Neoclassical realism and state mobilization: expansionist ideology in the age of mass politics

Abstract

In chapter 1, Jeffrey Taliaferro, Steven Lobell, and Norrin Ripsman posed three questions about the politics of resource extraction and domestic mobilization in grand strategy: How do states mobilize the resources necessary to pursue their chosen security policies? How much power do domestic actors have to obstruct the state when it seeks to mobilize resources in different settings? Finally, what determines who is more successful in bargaining games between the state and societal groups? In this chapter, I address those questions as they pertain to variations in the ability of great powers to mobilize the resources required to pursue expansionist grand strategies, specifically bids for regional hegemony. I present a neoclassical realist theory to explain the puzzle of under-expansion and under-aggression: the suboptimal reluctance to use force or to build up military power in pursuit of profit or security or both. Neoclassical realism can explain why only certain great powers could make bids for regional hegemony in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In brief, I make the controversial argument that a particular type of ideology – fascism – enabled the leaders of Nazi Germany (and to a lesser extent Italy and Japan) to extract the resources and mobilize the domestic support necessary to undertake a sustained hegemonic bid.