Drafts by Rasmus Brun Pedersen
Cooperation and Conflict, 2023
Shelter theory has emerged as a promising but unrealized alternative to existing theories of band... more Shelter theory has emerged as a promising but unrealized alternative to existing theories of bandwagon and hiding in the literature. It describes how small states can utilize the structural power of great powers to achieve political aims through the formation of asymmetric alliances. At present it is not clear exactly what shelter diplomacy aims to achieve, what type of costs it protects small states against, and to what degree asymmetric shelters are useful when the preferences between the small state and the shelter partner widens. The article addresses these gaps. It develops a realist inspired model of shelter diplomacy that specifies when, how and with what effects small states can utilize the structural powers of great powers. It demonstrates how shelter diplomacy can help small states balance the costs of abandonment and entrapment in the alliance dilemma through construction of both asymmetric and symmetric shelters. The main contributions are to bring shelter diplomacy into the IR mainstream literature and develop a new theoretical middle position between the more well-described bandwagon and hiding strategies. The model is applied to a Danish case that demonstrates how small states have utilized and adopted dynamic shelter strategies in the European integration process.
This work breaks with the ideas that foreign policy imposes consensus across parties and that sec... more This work breaks with the ideas that foreign policy imposes consensus across parties and that security threats necessarily create a rally around the flag-effect. Against the backdrop of contemporary politicization both inside and outside political institutions, we can expect that contestation of security policies will also increase in parliament and parties. First, we present new data on voting on military missions from the Parliamentary Deployment Votes Database’s (PDVD) version #2 dataset now encompassing 514 deployment votes between 1990 and 2017 from eleven countries: Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Slovakia, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Second, the chapter discusses the methodological and methodical challenges involved in constructing the dataset, reflecting on several issues, including cultures of national security and parliaments’ role therein, existing record and its accessibility, and party, mission, and vote classifications. We will also explain our idea behind the transfer of Hix, Nouri and Roland’s Agreement Index from the European Parliament to our data.
Papers by Rasmus Brun Pedersen
Journal of Transatlantic Studies
After a period of relative overperformance due to the focus on output indicators in the North Atl... more After a period of relative overperformance due to the focus on output indicators in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO) burden-sharing debate, we ask whether the shift back to input indicators prior to the Ukraine War meant that the smaller NATO allies have returned to their fringe position as NATO underperformers. According to the deterrence model, smaller allies are induced to free ride to a higher degree than mid-sized allies. Utilizing insights from public choice theory, our analysis demonstrates, first, that there is no support to the claim that the size of NATO member state GDP determines the percentage of GDP spent on defence. Second, selective incentives tend to reduce the incentive for small allies to free ride. The relationship between GDP and the percentage of GDP spent on defence capabilities is therefore conditional upon the net gain of the individual member state. Defence capabilities that are characterized as a public good when we control for exposed borde...
Politica, 2017
This introductory article commences with a brief overview of the existing literature on Danish fo... more This introductory article commences with a brief overview of the existing literature on Danish foreign policy activism. We argue that the concept – activism – is useful in terms of labelling Danish foreign policy in general but also that the notion of activism hampers a more nuanced understanding of Denmark’s recent foreign policy as it relates almost entirely to Danish security policies. To more comprehensively appreciate the true nature of Danish foreign policy, we have to be more precise when operationalizing the concept of activism and engage with a compartmentalized understanding of Denmark’s policies vis-à-vis her international surroundings. We do both in the article’s second main section and we develop a typology for analyzing different types of foreign policies. In the article’s third and last section, we compare four major institutional tracks in Danish foreign policy: EU, NATO, UN and the Nordic track.
Qualitative & Multi-Method Research, Mar 31, 2013
We would like to respond to several of comments made by the other contributions to this symposium... more We would like to respond to several of comments made by the other contributions to this symposium. First, and most generally, we would like to state that our book on process-tracing (PT) was heavily inspired by George and Bennett's chapter on PT (2005). In many respects our book can be under-stood as our take on what the result would have been if George and Bennett, instead of only using a chapter, had the luxury of devoting a book-length manuscript to developing PT, where they would have had more space to both develop the onto-logical and epistemological foundations of PT, and develop practical guidelines for its use.
The argument that we put forward in this paper is that unless we clearly and transparently evalua... more The argument that we put forward in this paper is that unless we clearly and transparently evaluate what our tests can potentially tell us along with the strength of the evidence, we should assume per default that no inferences are possible based upon our case studies. Our positive contribution is that we provide a clear set of questions that enable us to evaluate what our empirical tests tell us and whether the observations we have collected can be used as evidence. Here we introduce Bayesian logic in order to expose the logical underpinnings for how we can make causal inferences using empirical tests in case studies, along with the importance of the accuracy of the evidence and the probability of the evidence in and of itself. The value-added of using Bayesian logic is that it provides a set of clear practical questions that case study scholars can use when evaluating empirical material - questions that social scientists all too often ignore, with the result that they make sweepin...
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Historisk Tidsskrift, 2015
Bargaining in the Shadow of Britain? Explaining the Danish Social Democrats’ bargaining positions... more Bargaining in the Shadow of Britain? Explaining the Danish Social Democrats’ bargaining positions under the SEA IGC 1985-1986 The article conducts a detailed analysis of Danish positions in the dramatic negotiations of the SEA-Treaty in 1985-86. The initial, failed ratification in the Danish Parliament almost caused a major crisis in the relationship between Denmark and the EEC. This article examines the domestic play between the government and the opposition during the IGC in order to explain the initial Danish no. In some respects, the Social Democratic positions were remarkably stable and were designed to maintain the institutional status quo and thus internal party cohesion. However, the article also demonstrates that the Social Democrats’ hardline bargaining can be partially explained and justified by the party’s belief that the United Kingdom would reject the SEA-treaty. In other periods, short-term electoral concerns played a leading role, for instance in December 1985 and Ja...
Historisk Tidsskrift, 2015
Efter VK-regeringens tiltraeden i 2001 blev der formuleret en ny aktivistisk strategi for dansk u... more Efter VK-regeringens tiltraeden i 2001 blev der formuleret en ny aktivistisk strategi for dansk udenrigspolitik. Under Anders Fogh Rasmussens politiske lederskab 2001-2009 var den danske udenrigspolitik tydeligt praeget af en atlantiskorienteret sikkerhedsstrategi kendetegnet ved en snaever alliance med USA i kampen mod terror og en aktiv støtte til etableringen af ad hoc-baserede koalitioner af villige nationer. Samtidig var der blandt ledende borgerlige politikere en voksende skepsis over for FN-systemet. 1 Disse principper brød med den tidligere udenrigspolitiske linje, hvor man netop havde understreget betydningen og relevansen af multilaterale internationale sikkerhedsplatforme, ikke mindst FN's universelle internationale rammevaerk, som afsaet for en balancerende dansk sikkerhedspolitik. 2 Et centralt element i dette brud var ideen om at transformere Danmark fra en småstat til en egentlig mellemstat i det internationale system, hvor deltagelsen i ad hoc-baserede koalitioner blev set som en løftestang i denne henseende. 3 Et andet centralt kendetegn ved Fogh-regeringernes nye udenrigspolitik var formuleringen af klare militaerstrategiske am
Cooperation and Conflict, 2017
The Danish decision to enter US-led coalitions in Afghanistan and Iraq significantly consolidated... more The Danish decision to enter US-led coalitions in Afghanistan and Iraq significantly consolidated and strengthened the Atlantic dimension in Danish foreign policy in the period 2001–2009. The period has attracted considerable academic interest, but there seems to be a lack of consensus about how to interpret the Danish decision, which has been characterised as everything from an indication of adaptation, to continuation of the Danish acquiescence to great powers, to path-breaking change in Danish foreign policy to an expression of small state independence. Part of the confusion in the literature is due to the lack of clear conceptual awareness regarding the concepts in use. This article identifies three frames in the literature and contributes to our understanding of the question of change and continuity in small state foreign and security policy by identifying the analytical implications of adopting a clearer understanding of analytical concepts such as adaptation, determinism, act...
Qualitative & Multi-Method Research, Mar 31, 2013
Goertz and Mahoney's (GM) A Tale of Two Cultures can be seen as the logical capstone of the d... more Goertz and Mahoney's (GM) A Tale of Two Cultures can be seen as the logical capstone of the debates between quantitative and qualitative methods that was sparked by King, Keohane, and Verba's (KKV) 1994 publication of Designing Social Inquiry. A definitive, though selective, answer to KKV's one logic is put forward, with GM clearly illustrating core foundational differences between quantitative and qualitative "cultures" of research, including approaches to the symmetry/asymmetry of causal relationships, focus on effects-of-causes or causes-of-effects, and set-theory versus statistical correlations and probability theory. As such, the book is a welcome counter to recent monistic pronouncements about research methods within the social sciences, including Gerring's 2011 Social Science Methodology.
Qualitative & Multi-Method Research, Mar 31, 2013
We would like to respond to several of comments made by the other contributions to this symposium... more We would like to respond to several of comments made by the other contributions to this symposium. First, and most generally, we would like to state that our book on process-tracing (PT) was heavily inspired by George and Bennett's chapter on PT (2005). In many respects our book can be under-stood as our take on what the result would have been if George and Bennett, instead of only using a chapter, had the luxury of devoting a book-length manuscript to developing PT, where they would have had more space to both develop the onto-logical and epistemological foundations of PT, and develop practical guidelines for its use.
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Drafts by Rasmus Brun Pedersen
Papers by Rasmus Brun Pedersen