Description
How do great powers respond to their declining status in international relations? Existing studies treat decline as a material phenomenon and focus on conflict as the dominant outcome. Integrating insights from psychology, we reconceptualize decline as a social phenomenon and argue that great powers may respond to decline not only via retaliation but also by reasserting their status. Their responses depend on the level of polarization in domestic politics. While low polarization enables the state to muster resources for reassertion, under high polarization retaliation becomes the only feasible option. We assess our argument by comparing US responses to the “Sputnik moment” in the Cold War, when bipartisan consensus enabled Washington to reassert its status through the space race; and to China’s technological rise today, when record polarization only permits retaliation. Using a survey experiment in the US, we assess more directly whether domestic polarization increases support for reassertion or retaliation.
