Panagiotis Vasileiadis

How do great powers behave when their power is in decline? Do they burst forth in defence of what they may lose or do they opt for prudence by reducing external commitments? Existing theories of strategic adjustment provide a number of static models, split into these predicting policy continuity and to those expecting actors to re-structure their commitments so as to survive in a competitive state “market”. Still, what neither approach captures is that past declining powers have selected both 'options'. In response, a neoclassical realist theory of strategic adjustment is developed, proposing an interactive and longitudinal model so as to capture historical 'messiness'.