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.国际关系领域的学者此前已指出，面临预算约束的国家会通过加入同盟来腾挪资源，用于国内支出。本文聚焦于领导人缓解这一约束的核心机制：主权借贷（sovereign borrowing）。主权债务（sovereign debt）可使国家在维持税率稳定的前提下，增加开支以应对预算紧急事态。可负担的信贷渠道，既是国家权力的重要来源，同时也是平衡安全事务与财政政策政治后果的关键缓冲。那些无法获得投资者信任的国家，必须在维持既有安全态势与自身选举前途之间做出艰难抉择。我们提出，当政府无法获取可负担的信贷时，将通过组建同盟来替代军事能力。同盟可为领导人提供一种路径，使其能够抵消信贷渠道收窄所带来的灵活性损失，同时又不会扰乱国内政治经济秩序。我们以既往的同盟组建模型为参考，实证分析结果表明，难以获得借贷的国家，相较于那些能够以可负担成本接入信贷市场的国家，更倾向于组建同盟。