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4.0 out of 5 stars
A Better Explanation for Alliance Formation, December 5, 2003
This review is from: Strategic Choice and International Relations (Paperback)
How does this book fare against the neorealist godfather? The "strategic choice" approach of Lake and Powell, unlike that of Waltz, is strongly predicated on methodological individualism and the importance of unit-level rationality, meaning that the preferences and strategies of individual actors are more important for Lake and Powell than for Waltz. Stein's chapter (in this book) calls for beginning with "purposive, intentionalist, rational explanations of behavior" (198) and then adding the component of actor interaction, in a bottom-up way. While Lake and Powell do try to cast themselves as agreeing with Waltz that "actors' intentions are not always a sufficient explanation for outcomes" (17), their game-theoretic, unit-level starting point necessarily privileges actors' intentions more than does Waltz's approach. On the topic of alliances, they take issue with Waltz's claim that balance-of-power politics necessarily prevails in all anarchic, self-help systems. Using game theory, Lake and Powell show that in repeated interactions, for any given division of benefits, "there exist strategies such that no actor has any incentive to deviate from its strategy" (24). These strategies do not entail balancing, because "it is in each actor's self-interest to participate in punishing a deviator" (24), as opposed to creating a new balance. From this formal insight from game theory, Lake and Powell conclude that Waltz has a problem of "inadequately specified microfoundations" (24). Because game theory tells us that Waltz's "causal chain from anarchy and the desire to survive to balancing behavior is incomplete" (24), Lake and Powell call for further analysis of the preferences and strategies of individual states - exactly the kind of approach that Waltz scorns as confusing process with system.
Although it might confuse process with system, and/or go against the goal of parsimony, the strength of the strategic choice approach is that it can actually illuminate and process-trace why states assess their survival prospects and decide on one behavior or another. In other words, it can elaborate the relationship between system and outcomes in a more direct way than Waltz's theory. When Waltz writes that the system determines alliances, so that states' behavior (if they want to survive) is determined by the system, he seems to imply that states have the necessary information to know which choice is best, and that they will know which other choices will lead to defeat, and thus will not choose those paths and those alliances. But this is all implied. Waltz has no theory of individual strategizing because he claims that one is not necessary - the system does a better job of explaining outcomes. To put this claim to the test, the authors in the Lake and Powell volume attempt to unpack the unit-level strategizing that accompanies anarchy and alliances.
The chapter by Morrow is a prime example of this unpacking. In looking at unit-level strategizing in the international system, Morrow sees three fundamental strategic problems that Waltz would dismiss as process: signaling, commitment and bargaining. Based on the fact that other states' intentions are unknown, states have imperfect information, and must rely on "signals" from other states about intentions. Further, even if intentions to ally or cooperate are correctly judged through signals, states still do not know if the commitment to ally or cooperate is credible. And finally, even if signals are correct and commitments are credible, states are unsure about negotiation - about what potential deals the other state will find acceptable.
Modestly arguing that this approach has led to a fundamental rethinking of international relations, Morrow applies game-theoretic analysis of his three strategic problems to the issue of alliances and balancing. Morrow's cut at the issue, where he departs from Waltz, is the question of "what factors might lead states to fail to balance when they should?" (103). Presumably Morrow means by "should" that according to a Waltzian logic of self-help, states facing a threat will have strong incentives to balance against that threat. But for Waltz, remember, there is no room for failure to balance. States either balance or die, and seeing this, they will always balance. Thus, Morrow immediately departs from the structural logic of Waltzian balancing. Again using a form of game theory (public goods and collective action), Morrow highlights the rationality of defection, or "buck passing", in failing to form alliances. Since war entails high costs, states hope that others will bear the cost of defeating a threatening power, thus reaping the benefits while paying lower costs.
Morrow also highlights a second problem that can be read as a critique of a traditional Waltzian approach. Morrow writes that conventional alliance theory does not explain why states need formal agreements in advance to come to each other's aid. Morrow, on the other hand, has an explanation: that alliances, though costly, are useful signals or commitment devices, for the benefit of deterring threatening powers. Unlike Waltz, domestic politics plays a key constraining role in alliance formation for Morrow, since domestic politics is responsible for the costliness of alliances, meaning that the perceived deterrence gains must be high, and meaning that coordination must be strong, necessitating formal, written agreements. Waltzian theory has nothing to say about the costliness of alliances; presumably, for Waltz, alliances are costless - thus, there are no obstacles to forming them, if the system demands it. Morrow tells us otherwise.
The strategic choice approach thus problematizes alliance formation and balancing, and shows us how it might not happen even when the "system" demands it. This insight can only be accomplished by devolving the analysis to the unit level, and analyzing preferences and strategies. Not only does this devolution shed doubt on the core assumptions of Waltz, like the "objective", universal national interest in survival (Stein, 205), but it also calls into question the entire emphasis on structure: "social structure is, in part, a product of human agency" (Stein, 222). Where alliances are concerned, we see that an emphasis on agency can illuminate the causal chain between anarchy and alliances, explaining why alliances might fail to form even when the systemic logic supposedly demands them.
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