Explaining Variation in the Type of Support Foreign Sponsors Provide to Warring Factions in Civil War

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The research aims to analyse the impact of defence pacts on the onset and escalation of inter-state crises. The mainstream interpretation of the role of defensive alliance is provided by extended deterrence theory: a third-party defender threatens the use of force to protect other countries, their territories, and their values from attack (Huth 1988). The superpowers' security guarantees to their allies in Europe and around the world during the Cold War are a case in point. However, the extended deterrence paradigm displays theoretical and empirical limitations. The effectiveness of defence pacts in preventing disputes can be hindered by both security dilemma and moral hazard considerations. Additionally, studies of the deterrent effect of alliances generally share little awareness of the complexities of inter-state crises, escalation, and deterrence (Johnson and Leeds 2011; Benson 2012).This thesis attempts to systematize our understanding of the role of defence pacts in crisis taking into account the complexities of inter-state crisis. While deterrence could be aimed at the prevention of disputes, a successful deterrence strategy may also be deployed for crisis management, preventing it from reaching the level of war. When a crisis begins, the initiator can still engage in crisis bargaining without reaching the level of force; deterrent threats issued in that context clearly state the red lines that should not be passed for peace to be maintained. The literature calls the former type of deterrence described above "general deterrence", and the latter, "immediate deterrence" (Fearon 2002). The most iconic cases of deterrence recorded in history are examples in which two potential belligerents resolved a dispute within a crisis without resorting to force, like the Cuban Missile Crisis. The preliminary hypotheses of my research are that, in a dyad of rival states, given the absence of a clear link between reputation costs of a defensive commitment and crisis onset, either the protégé or the opponent could be moved by the presence of a defensive alliance to initiate a dispute. Once a crisis has started, however, the expected costs of war against the alliance increase, and therefore lower the likelihood of an opponent issuing a violent challenge. Even if the ally's intervention is not certain, an opponent has fewer rational incentives to start a violent dispute than in the case of no alliance. Not only is the defensive alliance not meant to encourage emboldening behaviour, as opposed to an offensive treaty or neutrality pact. Additionally, it is worth expecting that the defender will prevent the protégé's emboldenment. The defender is unlikely to be willing to support a forceful change to the status quo by the protégé, as the ensuing conflict could degenerate into a broader conflict with higher costs. During the Cold War, for example, the two superpowers feared that crises could turn into nuclear confrontations and tried to restrain their partners. As a result, in this new theoretical paradigm, defence pacts should be conducive to crisis onset (low general deterrent power) but have a restraining effect on escalation (high immediate deterrent power).I aim to test these hypotheses with a mixed method approach. First, I will carry out a quantitative analysis of dispute onset and escalation between a potential challenger and a potential target. A large-N analysis of recorded crises appears to be the most appropriate method to test general claims about the overall deterrent effect of alliances. To corroborate this analysis, I aim to analyse several case studies. It is easy to highlight the inevitable limitations of the statistical methodology: in this, as in other models that reduce reality to the essentials, "deductive power is usually purchased at the cost of historical accuracy" (Achen and Snidal 1989). While the reality of historical cases does not necessarily disprove the entire logic...