Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://doi.org/10.1177/0022002718772349
Title: Hedging for Better Bets: Power Shifts, Credible Signals, and Preventive Conflict
Authors: Yoder B.K. 
Keywords: bargaining
belief structure
capabilities
conflict
cooperation
foreign policy
game theory
power transition theory
Issue Date: 9-May-2018
Publisher: SAGE Publications Inc.
Citation: Yoder B.K. (2018-05-09). Hedging for Better Bets: Power Shifts, Credible Signals, and Preventive Conflict. Journal of Conflict Resolution. ScholarBank@NUS Repository. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022002718772349
Abstract: How can declining states reliably infer the intentions of rising states? One prominent line of argument maintains that because declining states face intractable uncertainty about rising states’ future intentions, preventive war is often unavoidable even between states with truly compatible goals. This article presents a dynamic model of reassurance in which actors are uncertain whether or not their interests conflict. The model shows that by adopting a hedging strategy of limited containment short of war, declining states can reduce risers’ incentives to send dishonest cooperative signals. This, in turn, makes cooperation more credible as a signal of risers’ benign intentions. Moreover, these signals are sufficiently informative to dissuade the decliner from escalating to preventive war even under large power shifts. Thus, although power shifts promote limited competition among states with compatible goals, preventive war rationally occurs only in a bargaining context when the riser’s goals are known to be incompatible. © 2018, The Author(s) 2018.
Source Title: Journal of Conflict Resolution
URI: http://scholarbank.nus.edu.sg/handle/10635/151339
ISSN: 220027
DOI: 10.1177/0022002718772349
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