Theorizing Hedging: Explaining Shifts and Variations in Alignment Choices (Elements in Indo-Pacific Security)

Kuik, Cheng-Chwee

ISBN 10: 1009589415 / ISBN 13: 9781009589413

Published by Cambridge University Press, 2026

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Seller Inventory # I-9781009589413

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Theorizing Hedging: Explaining Shifts and Variations in Alignment Choices (Elements in Indo-Pacific Security)
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Publication Date: 2026
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1009589415
• ISBN 13: 9781009589413
• Binding: Soft cover
• Condition: New

About this title

Synopsis

Hedging, not balancing or bandwagoning, is the modal behavior of the non-great powers under uncertainty. Despite its prevalence as a state alignment choice, hedging has remained an undertheorized subject in the study of international relations. This Element presents one of the first theoretical works on strategic hedging in world politics. Tracing the multidisciplinary roots of hedging as an instinctive human behavior, I contend that sovereign actors hedge in ways similar to commodity traders, farmers, fund managers, academic writers, politicians, and individuals in competitive organizations under conditions of high-stakes and high-uncertainties. I then develop a two-level theoretical framework to explain when, how and why states hedge, rather than balance or bandwagon. Using selected Indo-Pacific countries as empirical cases, I conclude that while structural-level conditions largely explain the shifts in alignment decisions (e.g., from non-hedging to hedging, or vice versa), domestic factors explain the variations in hedging choices.