Tightening the Belt: Sovereign Debt and Alliance Formation

International relations scholars have previously argued that states facing budget constraints will join alliances to free resources for domestic spending. In this paper, we focus on the primary mechanism by which leaders have relaxed this constraint: sovereign borrowing. Sovereign debt enables states to maintain stable tax rates while increasing expenditures to confront budgetary emergencies. Affordable access to credit, then, serves as both a source of power and an important buffer between security and the political consequences of fiscal policy. States that lack the confidence of investors must make tough choices between continued security and their electoral fortunes. We suggest that as governments lack access to affordable credit, they will substitute military capacity with alliance formation. Alliances provide a means for leaders to offset the loss of flexibility from diminished access to credit without disturbing the domestic political economy. Using previous models of alliance formation as a guide, our empirical evidence indicates that states that have a hard time borrowing are more likely to form an alliance than those states with affordable access to credit markets.

国际关系学者此前提出，面临预算约束的国家会通过加入联盟来释放资源，以用于国内开支。本文聚焦于领导人缓解这一约束的核心机制——主权借贷。主权债务使国家能够在维持稳定税率的同时，增加支出以应对预算紧急状况。因此，可负担的信贷渠道既是一种权力来源，也是安全与财政政策政治后果之间的重要缓冲。缺乏投资者信任的国家必须在持续的安全保障与选举命运之间做出艰难抉择。我们认为，当政府无法获得可负担的信贷时，会用联盟形成来替代军事能力。联盟为领导人提供了一种方式，可在不干扰国内政治经济的前提下，抵消因信贷渠道减少而导致的灵活性丧失。以联盟形成的既有模型为指导，我们的实证证据表明，难以借贷的国家比能够获得可负担信贷市场渠道的国家更有可能形成联盟。