Content area
Why do states cooperate with their adversaries and start conflicts with their friends? This research investigates “strategic misalignment,” when a state cooperates in one domain—either verbal or material action—with a partner state, then it engages in conflict in the opposite domain with the same partner state. As a result, the state has either 1. verbally expressed cooperation but then action never materializes, or 2. the state supports its partner through actions, but then engages in verbal conflict by condemning its partner or otherwise declines to support it verbally. This research analyzes case studies on bilateral relations between select Latin American countries with the United States, China, and Russia in the contemporary era to understand how and why states sometimes strategically misalign themselves. This research goes beyond IR and comparative politics literature, as it amalgamates domestic and international variables to identify and evaluate how certain combinations of factors are more or less likely to lead to different alignment outcomes between states. States are interdependent and I therefore argue that they tend toward cooperation but at times provoke verbal conflict with other states to promote their domestic political agendas. Furthermore, I argue that true conflict between Latin American and leading-power countries is rare and mostly rhetorical. Altogether, this research contributes to the field of political science by defining the concept of strategic misalignment and shedding light on its inner workings, as well as by providing another lens through which we can analyze the quality of strategic partnerships.