A Brief Reflection on Conversations about Security

Abstract

A few years ago, I agreed to write an entry for the International Studies Association (ISA) Compendium entitled “Alliances and Arms: The Quest for Security” (Denemark 2010). The submission was requested by the Scientific Study of International Processes (SSIP) Section editors, Paul Diehl and Jim Morrow. My colleague Cliff Morgan and I were tasked with reviewing the literature on alliances and arms, with a focus on the contributions of SSIP style work. When the volume containing our contribution arrived in the mail sometime later, I discovered that the very next entry alphabetically in the compendium was entitled “Alliances and War,” and was written by Patricia Weitsman, commissioned by the International Security Studies Section (ISSS). Until the volume came out, Cliff and I were unaware that Patty was working on a similar entry, and I expect she was not aware of our contribution either. After reading the two entries, I was struck by the separation of communities concerned with similar problems. Weitsman’s compendium entry cites 156 studies. Leeds and Morgan’s cites ninety-six studies. The two share twenty-nine citations in common—19 percent of the Weitsman citations and 30 percent of the Leeds and Morgan citations. The topics of the two essays are not identical, and we were specifically told to focus on literature related to the traditions of our sections, which surely helps explain some of the differences. Still, it seems that the two essays attempt to answer similar questions relying on different bodies of work. But do they reach the same conclusions? The answer is yes and no. In explaining alliance formation, both essays begin from the same starting point—balance of power theories. The first major difference between the two essays is that Weitsman concludes that “balancing is a central role that alliances …