Soft balancing among weak states? Evidence from Africa

International Affairs

Volumn 86, Issue 5, 2010, Pages 1109-1127

  Whitaker, Beth Elise ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA AT CHARLOTTE   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 77957369086     PISSN: 00205850     EISSN: 14682346     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-2346.2010.00931.x     Document Type: Article

References (63)

1. Stephen M. Walt, Taming American power: the global response to US primacy (New York: Norton, 2005
2. See especially the four articles on soft balancing in International Security 30: 1, Summer 2005
3. Robert A. Pape, 'Soft balancing against the United States', International Security 302005
4. Stephen G. Brooks and William C. Wohlforth, 'Hard times for soft balancing', International Security 30: 1, 200572-108
5. Keir A. Lieber and Gerard Alexander, 'Waiting for balancing: why the world is not pushing back', International Security 30: 1, 2005109-39
6. Andrew Hurrell, 'Hegemony, liberalism and global order: what space for would-be great powers?', International Affairs 82: 1, 200616
7. Stephen M. Walt, The origins of alliances (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1987); Randall L. Schweller, An exception is Eric J. Labs, 'Do weak states bandwagon?', Security Studies: 3, 1992, pp. 383-416. 'Bandwagoning for profit', International Security 19: 1, 199472-107.
8. Alexandru Grigorescu, 'East and Central European countries and the Iraq War: the choice between "soft balancing" and "soft bandwagoning"', Communist and Post-Communist Studies 41: 3, 2008, pp. 281-99.
9. Miriam Fendius Elman, 'The foreign policies of small states: challenging neorealism in its own backyard', British Journal of Political Science 25: 2, 1995171-217
10. Several studies examine why countries choose soft balancing over hard balancing, but not why they choose balancing in general over bandwagoning. See Kai He, 'Institutional balancing and international relations theory: economic interdependence and balance of power strategies in Southeast Asia', European Journal of International Relations 14: 3, 2008489-518
11. Kai He and Huiyun Feng, 'If not soft balancing, then what? Reconsidering soft balancing and US policy towards China', Security Studies 17: 2, 2008363-95
12. Deborah Welch Larson, 'Bandwagoning images in American foreign policy: myth or reality?', in Robert Jervis and Jack L. Snyder, eds, Dominoes and bandwagons: strategic beliefs and great power competition in the Eurasian rimland (New York: Oxford University Press, 199185-111
13. J. S. Levy and Michael M. Barnett, 'Alliance formation, domestic political economy, and Third World security', Jerusalem Journal of International Relations 14: 4, 199219-40
14. Steven R. David, 'Explaining Third World alignment', World Politics 43: 2, 1991233-56
15. Walt, Taming American power; Franz Oswald, 'Soft balancing between friends: transforming transatlantic relations', Debatte 14: 2, 2006145-60
16. Judith Kelley, 'Strategic non-cooperation as soft balancing: why Iraq was not just about Iraq', International Politics 42: 2S, 2005153-73
17. Beth Elise Whitaker, 'Exporting the Patriot Act? Democracy and the "war on terror" in the Third World', Third World Quarterly 28: 5, 20071017-32muthu.
18. Beth Elise Whitaker, 'Reluctant partners: fighting terrorism and promoting democracy in Kenya', International Studies Perspectives9: 3, 2008, pp. 254-71.
19. Benin and Lesotho also resisted signing Article 98 agreements for several years, but relented in 2005 and 2006 respectively. In 2005, after the Nigerian president signed a bilateral immunity agreement with the US, the Senate passed a resolution declaring the agreement unconstitutional and calling on the President to withdraw; there is no evidence that the agreement was ever revoked.
20. When Pentagon officials complained in 2006 that funding cuts to several of these countries were detrimental to the 'war on terror', presidential waivers were signed to resume certain categories of military assistance.
21. Responsibilities for Africa were previously divided among other US commands.
22. For more detailed analyses of these debates, see the symposium on 'The troubled rise of AFRICOM', Contemporary Security Policy30: 1, 2009, especially the articles by Stephen Burgess, Ken Menkhaus and Laurie Nathan.
23. Frida Berrigan, 'The new military frontier: Africa', Foreign Policy in Focus, 18 Sept., accessed 18 Aug. 2010.2007, http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/4561
24. Resistance to AFRICOM also has been evident within the US government, with State Department officials especially concerned about the extension of the command's mandate to cover humanitarian assistance and development.
25. Rajika Bhandari and Patricia Chow, Open Doors 2008: report on international educational exchange (Washington DC: Institute of International Education,2009).
26. Whitaker, 'Reluctant partners'.
27. Robert J. Art, 'Correspondence: striking the balance', International Security 30: 3, 2005, pp. 177-96.
28. Lieber and Alexander, 'Waiting for balancing'.
29. Brooks and Wohlforth, 'Hard times for soft balancing'.
30. Rosemary Foot, 'Chinese strategies in a US-hegemonic global order: accommodating and hedging', International Affairs82: 1, 2006, pp. 77-94.
31. Walt, The origins of alliances.
32. Berrigan, 'The new military frontier'.
33. Stephen F. Burgess, 'US Africa Command and African perceptions of US-Africa policy', paper presented at the annual meeting of the International Studies Association, New York, 15 Feb.2009;
34. Stratfor, 'South Africa, US: dueling for hegemony in Africa', Stratfor Global Intelligence, 4 Sept., accessed 18 Aug. 2010.2007, http://www.stratfor.com/south_africa_u_s_dueling_hegemony_africa
35. Pascal Fletcher, 'US Africa Command: aid crusader or meddling giant?', Reuters, 30 Sept., accessed 18 Aug. 2010.2007, http://www.reuters.com/article/reutersEdge/idUSL3030068820070930
36. In an NTV television interview on 4 May, the Kenyan foreign affairs minister was asked why the government had not signed an Article 98 agreement when over 30 other African countries had already done so. He responded that Kenya would rather be in the same category as South Africa, Tanzania and others refusing to sign than with the less powerful countries that had capitulated.2006
37. Chris Alden and Marco Vieira, 'The new diplomacy of the South: South Africa, Brazil, India and trilateralism', Third World Quarterly26: 7, 2005, pp. 1077-95.
38. Labs, 'Do weak states bandwagon?'.
39. This was the last year before the US government started suspending aid to countries that refused to sign Article 98 agreements.
40. Data are drawn from World Bank, World Development Indicators, accessed 18 Aug. http://data.worldbank.org2010.
41. Data are drawn from the OECD. Stat database of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, accessed 18 Aug, http://stats.oecd.org 2010.
42. Data are drawn from the Central Intelligence Agency, CIA World Factbook, accessed 18 Aug., Data for several countries, including Namibia, were not available.https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/2010
43. Walt, The origins of alliances, p. 241.
44. An exception is the Afrobarometer project, which conducts regular surveys about domestic political and economic conditions in 20 African countries. Unfortunately for the purposes of this article, the survey does not include questions about the US and its policies.
45. Pew Global Attitudes Project data are available online at, accessed 18 Aug. http://pewglobal.org/database/?src=hpgraphic,2010.
46. In 2007, the five countries globally with the highest favourability ratings of the US were Cǒte d'Ivoire (88%), Kenya (87%), Ghana (80%), the United States itself (80%) and Mali (79%). The reasons for the comparatively high favourability ratings of the US in Africa are beyond the scope of the current analysis.
47. Data are drawn from CIA, CIA World Factbook. Muslims represent 43% of the population in five countries that refused to sign Article 98 agreements, as compared to 36% in 31 countries that signed. Estimates were not available for Namibia, but would probably pull down the average of the first group.
48. The author is grateful for the assistance of Mark Gaya, Patrick Kamau, Norah Kiereri and Naima Mohammed, who conducted the survey as part of an independent study project at United States International University in Nairobi, Kenya.
49. Since 2002, primarily because of concerns about terrorism, the US State Department has issued a series of warnings for American citizens travelling to Kenya. The early warnings coincided with a drop in the number of American tourists, for which many Kenyans blamed the warning, but that number has since risen again.
50. Whitaker, 'Exporting the Patriot Act?'.
51. For Freedom House's 'Freedom in the World' ratings, see, accessed 18 Aug. http://www.freedomhouse.org/template.cfm?page=15,2010.
52. Polity IV datasets are available at http://www.systemicpeace.org/polity/polity4.htm, accessed 18 Aug. 2010.
53. Two of the countries with the longest democratic records in Africa (Botswana and Mauritius) have generally accommodated US interests.
54. Although Muslims represent just 15% of the Kenyan population, their political importance has increased since the 1990s.
55. Brooks and Wohlforth, 'Hard times for soft balancing', p. 80.
56. Jane Duncan, 'Anti-Terrorism Bill will stamp on human rights - The Sowetan', Media Monitors Network, 10 Jan., accessed 18 Aug. 2010.2003, http://www.mediamonitors.net/janeduncan1.html
57. Iqbal Jassat, 'US-inspired climatic changes in the form of anti-terror laws - will these rain clouds unleash a torrent of hail?', Media Review Network, 17 June, accessed 18 Aug. 2010. 2003, http://oldsite.mediareviewnet.com/opinion_detail.asp?key=502&itemNumber=620
58. Whitaker, 'Reluctant partners'.
59. Peter J. Katzenstein and Robert O. Keohane, Anti-Americanisms in world politics, Cornell Studies in Political Economy (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2007).
60. Daniel W. Drezner, 'The realist tradition in American public opinion', Perspectives on Politics6: 1, 2008, pp. 51-70.
61. Katzenstein and Keohane, Anti-Americanisms in world politics.
62. Joseph S. Nye, Soft power: the means to success in world politics (New York: Public Affairs,2005).
63. Shale Horowitz and Sunwoong Kim, 'Anti-Americanism in electoral politics: insights from South Korea's 2002 presidential election', International Interactions 34: 3,2008, pp.258-81.