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Indirect Rule examines how states indirectly exercise authority over others and how this mode of rule affects domestic and international politics. Indirect rule has long characterized interstate relationships and US foreign relations. A key mechanism of international hierarchy, indirect rule involves an allied group within a client state adopting policies preferred by a dominant state in exchange for the dominant state's support. Drawing on the history of US involvement in the Caribbean and Central America, Western Europe, and the Arab Middle East, David A. Lake shows that indirect rule is more likely to occur when the specific assets at risk are large and governance costs are low. Lake's conceptualization of indirect rule sharpens our understanding of how the United States came to occupy the pinnacle of world power. Yet the consequences of indirect rule he documents - including anti-Americanism - reveal its shortcomings. As US efforts at democracy promotion and other forms of intervention abroad face declining support at home, Indirect Rule compels us to consider whether this method of rule ultimately advances US interests.

Indirect Rule examines how states indirectly exercise authority over others and how this mode of rule affects domestic and international politics. Indirect rule has long characterized interstate relationships and US foreign relations. A key mechanism of international hierarchy, indirect rule involves an allied group within a client state adopting policies preferred by a dominant state in exchange for the dominant state's support. Drawing on the history of US involvement in the Caribbean and Central America, Western Europe, and the Arab Middle East, David A. Lake shows that indirect rule is more likely to occur when the specific assets at risk are large and governance costs are low. Lake's conceptualization of indirect rule sharpens our understanding of how the United States came to occupy the pinnacle of world power. Yet the consequences of indirect rule he documents—including anti-Americanism—reveal its shortcomings. As US efforts at democracy promotion and other forms of intervention abroad face declining support at home, Indirect Rule compels us to consider whether this method of rule ultimately advances US interests

Frontmatter -- CONTENTS -- List of Figures and Tables -- Preface -- CHAPTER 1. Introduction -- CHAPTER 2. Security Relationships -- CHAPTER 3. A Theory of Relational Contracting -- CHAPTER 4. The Lone Hand -- CHAPTER 5. Cold War Cooperation -- CHAPTER 6. Gulliver's Triumph -- CHAPTER 7. Relational Contracting and International Relations -- CHAPTER 8. Conclusion -- References -- Index

Power Protection, and Free Trade -- Contents -- Preface -- Introduction -- Part I. Structure And Strategy -- 1. A Theory of International Economic Structures -- 2. Structure, the State, and Trade Strategy -- Part II. American Trade Strategy -- 3. Free Riding on Free Trade, 1887-1897 -- 4. British Decline and American Opportunism, 1897-1912 -- 5. The Politics of Opportunistic Accommodation, 1912-1930 -- 6. Protection, Retaliation, and Response, 1930-1939 -- Conclusion -- Appendix: Relative Labor Productivity: Definitional and Operational Considerations -- Index

Why do nations so frequently abandon unrestricted international commerce in favor of trade protectionism? David A. Lake contends that the dominant explanation, interest group theory, does not adequately explain American trade strategy or address the contradictory elements of cooperation and conflict that shape the international economy.Power, Protection, and Free Trade offers an alternative, systemic approach to trade strategy that builds on the interaction between domestic and international factors. In this innovative book, Lake maintains that both protection and free trade are legitimate and effective instruments of national policy, the considered responses of nations to varying international structures.

Abstract
How do states secure and maintain political authority over territory? In Settling for Less: Why States Colonize and Why They Stop, Lachlan McNamee explores one common mechanism for building authority, namely settler colonialism, that should be of interest to scholars beyond those interested in colonialism per se. Building a novel theory, he explains when settler colonialism is employed by states and, importantly, why it typically becomes obsolete with economic development. Using new data, he surveys paired cases of Indonesian settlement in New Guinea and Australia's failed attempt in Papua New Guinea, as well as two periods of Chinese settlement in Xinjiang. One underdeveloped dimension of this otherwise outstanding book is the strategic choices of the indigenes. A second dimension is the alternatives to settler colonialism, including direct and indirect rule through indigenous proxies. While McNamee pushes the research frontier outwards, exerting and consolidating state authority over peripheries remain a challenge. To the extent settler colonialism "works," that is, migrants from a majority group move into and dominate the periphery so as to attach the region more firmly to the national-state, the indigenous community is not only displaced and exploited in the moment but it is economically and politically undermined for the future. The indigenes are not credibly protected against future exploitation but, at the extreme, are eliminated in genocidal wars.

AbstractThe liberal international order is being challenged today by populism and unilateralism. Though it has been resilient in the past, the current challenges from within the order are unprecedented. Without being too pessimistic, I expect the LIO will survive but retract to its original core states in North America, Europe, and Northeast Asia, shedding some of its universal pretensions. States that remain within the liberal order, in turn, will compete with an alternative Chinese-led international hierarchy built around all or part of the current Belt and Road Initiative countries. While international institutions can facilitate cooperation, they do not bridge this emerging divide sufficiently to forestall conflict and, in any event, will not be sufficiently robust to prevent a new cold war. As part of the roundtable "International Institutions and Peaceful Change," this brief essay sketches this argument and concludes with some possible ways of moderating future conflicts.

The ecology of governance organizations (GOs) matters for what is or is not governed, what legitimate powers any governor may hold, and whose political preferences are instantiated in rules. The array of actors who comprise the current system of global governance has grown dramatically in recent decades. Especially notable has been the growth of private governance organizations (PGOs). Drawing on organizational ecology, I posit that the rise of PGOs is both required and facilitated by disagreements between states that block the creation of what might be otherwise effective intergovernmental organizations (IGOs). In a form of "double-negative regulation," states block IGOs, which in turn leave open niches that are then filled by PGOs, which then both complement and sometimes substitute for state law. The organizational ecology approach outlined here extends and refocuses inquiry in systematic ways that give us a fuller understanding of how and why PGOs have emerged as one of the most striking features of the contemporary world order. The key innovations in this paper are to (a) shift the level of analysis from single agents or populations of agents to the entire field of GOs, including states, IGOs, and PGOs and (b) draw on principles of ecology to understand the composition and dynamics of systems of governance.

The pillars of the Pax Americana are decaying. There are two critical challenges. Our interests with our closest allies have been drifting apart for decades, with increasingly serious consequences. A new populist and economic nationalist coalition has been mobilized in the United States, challenging the internationalist coalition that has prevailed at home since the second World War. These challenges are not the product of President Donald J. Trump. He is the manifestation of these challenges, not their cause. Understanding these challenges requires examining anew the role of international legitimacy and authority in world politics and recognizing that different international orders have different distributional consequences. This essay summarizes my past research on the incentives for international hierarchy, integrates the role of domestic interests into that theory, and explores the nature and role of international legitimacy in the study of world order. Part II examines the Pax Americana, and contrasts this order with those found in the Caribbean basin and Middle East. The final section outlines the changing incentives for cooperation between the United States and Europe, discusses the rise of populism in the United States, and suggests ways of addressing the current challenges to internationalism.