Shrinking room for hedging: system-unit dynamics and behavior of smaller powers

Abstract

This article advances the understanding of ‘hedging’ in international politics by highlighting and examining the limits to smaller powers’ hedging behavior. Building on the line of reasoning that hedging is an outcome of regional or state-level, rather than system-level, variables, the article suggests that the room for hedging available to smaller states shrinks as great powers become more competitive and attempt to balance against one another. With an empirical focus on the post-Cold War South China Sea region, particularly the evolving behavior of the Philippines, Vietnam, and Malaysia, the article demonstrates how, under the conditions of growing China–US competition, these regional states start moving from hedging to more pronounced bandwagoning vis-à-vis great powers regardless their domestic-level sociopolitical dispositions. Therefore, hedging has limits and can be envisaged as a ‘luxury’ that is inversely related to the intensity of great power balancing.