Editor’s note: Dr. Max Margulies, MWI’s chief research officer, recently published an article with George Washington University’s Rachel Tecott in the Journal of Strategic Studies. In it, they examine the defense reform commissions in Bosnia to demonstrate that the international relations theory concept of “issue linkage” can be a useful tool to incentivize cooperation in security assistance efforts.
This article applies the international cooperation concept of issue linkage to identify an overlooked pathway to successful security assistance. We argue that providers can effectively incentivize recipients to implement otherwise undesirable reforms when they explicitly link implementation to another good whose value to the recipient outweighs the costs of the reforms. Drawing on original interviews, we find support for our argument in post-Dayton Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), where the United States used the promise of NATO’s Partnership for Peace program to incentivize BiH to integrate its three armies.
Read the full article here.
Max Z. Margulies is director of research and an assistant professor at the Modern War Institute at West Point. He previously served as an assistant professor in the Department of Social Sciences, where he was executive director of the Rupert H. Johnson Grand Strategy Program. His research and teaching focus on military recruitment, strategy, and civil–military relations. His work has appeared in Security Studies, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, War on the Rocks, and Just Security, among other outlets.
Rachel Metz is an assistant professor in the Political Science Department at George Washington University, where her research focuses on security cooperation, US military strategy and effectiveness, and methods for studying war. Her work has appeared in International Security, Security Studies, Foreign Affairs, the Washington Quarterly, the Washington Post, and War on the Rocks, among other outlets.