The most typical treatment of international relations is to conceive it
as a battle between two antagonistic states volleying back and forth. In
reality, interstate relations are often at least two-level games in
which decision-makers operate not only in an international environment
but also in a competitive domestic context. Given that interstate
rivalries are responsible for a disproportionate share of discord in
world politics, this book sets out to explain just how these two-level
rivalries really work. By reference to specific cases, specialists on
Asian rivalries examine three related questions: what is the mix of
internal (domestic politics) and external (interstate politics) stimuli
in the dynamics of their rivalries; in what types of circumstances do
domestic politics become the predominant influence on rivalry dynamics;
when domestic politics become predominant, is their effect more likely
to lead to the escalation or de-escalation of rivalry hostility? By
pulling together the threads laid out by each contributor, the editors
create a 'grounded theory' for interstate rivalries that breaks new
ground in international relations theory.