Evil Within: Effects of Gray Zone Coercion on Foreign Policy

Abstract

Why do states fail to stand firm against coercers? Considerable literature ascribes the failure to the shortage of domestic cohesion and alliance credibility, seldom have scholars investigated whether challengers proactively exploit division within target groups. In this article, I argue, by coercing actors within rival groups, coercers avoid a costly standoff by manipulating victims’ strategic interests. Coercive diplomacy can be used to divide target states’ domestic politics and change states’ preference in an ongoing dispute. It is more likely to succeed with the political division within a target state and asymmetric economic dependence on a challenger. Widening the political and economic gap, coercers indirectly dampen targets’ foreign policy. I test my theory by examining the classic case that succeeds and the most-likely cases that fail to coerce targets: Russia’s hybrid warfare during the Ukraine revolution, China’s interference against Australia, and China’s coercion against Taiwan during the Tsai administration. With these case studies and comparison, I conclude as follows: (1) Divide-and-rule is more probable to fail when a target can respond promptly with resilience; (2) multiple instruments and covert actions increase the likelihood of successful coercion; (3) coercion needs to be tailored and is highly context-dependent.