This thesis extends the existing research on alliance disintegration by more fully specifying the values which motivate states' foreign policy behaviors. Previous research held that security is the foremost good which states pursue. An implication of this assumption is that states forge alliance commitments solely in an effort to gain this good. I contend that not only do states desire security, they also desire proaction, defined as the ability to implement changes in those aspects of the status quo which are less than satisfactory. Furthermore, states may pursue one or both of these goods through their alliance activity. From this altered set of assumptions, more precice predictions are made with respect to the timing of alliance disintegration. I find that asymmetric alliances have the greatest probability of terminating when both parties are losing power while symmetric alliances are more likely to break up when only one state is decreasing in strength.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:RICE/oai:scholarship.rice.edu:1911/14103 |
| Date | January 1996 |
| Creators | Sallinger, Ursula |
| Source Sets | Rice University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis, Text |
| Format | application/pdf |
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