The paper should contain approx. 3000 words and consist of 2 parts:
1) The power imbalance between allies within an alliance. This part should show, based on literature, that when the power imbalance between the participants in an alliance is high (for ex: one participant is much lager and has more power), the alliance works better: a leader-follower structure. It concerns alliances in a war or political context (between states, rebel groups, war partners…). This means, for example, that when one of the partners has a lot more power than the other partners, the alliance works better. On the other hand; when power is more equally distributed in the alliance, more problems arise and the alliance works less well. This first part should be approx. 1500 words long.
2) The second part is about ethnicity whitin an alliance. This part should show that when alliance partners have the same ethnicity, the level of trust is higher and the alliance works better. When alliance partners don’t have the same ethnicity the alliance works less well. This part should (if possible) be more focused on African ethnicities of rebel groups for example in the Congo War. The second part should also be approx. 1500 words long.
No introduction is needed.
IMPORTANT: this paper will be part of a research project I am conducting. I am investigating the strategic behaviour of alliance partners. A partner benefits from having its fellow partners do the work: the marginal cost of a fight is borne by each individual partner, the marginal revenue by the whole alliance, hence strategic behaviour can arise within an alliance. My research is an extension of the paper: “Networks in Conflict: Theory and Evidence From the Great War of Africa” (M. König et al.).
I examine whether power imbalance and ethnicity have an impact on the strategic behaviour of an alliance partner witin an alliance, namely: whether the fighting effort that the partner makes in the alliance increases or decreases when taking into account these variables. These 2 variables (power imbalance and ethnicity) are an extension of the research conducted by König et al.
The Hypothesis I defend:
The greater the difference in power and the more similar the partners are in terms of ethnicity, the less a partner will ‘cheat’ (=let others do the work) and therefore the less strategic behaviour.
Number of sources: as many as possible
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