The size principle and the strategic basis of an alliance: Formalizing intuitions

Evelyn C. Fink, Brian D. Humes and Valerie L. Schwebach

International Interactions, 1996, vol. 22, issue 3, 279-294

Abstract: At the end of the Cold War, attention is keenly turned towards predicting alliance behavior in the international system. As such the lessons from past history are important in helping us guide our expectations. One recent lesson, Schweller (1993), argued that the strategic basis of a coalition was decisive in determining the size of coalitions; offensive coalitions would be minimum winning while defensive coalitions would be maximal. We show that by formalizing in game theoretic terms what ‘seems reasonable,’ in fact does not yield these predictions. We find no support for the strategic basis of a coalition being determinate in predicting the size of a coalition. As such, formalizing the intuitions from the lessons of the past help guide us in our search for usable lessons in alliance formation.

Date: 1996
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DOI: 10.1080/03050629708434892

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