Interconnected rivalries

Why do some rival relationships between countries last longer, while others not? In the past decades, the number of rival relationships has decreased, but ongoing rivalries have been involved in intense militarized competition. Considering that most interstate rivals experience wars, it is necessary to know more about the dynamics and termination of rivalries. To examine rivalry termination, the rivalry literature focuses on various factors, but rarely focuses on how the rivalries are connected to one another. Indeed, most countries involved in any rival relationships have had multiple rivals and connected to other rivalries. In my dissertation, I focus on how the connectedness among rivals affects rivalry duration and how having multiple rivals influences domestic politics.

In the first two empirical chapters, I examine a rivalry’s environment focusing on centrality and triangular relationships from rivalry networks. First, in rivalry networks where countries are nodes and rival relationships are ties, a country’s position can be measured using centrality which shows how isolated the country is in the region. Second, two countries in a rivalry can be embedded in triangular relationships by sharing a common ally, common enemy, or mixed (one’s ally and the other’s enemy). Those shared ally, enemy, and mixed can influence rivalry duration. In the last empirical chapter, I focus on how the general public evaluates its leader’s foreign policies when it has multiple rivals. From the findings, I conclude that connections with outside rivalries and having multiple rivals influence rivalry dynamics and termination.