preview

The Causality Between Membership Alliances And A State 's Determination Essay

Good Essays

The causality between membership in alliances and a state 's willingness to initiate conflict has been discussed at length by various scholars who have come to several different conclusions, which is the case with Kimball and Leeds. Despite this, I do not believe that their findings are significantly contradictory. Both introduce valid criticism and also add to the existing research. Leeds ' piece emphasizes how the knowledge of an alliance occurring would affect another country 's decision on initiating conflict, while Kimball puts a lot of emphasis on the missing links in alliance formation research. She is able to find evidence to show that there is a negative relationship between alliance formation and dyadic willingness to engage in conflict to dynamics but there are some topics that are glossed over that interests me. Her argument and findings are insightful, but she mentions in the conclusion that "additionally, it is possible that the type of alliance signed by states shapes conflict behavior...that is a project that can be pursued in the future." Kimball ends her research on the broad topic of alliance formation and Leeds focuses on the importance of the type of alliance. Leeds is more persuasive, in my opinion, because failing to mention the importance of the specific promises like defensive cooperation, offensive cooperation, and neutrality generalizes the impact of alliance formation on conflict initiation too much. Leeds also argues that "treating all alliances

Get Access