Clients, Rivals, and Rogues
Clients, Rivals, and Rogues
Milos Popovic, Independent scholar
David S. Siroky, University of Florida
£95.00
GBPWhy do great powers intervene militarily in revolutionary civil wars? This pivotal question in international relations is answered though a new theory of security hierarchies that emphasizes the role of clients, rivals and rogues in world politics. Employing a mixed-methods approach, integrating statistical analysis with comprehensive case studies of Afghanistan, Libya, and Syria, this book demonstrates that great power interventions are significantly more constrained and predictable than previously assumed. Role theory and frame analysis further exhibit how the status of other states within a great power's security hierarchy influences interventions. The findings provide a lucid account of great power behavior, offering critical insights for scholars and policymakers interested in the international dimensions of intrastate conflicts. Clients, Rivals and Rogues shows that the strategies that underpin great power interventions and provides crucial lessons for the management of regime conflicts, one of the most common and deadly forms of political instability today.
- Proposes a hierarchical intervention theory that exposes how arms transfers between great powers and other states shape choices about whether and on which side to intervene in revolutionary civil war
- Utilizes role theory and frame analysis to explain how a state's status within a security hierarchy influences its intervention decisions and behaviors, offering a novel analytical framework for seeing the power dynamics within the international syste
- Employs a mixed-methods approach, combining advanced statistical analysis, textual scaling, interpretive analysis and comprehensive case studies of Afghanistan, Libya, and Syria demonstrating how a generalized theory of great power interventions can illuminate patterns and trends in intervention choices
Reviews & endorsements
'After reading Clients, Rivals, and Rogues, I am convinced that everything I thought I knew about great power intervention in civils wars is flat out wrong. Great powers rarely decide to enter these disputes because of humanitarian concerns. They only rarely do so to check a rival's influence, or even to install 'friendly' governments. Instead, Jenne, Popovic, and Siroky show us that great powers get involved in countries to protect their security hierarchies—it is when they believe a client state is under threat that they will be tempted to throw their resources into another country's dispute. This book is as theoretically creative as it is methodologically sophisticated. No doubt it will become the standard in the study of intervention into civil wars.' Stacie E. Goddard, Betty Freyhof Johnson '44 Professor of Political Science, Wellesley College
'This book is a masterful combination of theory and evidence concerning great power interventions in revolutionary civil wars. The authors creatively weave together role theory and frame analysis to generate their hierarchical intervention theory focusing on four key frames and their behavioral implications. They test their predictions with a novel mixed-methods approach that includes a large-N statistical analysis that provides support for the theory at a general level (and casts doubt on competing explanations), followed by rich, in-depth case studies to flesh out the causal pathways in the key contemporary cases of Afghanistan, Libya and Syria. The overall effect is a compelling analysis of great power interventions with implications for the liberal international order and the current conflict in Ukraine. This is a must read for scholars and policymakers alike.' Cameron G. Thies, Dean and MSU Foundation Professor, Michigan State University
'A thoroughly researched and thoughtful analysis of the motives and means that great powers consider before committing support for third party conflicts. It also addresses many of the misconceptions about why great powers choose to get involved, and the risks, from public opinion to failure, they have to consider. A must read for foreign policy makers, diplomats, and national security professionals.' Michael E. Ennis, (USMC, Ret.)
'Well-organized, well-conceived, well-theorized, well-researched and well-written, this is an excellent book that will make a significant contribution to our understanding of great power politics and of intervention!' Stephen M. Saidemann, Paterson Chair in International Affairs and Director of the Canadian Defence and Security Network, Carleton University
Product details
September 2025Hardback
9781009560559
311 pages
229 × 152 mm
Not yet published - available from September 2025
Table of Contents
- 1. Introduction: why great powers intervene
- 2. Hierarchical intervention theory
- 3. Security hierarchies at war
- 4. Proxy interventions in 1980s Afghanistan
- 5. Liberal interventions in post-9/11 Afghanistan
- 6. Hierarchical interventions in post-2011 Syria and Libya
- 7. Conclusion
- Appendices
- Codebook
- References.
