How Small State Hedging Helps Rising Powers: China in the 21st Century

• In Event: The Foreign Policies of Small States

Abstract

How can rising powers use security cooperation to peacefully increase their political influence? Prior research suggests that systems defined by a rising power and a declining hegemon may be characterized by competition over military alliances with smaller states or hedging by the latter. However, such perspectives largely assume that security ties are rigid (alliances) and ignore the preferences of the more powerful duo over smaller states’ hedging behavior. In this paper, we argue that rising powers may piggyback on existing security structures established by the declining hegemon to establish new military ties. The institutional foundation of pre-existing structures provides legitimacy for the rising power to integrate, and hedging by smaller powers reduces the risk of conflict by sharing information between the declining power and the newcomer. We explore this theory by building networks of states that perform military exercises together and using community detection algorithms to track groups of states over time. Results reveal how China, rather than create a new group of security partners separate from the American sphere, slowly integrated itself into the existing US-led exercise community and leveraged this structure to create new military ties. Findings show that hedging by small states through forms of security cooperation with less commitment than alliances, like exercises, can aid the peaceful rise of aspiring states by creating links between different groups of actors and providing information about each actor’s intentions.

Authors

• Kevin Galambos, Rhodes College

• Dmitriy Nurullayev, University of Arizona