How do minor states protect themselves against coercion from their major power allies? Asymmetric security cooperation is often reduced to tradeoffs between security and autonomy, but coercion is another factor that minor states fear while cooperating. Coercing partner states can take the form of major powers threatening or undertaking regime change, and minor states must weigh the benefits of cooperation against this risk. To this end, I suggest that minor states with anti-major power political oppositions cooperate more extensively with their major power partners than minor states with pro-major power oppositions. A pro-major power opposition provides opportunities for major powers to threaten or replace the incumbent regime; therefore, such minor states limit their cooperation out of fear of coercion. I employ original data on opposition characteristics to present evidence from security relations between the United States and 65 minor states during 1950–1991 to support the hypothesis.
AltfeldM (1984) The decision to ally: A theory and test.Western Political Quarterly37(4): 523–544.
2.
BaileyMAStrezhnevAVoetenE (2015) Estimating dynamic state preferences from United Nations voting data. Journal of Conflict Resolution61(2): 430–456.
3.
BaumMPotterPBK (2015) War and Democratic Constraint. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
4.
BeckleyM (2015) The myth of entangling alliances: Reassessing the security risks of U.S. defense pacts. International Organization39(4): 7–48.
5.
BiglaiserGDeRouenKJr. (2007) Following the flag: Troop deployment and U.S. foreign direct investment. International Studies Quarterly51(4): 835–854.
6.
BiglaiserGDeRouenKJr. (2009) The interdependence of U.S. troop deployments and trade in the developing world. Foreign Policy Analysis5: 247–263.
7.
Bueno de MesquitaBSmithASiversonRM, et al. (2003) The Logic of Political Survival. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
8.
ButtAI (2013) Anarchy and hierarchy in international relations: Examining South America’s war-prone decade, 1932–41. International Organization67: 575–607.
9.
ChoiI (2001) Unit root tests for panel data. Journal of International Money and Finance20: 249–272.
ColaresiMRaslerKThompsonWR (2008) Strategic Rivalries in World Politics: Position, Space and Conflict Escalation. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press.
12.
CooleyANexonDH (2013) “The empire will compensate you”: The structural dynamics of the U.S. overseas basing network. Perspectives on Politics11(4): 1034–1050.
13.
DiederichB (2000) Trujillo: The Death of the Dictator. Princeton, NJ: Markus Wiener Publishers.
14.
FearonJD (1995) Rationalist explanations for war. International Organization49: 379–414.
15.
FeenstraRCInklaarRTimmerMP (2015) The next generation of the Penn World Table. American Economic Review105(10): 3150–3182.
16.
FordhamBO (2010) Trade and asymmetric alliances. Journal of Peace Research47(6): 685–696.
17.
FordhamBO (2019) The domestic politics of world power: Explaining debates over the United States battleship fleet, 1890–91. International Organization73: 435–468.
18.
GavinFJ (2015) Strategies of inhibition: U.S. Grand strategy, the nuclear revolution, and nonproliferation. International Security40: 9–46.
19.
GerzhoyG (2015) Alliance coercion and nuclear restraint: How the United States thwarted West Germany’s nuclear ambitions. International Security39: 91–129.
20.
GleditschKS (2002) Expanded trade and GDP data. Journal of Conflict Resolution46: 712–724.
21.
GleditschNPErikssonMSollenbergM, et al. (2002) Armed conflict 1946–2001: A new dataset. Journal of Peace Research39(5): 615–637.
22.
GowaJMansfieldED (1993) Power politics and international trade. American Political Science Review87(2): 408–420.
23.
GrowM (2008) U.S. Presidents and Latin American Interventions: Pursuing Regime Change in the Cold War. Lawrence, KS: University of Kansas Press.
24.
HamiltonJD (1994) Time Series Analysis. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
25.
HarrisonH (2005) Driving the Soviets up the Wall: Soviet-East German Relations, 1953–1961. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
26.
HeyJAK (ed.) (2003) Small States in World Politics: Explaining Foreign Policy Behavior. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner.
27.
IkenberryGJKupchanCA (1990) Socialization and hegemonic power. International Organization44(3): 283–315.
28.
JacksonG (2015) The showdown that wasn’t: U.S.-Israeli relations and American domestic politics, 1973–75. International Security39(4): 130–169.
29.
JonesH (2003) Death of a Generation: How the Assassinations of Diem and JFK Prolonged the Vietnam War. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
30.
KaneT (2004) Global U.S. Deployments, 1950–2013. Washington, DC: The Heritage Foundation. https://www.heritage.org/defense/report/global-us-troop-deployment-1950-2005 (accessed 19 May 2021).
31.
KeohaneRO (1971) The big influence of small allies. Foreign Policy2: 161–182.
32.
KimT (2011) Why alliances entangle but seldom entrap states. Security Studies20(1): 350–377.
33.
KimW (1989) Power, alliance, and major wars, 1816–1975. Journal of Conflict Resolution33(2): 255–273.
34.
KrasnerSD (1999) Sovereignty: Organized Hypocrisy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
35.
KrauseVDavid SingerJ (2001) Minor powers, alliances, and armed conflict: Some preliminary patterns. In: ReiterEGartnerH (eds) Small States and Alliances. Heidelberg: Physica, 15–23.
36.
KwiatkowskiDPhillipsPCBSchmidtP, et al. (1992) Testing the null hypothesis of stationarity against the alternative of a unit root. Journal of Econometrics54: 159–178.
37.
LakeDA (1996) Anarchy, hierarchy, and the variety of international relations. International Organization50(1): 1–33.
38.
LakeDA (2008) The new American empire?International Studies Perspectives9: 281–289.
39.
LakeDA (2013) Legitimating power: The domestic politics of U.S. international hierarchy. International Security38(2): 74–111.
40.
LeedsBARitterJMMcLaughlin MitchellS, et al. (2002) Alliance treaty obligations and provisions, 1815–1944. International Interactions28(3): 237–260.
41.
LittleALeblangD (2004) Military securities: financial flows and the deployment of U.S. troops. In: Presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association.
42.
LongAG (2003) Defense pacts and international trade. Journal of Peace Research40(5): 537–552.
43.
MarshallMGGurrTRJaggersK (2016) Polity IV Project: Political Regime Characteristics and Transition, 1800–2015. College Park, MD: Center for Systemic Peace. Available at: http://www.systemicpeace.org/inscrdata.html (accessed 10 Jan 2021).
44.
MattesM (2012) Reputation, symmetry, and alliance design. International Organization66(4): 679–707.
45.
McDonaldPJ (2015) Great powers, hierarchy, and endogenous regimes: Rethinking the domestic causes of peace. International Organization69(2): 557–588.
46.
MorganTCPalmerG (2003) To protect and to serve: Alliances and foreign policy portfolios. Journal of Conflict Resolution47(2): 180–203.
47.
MorrowJD (1991) Alliances and asymmetry: An alternative to the capability aggregation model of alliances. American Journal of Political Science35(4): 904–933.
48.
MousseauM (1997) Democracy and militarized interstate collaboration. Journal of Peace Research34(1): 73–87.
49.
O’RourkeL (2013) Secrecy and security: U.S.-orchestrated regime change during the Cold War. PhD thesis, University of Chicago, USA.
50.
O’RourkeLA (2018) Covert Regime Change: America’s Secret Cold War. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
51.
ParkCJ (1975) The influence of small states upon the superpowers: United States-South Korean relations as a case study, 1950–53. World Politics28(1): 97–117.
52.
PowellR (1999) In the Shadow of Power: States and Strategies in International Politics. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
53.
PutnamRD (1988) Diplomacy and domestic politics: The logic of two-level games. International Organization42: 427–460.
SingerJDBremerSStuckeyJ (1972) Capability distribution, uncertainty, and major power war, 1820–1965. In: RussettB (ed) Peace, War, and Numbers. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage, 19–48.
56.
VolkensALehmannPMatthießT, et al. (2018) The manifesto data collection. Manifesto project (MRG/ CMP/MARPOR). Version 2018a. Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin für Sozialforschung. https://doi.org/10.25522/manifesto.mpds.2018a.
57.
WaltzK (1979) Theory of International Politics. Reading, MA: Addison-Webley.
58.
WomackB (2016) Asymmetry and International Relationships. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press.
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
