The Protection Racket: Patrons, Clients, and the Political -Economy of Security Provision Markets
Cavanaugh, Jeffrey M.
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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/82575
Description
Title
The Protection Racket: Patrons, Clients, and the Political -Economy of Security Provision Markets
Author(s)
Cavanaugh, Jeffrey M.
Issue Date
2007
Doctoral Committee Chair(s)
Diehl, Paul F.
Department of Study
Political Science
Discipline
Political Science
Degree Granting Institution
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Degree Name
Ph.D.
Degree Level
Dissertation
Keyword(s)
Political Science, International Law and Relations
Language
eng
Abstract
The provision of security by actors in the international system of sovereign states has generally been thought about in two ways, both fundamentally flawed. The first, advocated by realists, suggests that anarchy, uncertainty, power, and exploitation of the weak by the strong are the motivating factors that underlie much of international relations. This philosophy, though it captures the zeitgeist of international relations, is nonetheless poorly developed in the positive sense and so lacks the analytical rigor and predictive power that is expected of well a-developed and a progressive research program. The second school, liberalism, focuses not on power and exploitation but, instead, on interdependence and cooperation in the international system. Though it does not capture the spirit of international relations nearly as well as realism, liberalism's foundation in positive political theory has provided it with an analytical rigor that far surpasses realism. I bridge this intellectual divide by appropriating the analytical tools of liberalism in order to breathe new life into realism by modeling security as a private good that is traded in a de facto market context between stronger and weaker actors in the international system. What resulting synthesis is an analytically rigorous, positive theory of realism that is much more capable of explaining and predicting, as demonstrated in both quantitative and qualitative examinations of patron-client relationships during the Cold War, theoretically and substantively important outcomes in the international system.
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