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Copyright by Peter Harris 2015 The Dissertation Committee for Peter Harris Certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: Global Gatekeeping: How Great Powers Respond to Rising States Committee: Bruce Buchanan, Supervisor Peter Trubowitz, Co-Supervisor Catherine Boone Terrence Chapman Patrick McDonald Jeremi Suri Global Gatekeeping: How Great Powers Respond to Rising States by Peter Harris, M.A., M.Sc., M.A. Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Texas at Austin May 2015 For Allison Acknowledgements I have incurred many debts during the course of preparing for and writing this dissertation and it gives me great pleasure finally to be able to acknowledge those who have lent their support. First, Peter Trubowitz has been an excellent dissertation chair and, before that, faculty adviser. From contacting me via email after I was accepted into the University of Texas at Austin, through the coursework phase of my graduate training and right up until the defense of this dissertation manuscript, he has been an unstinting source of encouragement, mentorship and guidance. It will be obvious to anybody familiar with our work that mine takes a liberal dose of inspiration from his. I think that good doctoral training should resemble an apprenticeship and I am grateful that I was able to learn my craft alongside a true master of the art. Bruce Buchanan, too, has been a dependable ally within the Department of Government ever since my earliest dealings with him. I am only the latest in a long line of students to benefit from his solid insights and steady hand. Beyond his many talents as a teacher and mentor, Bruce is an indefatigable scholar—somebody who is devoted to the application of political science towards practical and normative ends. I take inspiration from his professionalism and dedication. The other members of my dissertation committee have each proven to be invaluable in different ways. Catherine Boone helped me to get my first publication while still a first-year graduate student and offered some important insights during the early stages of this project. Her book, Political Topographies of the African State, v changed the way that I think about politics and political order. I hope one day to integrate her theoretical work on African politics into my own scholarship on international organization. Terry Chapman was a devoted instructor and an assiduous member of my committee, always willing to give detailed comments on anything placed in front of him. Patrick McDonald, too, has been a great resource. He co-supervised my M.A. report and has been unswerving in his efforts to build the International Relations field at UT. Last, Jeremi Suri was generous with his time and his advice. Moreover, his example as somebody who bridges the gap between academia and the public square has had a great impact upon me. He is the exemplar of the citizen-scholar. Other scholars in the Department of Government have been irreplaceable mentors. Over the course of several years, Bat Sparrow has been an excellent sounding board and a source of encouragement. I have been inspired by his rare ability to marry truly broad research interests with an unbending commitment to high standards. More recently, I have come to value the advice of Wendy Hunter and Zoltan Barany, two “truth tellers” with considerable amounts of experience and wisdom between them. Although I have a long way to go before I become the scholar that I hope one day to be, I am considerably closer to my ambition thanks to the formidable examples of the faculty at UT. Elsewhere on campus, the Clements Center for History, Strategy and Statecraft came at a propitious time for me. As my primary dissertation adviser decamped to pastures new, the Clements Center provided me with a natural home on the Forty Acres. My participation in the graduate fellows program led me to seek broader audiences for my work and opened my eyes to new professional opportunities. I am grateful to vi William Inboden, Mark Lawrence, Jacqueline Chandler and everybody else who has worked hard to make the Clements Center a success. I would also like to thank my teachers and advisers at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London: Bhavna Davé, Yuka Kobayashi, Mark Laffey and Stephen Hopgood. SOAS instilled in me the importance of studying the powerless as well as the powerful, a lesson that I try to bring to bear on all of my work. A degree from SOAS really is the gift that keeps on giving: although I found it stimulating at the time, it was only years after the fact—when faced with the imposing requirements of having to undertake independent research and organize my own classes to teach—that I fully came to realize the brilliance of how I had been taught at SOAS, especially by Mark and Steve. I also was fortunate to benefit from some excellent teachers as an undergraduate. The impact of several has stood the test of time: Annis May Timpson, Sara Rich Dorman and John Peterson at the University of Edinburgh; and Laura Janara and Paul Kopas at the University of British Columbia. UBC will forever remain the place where I really began to think hard about political science and international politics in particular, although it was in my final year at Edinburgh that I learned to excel as a student. Last, I would like to thank my family for their support. Although I miss them terribly, my parents Steve and Edna and their partners Janet and Tony have always supported me and shown an interest in my studies. My parents-in-law Karen and Rand have been tireless enthusiasts about my work—even stretching to accompanying me on archival trips!—and I thank them for supporting their daughter and me as we have toiled during these years of preparation. I hope that my work affords me more opportunities to visit, in London, my brother Ian, his partner Emma and my beautiful nieces Orla, Imogen and Nell; and, in Santa Monica, Kim, George and Theo. My Aunty Pam, who died when vii I was a child, showed her love and foresight by making arrangements for the funding of my higher education. I hope that I make her proud. Most of all, of course, I thank my incredible wife Allison. I love her more than she can ever know, and my respect and admiration for her knows no bounds. When I hold her in my arms, I really do feel like Fred Astaire. This dissertation could not be dedicated to anybody else. I have benefitted from several sources of financial funding during the course of writing this dissertation: a Ward Endowed Fellowship and several Professional Development Awards from the College of Liberal Arts at the University of Texas at Austin; a generous grant from the Clements Center for History, Strategy and Statecraft; a World Politics and Statecraft Fellowship from the Smith Richardson Foundation; as well as several departmental fellowships. I thank all of these organizations for their support. viii Global Gatekeeping: How Great Powers Respond to Rising States Peter Harris, Ph.D. The University of Texas at Austin, 2015 Supervisors: Bruce Buchanan and Peter Trubowitz Why do some shifts in power between states pass off peacefully while others result in conflict? Scholars have debated the implications of international power transitions at least since Thucydides in his History of the Peloponnesian War documented the rise of Athens and the fear that this aroused in Sparta. Must the rise in power of a potential challenger lead to jealousy, enmity and conflict as Thucydides claims was the case in antiquity? Or can established and rising powers find common ground on the world stage? Most attempts to answer these questions have focused on the decision-making calculus of rising states or else have modeled abstract dyadic relations between two rational actors under conditions of shifting power. In this dissertation, I shift the analytic focus onto the decision-making of established Great Powers, examining the international and domestic- political circumstances under which states will acquiesce to or promote the rise of another state and when they will instead seek to stymie the rise of a potential rival. The dissertation advances the notion that established Great Powers act as critical “gatekeepers” of world order. In the context of shifting power, established Great Powers ix are by definition materially stronger than their rising challengers—at least during the initial phases of a power transition. As such, established Great Powers are able to apply their preponderant power—military, economic, political and diplomatic—in ways that shape the opportunity structures available to would-be challengers. I provide an argument to explain when and why an established state will see discharge this gatekeeping function in a way that is conciliatory towards a rising state and when its leaders will, instead, opt for a strategy of containment. The model has implications for reading international history; International Relations theory on grand strategy, security studies and international order; and for contemporary public policy debates surrounding the rise of China and the other so-called BRICS nations. Evidence is drawn from a comparative historical analysis of British and American responses to rising states, 1890- 1990. x Table of Contents List of Tables ...................................................................................................... xvii List of