2007 Helen Dwight Reid Award

For the best doctoral dissertation completed and accepted in the previous two years (2005 or 2006) in the field of international relations, law, and politics.

Award Committee: Michael N. Barnett, Chair, University of Minnesota; Lars-Erik Cederman, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH); Errol A. Henderson, Pennsylvania State University

Recipient:  Jason M.K. Lyall, Princeton University

Dissertation: “Paths of Ruin: Why Revisionist States Arise and Die in World Politics”

Dissertation Chair:  Peter Katzenstein, Cornell University

Citation:  We have selected Jason Lyall (Ph.D., Cornell University) as the winner of this year’s Helen Dwight Reid Award. His dissertation, Paths to Ruin, provides a fresh exploration of a longstanding debate: how to explain the causes and consequences of revisionist states.  Whereas many existing accounts, largely deriving from a realist framework, focus on opportunities generated by the international distribution of power, Lyall argues that the roots of revisionism lie in the regime’s search for domestic legitimacy and its appropriation of a particular collective identity.    In order to try and legitimate its rule, the regime will engage in an “identity project,” that is, attempt to fix a particular identity portfolio and identify itself with that conception.  Once the regime casts its lot with a particular construction of the collective identity, however, it will soon discover that its own latitude for action will be severely circumscribed.  Importantly, not all collective identities will increase the probability that the regime will engage in a risky strategy of revisionism.  Lyall argues that collective identities vary along two dimensions – exclusivity, the extent to which the regime mobilizes against or scapegoats foreign and domestic enemies, and coherence, the extent to which different constituent elements of the identity have an integrity.  Those regimes that attempt to legitimate their regimes through identity projects that are both exclusive and incoherent will be more likely to engage in revisionist behavior – and more likely to suffer the costs of risky action.  A principal reason why an exclusivist identity project that has different fragments will increase the chances of risky and self-destructive behavior is because it: increases the degree of domestic counter mobilization; intensifies the security dilemma; and ties regime’s political fortunes to an exclusivist identity, thus raising the political costs if it retreats or compromises in the face of international opposition.   The state’s security is sacrificed for regime stability. 

 In order to test the strength and robustness of his argument, Lyall uses two paired comparisons that control for the variables favored by neorealist and rationalist explanations.  Drawing from a survey of revisionist and status quo states since 1815, Lyall offers two pair-wise comparisons: adopting the method of agreement, he compares two revisionist states, France (1848-71) and Pakistan (1947-71); and using the method of difference he examines the divergent cases of France (1816-48) and the Soviet Union (1917-53).  The bulk of the empirical argument, though, focuses on postcommunist Russia, which neorealist theories suggest would be a prime candidate for revisionism but nevertheless has bounced between status quo and revisionist status.   Imaginatively and systematically using computer-aided content analysis to measure the consistency and content of the Russia governments’ identity project, Lyall explores the contested nature of Russia’s search for a post-communist identity. 

 This ambitious dissertation makes several important contributions to the fields of international relations theory and international security.  It provides an important alternative explanation for our understanding of the causes of revisionist states.  It demonstrates that the strategic appropriation and manipulation of identity by government leaders can have lasting and disastrous consequences. It identifies the causal mechanisms and the conditions under which we are more likely to see a relationship between regime, collective identity, revisionism, and failure.  The argument nicely synthesizes elements of constructivist and rationalist international relations theory, and thus shows the possibility and benefits of theoretical eclecctism, and international relations and comparative politics, and thus reinforces the inclination to build theories from these two domains.

It is clearly written; the logic of the argument is nicely laid out and the cases are nicely tied to the theoretical framework.   It utilizes new methods for assessing debates over collective identity, and multiple methods, including case methods, statistical analysis, and content analysis, for testing the argument.  In short, Lyall has produced a dissertation of high distinction that successfully tackles a big and important question, that makes a valuable contribution to various literatures, and that demonstrates considerable originality in theory development and testing.