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Cohabitation in International Relations: Managed Competition in Fragile States
Hardcover
Series: Routledge Studies in Global and Transnational Politics
General Political ScienceInternational Relations
ISBN13: 9781041355168
Publisher: Routledge
Published: Oct 26 2026
Pages: 160
Language: English
Cohabitation in International Relations offers a groundbreaking framework to explain why, in a world of intense Great Power Competition, rival powers sometimes tolerate each other's presence in weak states rather than engaging in full-scale conflict.
Why do the United States and Iran coexist in Iraq, while Russia and the West fight a proxy war in Ukraine? Why do some weak states become shatterbelts, while others maintain an uneasy state of overlapping influence? When a distant Global Power encounters a neighboring Regional Power with deep historical ties, they often enter a tense but durable stalemate--a fragile equilibrium where displacement is costly. This book draws on cases from the Middle East, South Asia, and Post- Soviet space, the Western Hemisphere and Africa, and identifies the structural rules governing this phenomenon, including 'The Actor Rule', 'The Influence Rule' and 'The Proximity Rule'. By formalizing a framework that no existing theory fully explains, this book fills a critical gap in IR scholarship. It redefines contemporary statecraft, showing that success is no longer measured only in battlefield victories, but in managing the complex, high-stakes reality of living alongside rivals.
Cohabitation in International Relations is essential reading for scholars, students, policymakers, and analysts in International Relations, Security Studies, and Geopolitics.
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