2.2.2 Constraints and costs of bandwagoning
Bandwagoners have to pay considerable costs. The ECE state example showed domestic disagreements on whether a state should bandwagon put constraints on the degree of bandwagoning behaviors. One cost bandwagoners paid is the loss of autonomy in making security policy. Taking Japan and Canada as examples, their alliances with the US constrain them from making security policies fully as they are occasionally asked by Americans to devote efforts in committing to requirements of alliances. A survey on defense budgets of Canada and the US and Canadian federal budget showed that Canada has to invest in military budget correspondingly to American's (Boucher 2012). While it is statistically significant that …show more content…
Drawing from the game theory, bandwagoning behavior may send wrong signals that the bandwagon can take whatever advantages from bandwagoners (Jervis 1976: 58-59). Although historically states bandwagon to gain strategic interests, requirements set forth by the bandwagon may cost bandwagoners much more than the benefits they enjoyed. Terrorist attack in London in 2005 brought Britain with unexpected security costs which may not be paid if she decided to join Germany and France before deciding to join the Iraq War. Australia’s alliance with the US also draws skepticisms of Asian counterparts on the possibility of being the ‘deputy sheriff’ of the US in the Asia-Pacific (Beeson 2007: 625-628). In short, states pay when they bandwagon. They share the burden of the bandwagon’s pursuit of interests at the expense of bandwagoner’s own interests. Bandwagoners may be entrapped by commitments give to bandwagoning behavior.
2.3 Two pillars of middle-through strategies: engagement and accommodation
Although ‘balancing versus bandwagoning’ captures strategic responses largely, states in the Asia-Pacific are described as engaging and accommodating China’s rise occasionally. This section reviews the literature on these two strategic options …show more content…
Zoellick used the term to mandate Chinese responsibility to provide international public goods (Zoellick 2005). A responsible stakeholder defends the status quo which “recognize[s] that the international system sustains their peaceful prosperity, so they work to sustain that system (Zoellick 2005).” Engaging China to be a responsible stakeholder, thus, defends the status quo order to lower possibility of rising power in revising the status quo forcefully. At the same time, engagement strategy asks rising power to share the burden of providing international public goods for peace, stability and prosperity by engaging rising power to share the burden of the provision of common goods. The engagement strategy closely relates to regional multilateralism. Using regional multilateralism as a result of expanding trading and service networks to enmesh rising powers, binding them with rules and values , is the example of engagement putting initiator’s agenda to socialize other powers (Wesley 2015). This is also why engagement, as a norms-loaded strategy, failed to convert China’s behavior to be a responsible
Bandwagoners have to pay considerable costs. The ECE state example showed domestic disagreements on whether a state should bandwagon put constraints on the degree of bandwagoning behaviors. One cost bandwagoners paid is the loss of autonomy in making security policy. Taking Japan and Canada as examples, their alliances with the US constrain them from making security policies fully as they are occasionally asked by Americans to devote efforts in committing to requirements of alliances. A survey on defense budgets of Canada and the US and Canadian federal budget showed that Canada has to invest in military budget correspondingly to American's (Boucher 2012). While it is statistically significant that …show more content…
Drawing from the game theory, bandwagoning behavior may send wrong signals that the bandwagon can take whatever advantages from bandwagoners (Jervis 1976: 58-59). Although historically states bandwagon to gain strategic interests, requirements set forth by the bandwagon may cost bandwagoners much more than the benefits they enjoyed. Terrorist attack in London in 2005 brought Britain with unexpected security costs which may not be paid if she decided to join Germany and France before deciding to join the Iraq War. Australia’s alliance with the US also draws skepticisms of Asian counterparts on the possibility of being the ‘deputy sheriff’ of the US in the Asia-Pacific (Beeson 2007: 625-628). In short, states pay when they bandwagon. They share the burden of the bandwagon’s pursuit of interests at the expense of bandwagoner’s own interests. Bandwagoners may be entrapped by commitments give to bandwagoning behavior.
2.3 Two pillars of middle-through strategies: engagement and accommodation
Although ‘balancing versus bandwagoning’ captures strategic responses largely, states in the Asia-Pacific are described as engaging and accommodating China’s rise occasionally. This section reviews the literature on these two strategic options …show more content…
Zoellick used the term to mandate Chinese responsibility to provide international public goods (Zoellick 2005). A responsible stakeholder defends the status quo which “recognize[s] that the international system sustains their peaceful prosperity, so they work to sustain that system (Zoellick 2005).” Engaging China to be a responsible stakeholder, thus, defends the status quo order to lower possibility of rising power in revising the status quo forcefully. At the same time, engagement strategy asks rising power to share the burden of providing international public goods for peace, stability and prosperity by engaging rising power to share the burden of the provision of common goods. The engagement strategy closely relates to regional multilateralism. Using regional multilateralism as a result of expanding trading and service networks to enmesh rising powers, binding them with rules and values , is the example of engagement putting initiator’s agenda to socialize other powers (Wesley 2015). This is also why engagement, as a norms-loaded strategy, failed to convert China’s behavior to be a responsible