Please watch this very short clip of @EdwardLemon3 and I discussing our @DoDMinerva grant with Marlene Laruelle @IERES_GWU. Also, a short thread about what we're going to do... (1/x) https://twitter.com/BushSchoolDC/status/1352711194415665152

"Great Power Competition" (GPC) is something that everyone talks about but without a clear definition. Our project treats GPC as three different things: great power conflict, great powers developing hierarchical orders, and domestic support in great powers for foreign policy.(2/x

In this chapter for @Palgrave I go into much more detail, so access it if you can or let me know https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-25606-7_9

What Ed, Marlene, and I are going to do in this project, however, is to concentrate on where we think most of international politics actually happens: great powers trying to build hierarchical orders and networks that aggregate into their alliances. (3/x)

That's where we believe the cut and thrust of international politics actually is: great powers shaping the opportunities, choices, and consequences for smaller states, and those same smaller states exercising their agency in return. After all, the big powers need them too. (4/x)

We're going to focus on Central Asia, where Russia, China, and the US all have equities and interests and the local states exercise considerable amount of agency. Ed has a great thread on the interviews, surveys, and fieldwork he and Marlene will do here: https://twitter.com/EdwardLemon3/status/1352714870924447744?s=20

How our project will differ from others is in measuring the influence of great powers on target states by the resilience of the latter states in the security, economic, diplomatic, and informational interactions they have with external powers. (6/x)