, 13; Bereket Habte Selassie, Conflict and Intervention in the Horn of Africa (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1980), 138; U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, World Military Expenditures and Arms Transfers, 1968-1977 (Washington, D.C.: G.P.O., 1979), 157; Agency for International Development, U.S. Overseas Loans and Grants and Assistance from International organizations (Washington, D.C.: G.P.O., 1979), 101.
41. There is a widespread consensus among analysts across the ideological spectrum that Mengistu and the Derg were not driven by ideological factors but, rather, acted simply to survive in power. See, for example, Marina Ottaway and David Ottaway, Ethiopia: Empire in Revolution (New York: Africana, 1978), 149; Korn (fn. 39), Iii; Fred Halliday and Maxine Moylneux, The Ethiopian Revolution (London: Unwin, 1981), 99; Paul B. Henze, “Beyond the Ethiopian Famine: Anatomy of a Revolution II, ” Encounter (London) (July 1986), 15–27, at 19; and Michael Chege, “The Revolution Betrayed: Ethiopia, 1974-1979, ” Journal of Modem African Studies 17 (September 1979), 359–80. Mengistu's recent retreat from Marxism-Leninism (which not so coincidentally coincides with reduced Soviet support) and his reestablishment of military ties to Israel further support the view that ideological factors do not dominate his decision making.
42. Some useful works on Eritrea include Hagai Erlich, The Struggle over Eritrea, 1962-1918 (Stanford, Calif.: Hoover Institution, 1983): G. H. K. Trevaskis, Eritrea: A Colony in Transition (London: Oxford University Press, 1960); and Richard Sherman, Eritrea: The Unfinished Revolution (New York: Praeger, 1980). See also John Markakis, National and Class Conflict in the Horn of Africa (London: Cambridge University Press, 1987), 104–45.
43. Many analysts make the point that Mengistu could not survive without a satisfactory settlement of the Eritrean conflict. See, for example, Legum and Lee (fn. 39), 39; Suzanne Kasikas, The Arc of Socialist Revolutions (Cambridge, Mass.: Schenkman, 1982), 142; and Selassie (fn. 40), 37, 71.
44. Some good background treatments of Anwar Sadat's Egypt, including his decision to reject his alignment with the Soviet Union and turn to the United States, include Anwar el-Sadat, In Search of Identity: An Autobiography (New York: Harper and Row, 1978); Raymond William Baker, Egypt's Uncertain Revolution under Nasser and Sadat (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1978); Raymond A. Hinnebusch, Jr., Egyptian Politics under Sadat (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985); A. I. Dawaisha, Egypt in the Arab World: The Elements of Foreign Policy (New York: Macmillan, 1976); Mohammed Heikal, The Sphinx and the Commissar: The Rise and Fall of Soviet Influence in the Arab World (London: Collins, 1978); Shimon Shamir, “Egypt's Reorientation towards the U.S.: Factors and Conditions of Decision Making, in Haim Shaked and Itamar Rabinovich, eds., The Middle East and the United States: Perceptions and Policies (New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction, 1980); Mark Cooper, The Transformation of Egypt (Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1982); Alvin Z. Rubinstein, Red Star on the Nile: The Soviet Egyptian Influence Relationship since the June War (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1977); and Robert O. Freedman, Soviet Policy toward the Middle East since 1970 (New York: Praeger, 1975).
45. Extensive accounts of the internal threats besetting Sadat can be found in Baker (fn. 44); Hinnebusch (fn. 44); and Cooper (fn. 44).
46. Jervis, “Systems Theories and Diplomatic History, ” in Paul Gordon Lauren, ed., Diplomacy: New Approaches in History, Theory and Policy (New York: Free Press, 1979), 218.
47. For how aligning with the USSR exacerbated Ethiopia's problems, see Paul B. Henze, “Communism and Ethiopia, ” Problems of Communism 30 (May-June 1981), 55–74.
48. Waltz (fn. 3), 103–4.
49. waltz (fn. 5), 37–38.
50. Waltz (fn. 3), 94.
51. Walt makes this point in connection with bandwagoning; see Walt (fn. 2), 179.
52. On the possible reasons for the absence of war among states outside the Third World, see Michael W. Doyle, “Kant, Liberal Legacies, and Foreign Affairs, ” Philosophy and Public Affairs 12 (Summer-Fall 1983), 205–35, 323 53; idem, “Liberalism and World Politics, ” American Political Science Review 80 (December 1986), 1151-69; Bruce Russett, “The Politics of an Alternative Security System: Toward a More Democratic and Therefore More Peaceful World, ” in Burns Weston, ed., Alternatives to Nuclear Deterrence (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1989); Gaddis (fn. 18), esp. chap. 8; John Mueller, “The Essential Irrelevance of Nuclear Weapons: Stability in the Postwar World, ” International Security 13 (Fall 1988), 55-79; and Francis Fukuyama, “The End of History, ” National Interest 16 (Summer 1989), 3–18.
53. Spector, “ For a list of Third World countries with chemical arms, see Newsweek, September 19, 1988; for lists of Third World countries with ballistic missiles, see W. Seth Carus, “Missiles in the Middle East: A New Threat to Stability, ” Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Policy Focus 6 (June 1988), 1-9; and Aaron Karp, “Ballistic Missiles in the Third World, ” International Security 9 (Winter 1984–85), 166–95. On nuclear proliferation, see Leonard S. with Jacqueline R. Smith, Nuclear Ambitions (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1990).
54. For more on the growing economic power of the Third World, see U.S. Department of Defense, Sources of Change in the Future Security Environment (Washington, D.C.: G.P.O. 1988), 4.
55. United States Department of Energy, Energy Security: A Report to the President of the United States (Washington, D.C.: G.P.O. 1987).
56. For example, Richard Ned Lebow cites the political vulnerability of a leader as one of the key factors that can induce a policy of brinkmanship; Lebow, Between Peace and War: The Nature of International crisis (Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1981), 69–79.