Strategic Subcultures and Grand Strategy Formation: A Neoclassical Realist View

Leo Lin ()
Additional contact information
Leo Lin: The University of Southern Mississippi,USA

Proceedings of the 17th International RAIS Conference, June 1-2, 2020 from Research Association for Interdisciplinary Studies

Abstract: Scholars have identified strategic culture as an important ideational factor that influences grand strategy decision making. However, they pay less attention to the role of strategic subcultures in the grand strategy formation. This paper departs from structural realism and exams the effects of strategic subcultures in grand strategy formation at the unit level. To investigate the role of strategic subcultures, the author uses the Type II neoclassical realist approach, which focuses on the influence of ideas on foreign policy and grand strategy response to structural imperatives. Thus, strategic subculture is an ideational intervening variable that affects grand strategy behavior. This paper uses China as a case to conduct a preliminary study to support the author’s theoretical argument. Many scholars have emphasized the impact of thousands of years of Chinese civilization and highlighted the pervasive influence of Confucianism over its state behavior. Nevertheless, China’s grand strategy is frequently affected by its strategic subcultures, such as nationalism and ideology. This paper traces evidence of Chinese grand strategy in the post-9/11 era as a case study.

Keywords: strategic subcultures; grand strategy; neoclassical realism (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 8 pages
Date: 2020-06
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Published in Proceedings of the 17th International RAIS Conference on Social Sciences and Humanities, June 1-2, 2020, pages 63-70

Downloads: (external link)
http://rais.education/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/007LL.pdf Full text (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:smo:spaper:007ll

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Proceedings of the 17th International RAIS Conference, June 1-2, 2020 from Research Association for Interdisciplinary Studies
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Eduard David ().