These are three important instruments through
which states seek to augment their power and
increase their influence in international relations.
An international alliance is an agreement between
or among states that stipulates a common course of
action in a given set of circumstances.
The most common goals of alliances are:
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Pooling of resources to augment national power
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Prevention of loss of power due to alliances
between states at the expense of the focal state
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Reducing uncertainty
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Defense Pact: Agreement to defend alliance
members in the event of an attack on one of
them by a state not in the alliance
•
Offensive Pact: Agreement to pool resources in
order to enable alliance members to jointly
attack one or more nonmembers.
•
Non-Aggression Pact: Agreement not to attack
each other
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Entente: Agreement to coordinate policy
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Treaties of friendship: expression of common
interests and visions in world politics
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Common threats/common enemies
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A wish to prevent a would-be partner to
become ally of one’s enemies.
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Bandwagoning, sharing spoils of war
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Uncertainty reduction
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Alliance as expression of affinity
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Spillover effects of cooperative success.
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Fear of exploitation—ally’s paradox
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Chain-ganging
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Buck-passing
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The security-autonomy tradeoff
1. Does having many allies reduce a state’s likelihood of conflict
involvement?
No. In fact the more alliances a state has, the more conflict it
gets involved in.
2. Do states that have an alliance reduce the chances of conflict
between them?
Unclear. When controlling for other factors, having an alliance
reduces the probability of conflict between states.
3. When the system is populated by many alliances, does the level
of conflict in it decline?
Not really. In fact, there is no clear relationship between the
number and density of alliances and international conflict. Yet
when the polarization of the system in terms of alliance blocks
increases, levels of conflict go up.
• State A enters an alliance with state B to increase
its security, and possibly to prevent war through
collective actor deterrence
• State B, however, faces an enemy, C, with whom it
wants to settle an account through war, but cannot
do it alone; it needs state A’s help to fight the war.
• B starts a war against C; A—wishing to preserve an
image of credibility—enters the war against C, just
as B hoped
• The war doesn’t go as planned for A and B, it gets
complicated and difficult.
• State B, who had initiated the war, bails out,
leaving A—who had signed an alliance in the hope
of avoiding war—to fight by itself
Foreign aid is a form of bribe.
It is designed to secure cooperation or to avert
conflict through material inducements granted
by one states to another.
Principal Objective of Foreign Aid
1. Direct Influence. Conditioning of the granting of
foreign aid or its renewal by compliance of the
recipient state to the donor’s demands.
2. Indirect Influence. Creation of long term
dependence of the recipient on the donor;
attempts to prevent other states from
influencing the recipient through the same tactic
1. Economic. Grants, loans, loan guarantees, credit,
favorable trade agreements.
2. Military. Grants, transfer of military hardware,
military cooperation (training, joint exercises,
intelligence sharing).
3. Technical Assistance. Transfer of know-how, help
in operation of complex equipment, assistance in
creation of economic or military infrastructure in
the recipient state.
1. Utilitarian considerations—Influence.
2. Utilitarian considerations—Indirect subsidies to
economic interests in the donor state.
3. Utilitarian considerations—Creation or deepening
of dependence of recipient on donor.
4. Utilitarian considerations—Impact on the
recipient’s economy, and on donor-recipient trade.
5. Global considerations—Reputation.
6. Global considerations—Affecting the global
economy in general.
7. Altruistic considerations—Are there any?
•
For the most part, foreign aid creates dependence
between recipient and donor. It is not clear,
however, whether these interdependencies are
converted into meaningful political
accomplishments by the donor.
•
In many cases, this dependency on the donor
causes significant grievances and dissatisfaction
among opposition groups in the recipient state.
•
Regime or political change in the recipient state
often causes the recipient to sever its ties with the
donor, causing a severe damage to the relations
between the two states.
•
In many cases, the donor imposes conditions
on the provision of foreign aid (e.g., removal
of subsidies on basic food products, economic
reforms), the fulfillment of which renders the
recipient’s regime unpopular domestically.
•
During the cold war as well as in the post-cold
war era, the severance of long-term
relationships that entail military and
technological assistance programs cause leaks
of intelligence and military hardware to the
donor’s opponent or to hostile elements.
•
Nevertheless, many consider foreign aid as an
important leverage in foreign policy.
International propaganda entails the use of
various forms of media in the process of
framing messages and information to large
publics across international boundaries.
•
Effects of media globalization on propaganda
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Effects of democratization of foreign policy on
the use of propaganda.
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The privatization of political propaganda.
The use of international propaganda became an
important practice during WWII. All sides in
the war engaged in attempts to influence the
enemy’s population (or the population of allies
under enemy occupation).
Examples:
The use of Nazi propaganda in Europe—Lord
Haw-Haw and Nazi propaganda in the U.S.
The B.B.C. broadcast in German, French, SerboCroat, and so forth.
Post WWII Propaganda: The Voice of America,
Arab and Israeli propaganda,
Types of Propaganda
• Direct Propaganda. The use of media where both the initiator and
target know each other’s identity and the objectives of the message.
The content is what’s important.
• Indirect Propaganda. Propaganda is concealed either by concealing
the identity of the sender, or disguising the message in other types of
messages.
• Formal/Informal Propaganda. The difference is not in the directness
of the message, but in the identity of the sender and receiver. Formal
propaganda is carried out by the authorities of a state or its
representatives and directed to either the authorities or select public
groups in the target. Informal propaganda is either non-official
propaganda or propaganda that is not specifically targeted.
• Non governmental Propaganda. The use of propaganda by non
official groups, NGOs, terrorists, or public interest groups
Does rP opaganda Work?
• This is a difficult research topic, laden with
methodological problems. One of the most difficult
problems is to separate the effect of propaganda
from other factors that influence public opinion.
• It is typically thought that propaganda tends to be
more effective,
– In democratic states vs. nondemocratic states.
– During peacetimes compared to wartime.
– When there is an effective opposition to the government’s
policy.
What is the truth?
• It is true that democracies are more susceptible to
propaganda, but there are few examples where public
opinion changed due to propaganda rather than to other
reasons.
• On the other hand, it is possible to trace the impact of
indirect propaganda on policy and/or government change in
nondemocratic states.
• Some examples of propaganda effects.
– German propaganda in the U.S. during WWII.
– Islamic propaganda in Iran in the 1970s.
– Western influence on change in the Soviet Union and Eastern
Europe in the 1980s.