Introduction: The ‘discovery’ of hedging in the late 1990s and its persisting theoretical underdevelopment
The concept of hedging is a relatively new one within the International Relations (IR) literature, having appeared and started to be used extensively by scholars between the late 1990s and the early 2000s.Footnote 1 The term has been borrowed from the finance literature, where it indicates a strategy through which an investor attempts to offset the risks connected to possessing a financial asset or making a particular investment by diversifying their portfolio and maintaining a balanced position.Footnote 2 Its import from a distant scholarly field has been motivated by the need to frame theoretically a peculiar alignment behaviour which was being adopted by many small and medium-sized states, first and foremost located in south-east Asia, whose defining features could apparently not be captured by under the ‘classic’ IR literature alignment categories of balancing and bandwagoning. Concretely, already at the turn of the century most south-east Asian states were trying to maintain an equidistant positioning vis-à-vis the United States and China, the main great power players active in the region.
If on the one hand the United States had been for decades at the apex of the regional power hierarchy and the de-facto guarantor of south-east Asia’s order, on the other hand China appeared to be poised to catch up with it in different domains. The changing power ratio between the two, together with the unpredictability of the evolution of their relations and the shadow of a possible regional power transition, generated crucial strategic uncertainties for south-east Asian states. Albeit clearly ranking very differently in terms of resources and capabilities, all the actors in the region can be categorised as secondary states, defined as political entities that cannot provide autonomously and meaningfully for their own security vis-à-vis major powers and which, therefore, need to rely upon direct or indirect forms of great power patronage.Footnote 3 So, anticipating the possibility of a change at the top of the regional hierarchy, and especially considering the underlying risks of ‘betting on the wrong horse’, most secondary states in south-east Asia were said to be hedging their strategic bets as a form of security insurance. Such strategic decision entailed avoiding aligning with either China or the United States, cultivating instead a dynamic equidistance underpinned by a flurry of concurrent relations with both of them. Starting from 2010s, the intensification of Sino-American competition across the Indo-Pacific amplified this predicament. As a response, states in south-east Asia have now chosen to double down on their strategic equidistance between the two great powers, so much so that some scholars argue that nowadays almost all of them are hedging, one way or another.Footnote 4 ‘Hedging’, then, has unquestionably become the new conceptual buzzword among academics studying the region, and the term is now widely utilised in scholarly analyses to frame south-east Asian states’ preferred alignment choice.Footnote 5
Yet, despite its extensive usage, given its relatively recent introduction in the International Relations scholarly lexicon, there is no substantial agreement over the theoretical building blocks of the hedging phenomenon. In Medeiros’s view, hedging ‘is highly underdeveloped both in the international relations theory and security studies literatures’.Footnote 6 As a consequence, widespread debates are currently ongoing as to what are its main features, how concretely international actors articulate it, in which policy fields it can be observed, and who are the states more prone to adopt it, among many others. Hence, notwithstanding its growing popularity, hedging remains for the most part a fuzzy concept, whose key underpinnings are yet to be rigorously and unequivocally framed from a theoretical standpoint.
Scholarly discussions have been particularly lively when it comes to categorising the ‘nature’ of hedging at a theoretical level. Among the numerous attempts, one of the most popular definitions pictures hedging as ‘a set of strategies aimed at avoiding (or planning for contingencies in) a situation in which states cannot decide upon more straightforward alternatives such as balancing, bandwagoning, or neutrality. Instead they cultivate a middle position that forestalls or avoids having to choose one side at the obvious expense of another.’Footnote 7 The depiction of hedging as a middle strategic position is indeed widespread among scholars. As such, it is normally situated within the different forms of alignment comprised between balancing and bandwagoning. According to Tan, ‘hedging is typically defined as a middle way between balancing and bandwagoning’, and then it can be framed as ‘a third strategic choice’.Footnote 8 Similarly, Hiep conceives the phenomenon as a strategy encompassing a basket of policy tools ‘situated anywhere along a continuum extending from pure bandwagoning to pure balancing’.Footnote 9
While for sure its localisation within a spectrum helps reinforcing the idea that hedging can be framed as a middle-ground alignment strategy, it is also the indeterminateness as to where exactly it can be located within the various alignment categories that has generated controversies around its conceptual usefulness at a theoretical level and its empirical added value in informing foreign policy analyses.Footnote 10 It is not unequivocally associated with balancing, nor is it a type of clear-cut bandwagoning; conversely, it floats somewhere in between these two different and opposite alignment poles.
Besides balancing and bandwagoning, a strand of recent scholarship has started to look at the alignment form of neutrality when attempting to frame the phenomenon at a theoretical level. This is because, as mentioned above, the literature generally concurs in considering hedging as a sort of intermediate position, wherein a secondary state avoids choosing a clear side among two competitors. As such, in fact hedging seems to present notable similarities with neutrality. However, while representing a welcome attempt at better categorising hedging, said academic endeavours have not sufficiently delved into the vast existing literature on neutrality, nor have they comprehensively attempted to explain what specific analytical features would link hedging to neutrality.
The aim of this paper is then to bring conceptual and theoretical clarity as to the exact positioning of hedging within the broader alignment family and as to its specific features. While advancing the case that hedging is, indeed, a form of neutrality, it will explain why and according to which analytical features it shall be considered as a category of this type of alignment. In doing so, the present work will not only provide a contribution to the alignment literature, but it will also help to move hedging away from the ivory tower of contemporary south-east Asian studies, opening up the possibility of checking for its recurrence across history and geographical spaces.
The remainder of this paper is organised as follows. First, the most common alignment options for secondary states according to mainstream IR scholarship will be described, and it will be explained why neutrality has been often overlooked; also, an explanation will be provided as to why more analytical granularity in alignment studies is needed. Second, the main categories of neutrality, alongside their main analytical features, will be illustrated. Third, a literature review will trace how scholars have discussed the linkages between the concept of hedging and that of neutrality. Fourth, against the previously identified analytical features, the case will be made for considering hedging as a new category of neutrality. Last, the limitations and conclusions of this study will be drawn.
The IR literature and the ‘classic’ alignment options pertaining to secondary states: Balancing and bandwagoning
According to the mainstream realist tenets of IR literature, amid an international environment defined by anarchy and competition between major actors, the other minor states have two main ideal-typical alignment options: balancing and bandwagoning. Balancing can be simply defined as ‘allying with others against the prevailing threat’.Footnote 11 Bandwagoning refers to a conduct in which ‘the threatened state abandons hope of preventing the aggressor from gaining power at its expense and instead joins forces with its dangerous foe to get at least some small portion of the spoils of war’.Footnote 12 Such logic is postulated on the limited resource base available to secondary states: given the impossibility of building up internally effective defence capabilities, from a realist perspective it is logical to assume that they should have all the security incentives to tether themselves to a more powerful actor, in order to maximise protection and chances of survival. This is deemed to be especially true during periods of great power frictions or approaching conflict between them; in such circumstances, ‘the weak states must side with or at least lean toward one or another of the powers’.Footnote 13
While such a dichotomous vision is the most prevalent within the IR discourse, its fixation on a pure material power-based logic in accounting for the limitations pertaining to small actors in international politics is in many respects too simplistic, as it overlooks other possible ways through which they can try to provide for their security. For instance, an alternative option for secondary states to try to overcome the security dilemma is through collective security institutions, either at a global level (such as the League of Nations or the United Nations today) or regional (such as ASEAN).Footnote 14 Also, secondary state alignment choices do not take place in a vacuum but are often contingent on systemic considerations that constraint or incentivise their actorness on the international scene. For instance, at the beginning of the so-called American unipolar moment after the Cold War, scholars introduced the concept of ‘soft balancing’, which served to make sense of the fact that many second-tier states were neither aligning unconditionally with the unipole nor resorting to hard forms of balancing against it.Footnote 15 Instead they preferred softer, collective, and institutional forms of balancing, to push against specific actions and behaviours of the United States.Footnote 16
Finally, and most crucially, as hinted above balancing and bandwagoning are merely ideal-typical forms of alignment, located at the extreme poles of a spectrum. Yet in reality they never take the ‘pure’ forms. Conversely, international actors, and among those especially smaller ones, resort to nuanced and peculiar forms of both balancing and bandwagoning, which are contingent on their strategic preferences and interests, tailored to some specific systemic circumstances they need to cope with, or dependent upon the available means that said actors have at hand. Established and recent IR literature has delved into outlining these specific categories of alignment and has analysed their specific features.
Classically, balancing has been differentiated between ‘internal’, i.e. carried out by building up one’s own military capabilities, and ‘external’, i.e. concretised by entering into an alliance with other powers. Recently, IR scholarship has started to provide a more granular analysis of balancing categories. In Tarapore’s view, ‘zone balancing’ refers to those instances when a secondary state tries to balance a rising rival asymmetrically, by reinforcing other regional states against the adversary’s coercion or inducements, thus ‘shaping the “zone” – or geographic region – of strategic competition’.Footnote 17 According to He, balancing can take place outside the military dimension and be ‘institutional’, manifested when states decide to counter ‘pressures or threats through initiating, utilizing, and dominating multilateral institutions’.Footnote 18 Last, Meijer and Simón have advanced the idea of ‘covert’ balancing, which happens when an established great power hides its security cooperation with a non-aligned secondary state beneath a cover (for instance, joint activities in non-traditional security domains), which however generates latent capacities to balance a common enemy in the future.Footnote 19
The same granularity can be observed with bandwagoning. Traditionally, it has been associated with secondary states resorting to it as a last-ditch attempt at self-preservation vis-à-vis a threatening actor,Footnote 20 putting such behaviour into practice by overtly joining its side. Yet, as a new study of Lebanidze and Kakachia has advanced, bandwagoning on the part of a small state can be carried out ‘by stealth’, meaning that the bandwagoning state’s ruling elite can accommodate a dangerous great power partially and informally.Footnote 21 In addition, beyond the survivalist rationale, literature’s recent advancements have shown how international actors can adopt bandwagoning also out of profit-seeking motivation,Footnote 22 when sharing similar interests,Footnote 23 in a quest to enhance their international status,Footnote 24 to ensure their regime leader’s continuity,Footnote 25 or to dampen a hegemon’s security suspicions regarding their ambitions,Footnote 26 among other reasons.
As then evidenced in the preceding paragraphs, while the predominant neorealist paradigm posits that secondary states are chiefly driven by survival considerations and typically confined within a rigid and rather abstract balancing–bandwagoning dichotomy in the context of a great power rivalry, in practice these states present variegated interests and possess considerable agency in delineating the contours of their balancing or bandwagoning strategies, which hence present themselves under different categories with peculiar features.
Secondary state neutrality: The often-overlooked alignment option
The same structural realist bias according to which secondary states are usually deemed an epiphenomenon in world politics can account for the fact that another alignment option has been somewhat neglected by the literature when discussing great powers/secondary states dynamics: neutrality. In its basic understanding, neutrality can be conceived as a strategic behaviour through which a state decides not to align itself with any other state in the system. Because of this, scholarly literature, and especially literature belonging to a realist tradition, has experienced difficulties in making sense of the connection between neutrality and secondary states, given that resorting to such alignment option would leave them ‘alone’ and exposed to intense security risks.Footnote 27 As noted by Karsh ‘neutrality is the opposite of the “typical” policy followed by the small state’.Footnote 28 Yet, the historical track record of secondary states resorting to neutrality, even when facing intense security dilemmas, is far from negligible.Footnote 29
Far from being a monolithic concept, throughout time neutrality has presented itself under a multitude of different configurations, and the actors adopting it have used it flexibly, both as an ideational guiding principle in foreign policy and as a full-fledged strategic tool to navigate complex strategic environments.Footnote 30 Indeed, equally with what it has been evidenced above in the case of balancing and bandwagoning, the concept of neutrality also presents itself under different categories, each one with its own specific features. In order to bring about conceptual clarity, the following sections will provide an essential typology of the main categories which neutrality can take at an empirical level and detail the reasons why hedging should be added to those.
Before moving to those sections, however, an explanation as to the theoretical implication and scholarly added value of such exercise is warranted.
Why granularity matters: Explaining the theoretical implications of fine-tuning scholarly understanding of alignment categories
The literature review provided in the section above has illustrated how balancing and bandwagoning are just mere ideal-typical constructs, while in empirical reality such alignment options are conjugated in different ways, each with its own features. As will be shown below, the same holds true for neutrality. But then, why is it worth analysing the ‘nuances’ of the various alignment options?
First, given the ever-growing complexification of the contemporary international system, from a theoretical standpoint it is necessary to better frame some of the key analytical concepts used to make sense of it. For instance, recently efforts have been devoted to elucidating the micro and macro differences between the various forms of interstate security cooperation.Footnote 31 In the same vein, the papers on balancing and bandwagoning quoted above have shown how IR literature has been looking at the alignment category of balancing and bandwagoning with a more marked granular lens. This has allowed it to single out specific categories of balancing and bandwagoning, each with its own specific characteristics. Besides providing an important theoretical contribution to the literature on alignment more broadly, such scholarly advancements have helped to shed light on some specificities of international actors’ alignment behaviour, and particularly smaller actors, whose agency has often been overlooked.
Second, categorising the differences within alignment options matters to better comprehend some important dynamics in world politics. To start with, the choice of a certain option over another (e.g. ‘institutional’ balancing instead of ‘zone’ balancing) arguably reveals specific foreign policy objectives and/or internal constraints of the state adopting it. Additionally, a minor actor that bandwagons for profit is likely to act in the international arena in a completely different manner from one that bandwagons to augment its international status. In turn, depending on the specific category of balancing or bandwagoning it has adopted, the state in question will elicit a peculiar response from other international actors, as for instance great power rivals engaged in a competition. This action–reaction mechanism clearly has a non-negligible impact on the relations between units and on the security dynamics of the international system.
Considering this set of interrelated factors, it is hence indispensable to continue in the quest to provide a more granular understanding of the various alignment forms and their defining features, in this case as concerns neutrality.
The different categories of neutrality according to the IR literature
In researching neutrality and its possible declinations, according to Lottaz it is indispensable to distinguish between two levels of analysis, the first being ‘historical research that describes the observable phenomenon of neutral behavior and its related effects, in other words, specific instances when countries (or actors) remained neutral’, and the second, ‘the moral, legal, political, and ideational assessment of neutral situations, which are theoretical discussions that treat issues (including but not limited to) the underlying reasons and the larger impact of neutrality on specific conflict dynamics, security systems, identities, and norms’.Footnote 32 Given the specific angle chosen, the remainder of this paper will limit itself to zooming in on just the first analytical level described above, pertaining to the empirical recurrences of neutral behaviour(s) throughout history.
In the realm of international politics, the meaning of neutrality refers to a situation in which an actor refrains from making a choice between two rivals; according to the Oxford English Dictionary, for instance, in this context neutrality can be framed as ‘a neutral policy or attitude between contending parties or states; abstention from taking any part in a war between other states’.Footnote 33 While at an abstract level this is indeed the basic meaning of neutrality, at an empirical level the reality is that more granularity does exist, and thus neutrality can be differentiated along three broad categories: occasional neutrality, long-term voluntary neutrality, and permanent neutrality.Footnote 34
Occasional neutrality consists in a unilateral declaration made by a state concerning its decision not to take sides during a specific war involving two or more parties. Such neutrality pertains to great powers and secondary states alike and, throughout history, has been the most commonly adopted. This neutral stance presents itself as a temporary condition chosen voluntarily and limited to a circumstantiated conflict, not precluding the actor adopting it from the possibility of intervening at a later stage or taking part in another war in the future. In modern times, by declaring themselves neutral on some specific occasions, states come to have precise rights (for themselves) and duties (in relations to the belligerents) connected to this status, extensively codified in a specific branch of international law.Footnote 35 Historical instances of this form of neutrality are Spain’s neutrality declaration at the onset of the First World War on August 1914,Footnote 36 or the similar declaration made by Portugal on September 1939 when the Second World War commenced in Europe,Footnote 37 among many others.
As for the category of long-term voluntary neutrality, it pertains to secondary states that have willingly committed themselves to a long-standing policy of abstention from the logics of power politics, making neutrality a cornerstone of their foreign policy not just during wars, but also in peacetime.Footnote 38 This neutral status can be manifested explicitly, for instance by enshrining it in the country’s constitutional charter or by entering into international treaties in which their neutral stance is acknowledged by the other signatories. Examples could be articles 173 and 185 of the Swiss Federal Constitution, as well as Austria’s Federal Constitutional Law of 1955. In recent times, Turkmenistan as well has chosen to write its neutral status down in its constitutional charter.Footnote 39 Also, long-term neutral status can have a more implicit dimension, taking the form of a ‘de-facto’ long-term neutrality, which is adopted as a transversal guiding principle of a country’s foreign policy but is not written down. Usually, in such instances the neutralist principles have a solid foothold in the cultural milieu of the society of the state that adopts them. Fitting examples of a de-facto neutral with a long tradition are Ireland and Sweden, while Mongolia can be considered as de-facto neutral since the 1990s.Footnote 40 Long-term voluntary neutrality has usually been associated with a certain norm entrepreneurship for the institutionalisation of the rights of neutrals within international fora and in international law on the part of the states adopting it. A case in point is the proactiveness of the small European neutrals before the First World War in advocating for the conclusion of the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907.Footnote 41 Also, many long-term neutral states have acted as mediators in alleviating great power tensions, as their role in the establishment of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe in the 1970s testifies.Footnote 42 Very often, this type of neutrality has been associated as well with the maintenance of strong defence forces, as the cases of Switzerland and the Netherlands during both world wars testify well.Footnote 43
Finally, the third category is that of permanent neutrality. The adoption of this status is not taken on directly by the concerned state; rather, it is decided following an agreement between great powers. Through this process, known as ‘neutralisation’, a group of powerful states (generally located in the immediate vicinity of the neutralised state) pledge to guarantee the neutrality and the territorial integrity of a nation.Footnote 44 In general, the neutralised subject is a small secondary state located in a particularly relevant geostrategic position. Through this agreement, the concerned great powers in practice establish a buffer zone using the territory of the neutralised subject.Footnote 45 In exchange for the guarantee of its inviolability during wartime, the state in question renounces the right to the use of force in the international arena and to conclude alliances, thus accepting a limitation in the conduct of its foreign policy. Hence, it is possible to argue that, while the great powers are the main actors behind such process, the minor state retains part of its agency by giving its consent to such an arrangement, exchanging a major share of its autonomy for security. The most relevant example in this regard is the neutralisation of Belgium in 1839, but the cases of Luxembourg in 1867 and, more recently, Laos during the Second Indochina War can also be quoted.Footnote 46
In addition to the three categories just outlined, there is another one that is to be linked to neutrality: non-alignment. From an historical standpoint, the concept of non-alignment pertains to a specific era, the Cold War, and to specific actors, the Third World states undergoing their process of decolonisation since the end of the Second World War.Footnote 47 According to Fischer et al., non-alignment can hence be understood as a policy behaviour through which:
many newly independent states refused to align themselves with either of the two contending superpowers or to take a stand in their conflict. The nonaligned states shared an obligation with the neutral countries to remain outside the bloc structures. Non-alignment, however, is neither legal in nature nor based on any neutral rights and duties. Nor is it related to permanent neutrality. … Non-alignment is a political concept based on morality, with a clear intention to promote efforts toward peace, security, and stability in international relations.Footnote 48
In order to do so, the Cold War-era non-aligned states organised themselves into a political grouping, the ‘Non-Aligned Movement’, which on the one hand refused the logic of the dyadic ideological competition between the Soviet Union and the United States, and on the other hand championed the discussions on issues such as decolonisation, disarmament, non-proliferation, and economic development-related problems within international fora.Footnote 49 Framed as such, non-alignment can hence be ranked as a politically organised form of neutrality, directly linked to Cold War dynamics.Footnote 50 Importantly, what also makes non-alignment distinguishable from the other types of neutrality is that, for the states adopting it, the focus on conflict avoidance applies just to confrontations connected to great power competitive dynamics, and not to potential future wars unassociated with them.Footnote 51 Finally, as noted in a seminal study, very often non-alignment policies have been practised with the ‘implicit arrière-pensée that, in effect, great-power support will be available if needed. The future ally is disguised, but it is the presumption that he will be there, once called, which makes his disguise acceptable.’Footnote 52 Such covert understanding about the provision of security aid, then, makes non-alignment markedly different from the other neutrality categories.
To sum up, considering what has been discussed above, it is possible to condense the main differences of the four categories of neutrality along the analytical features set out in Table 1.
Table 1. The categories of neutrality with their main analytical features.
The missing link: Hedging and neutrality
A certain conceptual indeterminateness regarding the linkages between hedging and the established forms of alignment has been a feature of hedging studies since their inception. Discussing the concept of hedging, Korolev has highlighted the ‘difficulties in isolating the standing empirical content of “hedging”, and the consequently confusing overlaps between it and other related terms describing various patterns of state behaviour. Hedging has been presented as possessing attributes, for example, of “indirect” or “soft balancing”, “limited bandwagoning”, “realist-style balancing”, “low-intensity balancing”, or simply “balancing”’.Footnote 53
Later on, hedging scholarship evolved by gradually moving away from the balancing–bandwagoning dichotomy and framing hedging as an in-between position alternative to those. As evidenced by Koga, ‘scholars tend to define “hedging” as a strategic choice that the state makes by not taking sides, either temporarily or permanently. Scholars thus use the term as the third choice in addition to balancing and bandwagoning.’Footnote 54
The emphasis on not taking sides which is embedded in hedging, together with its identification as a ‘third choice’ beyond the two most common alignment positions, elicits evident parallels between it and the concept of neutrality. Indeed, this connection has not been lost to hedging scholars. Since the beginning, academics have felt the need to make some sort of reference to neutrality when framing hedging, as the previously quoted definition by Goh shows.Footnote 55 Also, as will be shown extensively below, a recent wave of papers has started to explore more analytically the interlinkages between hedging and some of the categories of neutrality.
Although these works are commendable for their effort to clarify one of the major gaps pertaining to the hedging concept, they suffer from various shortcomings. First, some of them use the term ‘neutrality’ rather casually, in its basic meaning of ‘not taking sides’.Footnote 56 Second, others do not make sufficient and analytically rigorous references to the existing neutrality literature. Third, when they do, they do not devote much more than a few lines to discuss the similarities and differences between the two concepts. Fourth, even the more theoretically informed papers often delve into the analysis of the connection between hedging and just one of the neutrality categories, leaving the others out. Fifth, a thorough investigation of the core analytical features of hedging and neutrality, and how they may overlap, is almost always absent. Such state of affairs risks perpetuate the view that depicts hedging as an underdeveloped, ‘vague’,Footnote 57 and ‘loose’Footnote 58 concept, with low scholarly and analytical usefulness.
In order to check the current status of the research, looking for connections between hedging and neutrality, and understand which aspects require a more in-depth theoretical analysis, the following paragraphs will detail how the issue has been tackled so far by the relevant literature.
To begin with, as mentioned, scholars studying hedging have on multiple occasions touched upon the concept of neutrality in their analyses. However, for the most part this has been done in opposite terms, theoretically distinguishing hedging from the latter. As quoted earlier, one of the first contributions on hedging argues that the phenomenon can be pictured as ‘a set of strategies aimed at avoiding (or planning for contingencies in) a situation in which states cannot decide upon more straightforward alternatives such as balancing, bandwagoning, or neutrality’.Footnote 59 In a similar tone, Kim argues that ‘unconfident about strategic options of balancing, bandwagoning, congaging (i.e. a skillful mix of containment and engagement), or neutrality and worried about its own survival, a hedging state strives to minimize risk for an uncertain future’.Footnote 60 Finally, Vaicekauskaitė also argues that hedging ‘aims to avoid one particular policy – balancing, bandwagoning or neutrality’Footnote 61 and that it falls in between the first two. These definitions are to be traced back to the mainstream view on hedging that was discussed in the introduction of this article. Such a position takes for granted at the same time its distinction from neutrality and its halfway position within the balancing–bandwagoning spectrum, without explicating the analytical criteria that would distinguish it from neutrality.
Conversely, other scholars are more explicit in highlighting the theoretical grounds on which they differentiate between the two concepts. In those instances, such separation is operated primarily along qualitative lines, conceiving hedging as a more proactive form of neutrality, which on the other hand is associated with to a form of a rather idle or inert policy behaviour. In this regard, Tan argues that ‘hedging is not the same as passive neutrality or fence-sitting’, in that states adopting it ‘consistently look for opportunities to pursue deep engagement with external parties and powers’.Footnote 62 Similarly, Marston explicitly underscores the strategic-entrepreneurial element embedded in hedging, highlighting that it is ‘more proactive than neutrality: hedging states engage in security cooperation with external powers’.Footnote 63 Within this context, a more nuanced reflection is provided by Kuik, according to which hedging can be considered a behaviour entailing the simultaneous presence of three elements, that is:
(a) an insistence on not taking sides among competing powers … (b) the practice of adopting opposite and counteracting measures; and (c) the use of the opposite acts as instruments to pursue the goals of preserving gains while cultivating a ‘fallback’ position … A behavior that exhibits one but not all three elements should not be confused for hedging (e.g. a pure ‘non-alignment’ or ‘neutrality’ similarly necessitates a stance of not taking sides, but it does not necessarily involve the active pursuit of mutually counteracting actions).Footnote 64
Finally, Korolev argues that ‘hedging differs from non-alignment because it goes beyond neutrality to include proactive multi-vector engagements that are not cost-free’.Footnote 65 Here again, hedging is clearly distinguished from neutrality on behavioural grounds, in the sense that, even if their alignment outcome is similar (not developing exclusive links with any actor), the latter is considered in rather passive terms, not presenting the element of activism which is inherent to the former.
A different line of reasoning in the literature distinguishes neutrality from hedging on the basis of the ‘insurance’ element which is present in the latter. According to this view, a neutralist stance in a state’s foreign policy can often be linked to its willingness to pursue certain interests vis-à-vis other global actors, especially of an economic nature. In this sense, a body of literature has discussed at length how a preference for neutrality has been conducive to small and medium commercially minded nations expanding their international trade networks.Footnote 66 On the other hand, while hedging too includes this profit-maximisation logic, it also includes in parallel the development of fallback options, should the international system become more polarised and less permissive. Along these lines, De Silva writes that ‘this emphasis on the contingency element is a subtle but important distinction which can help us differentiate hedging from other foreign policy strategies such as neutralism. While neutralism enables states to continue robust engagement to maximise national interests, it does not entail an element of contingency planning.’Footnote 67
On another note, according to Castillo and Downes, neutrality is to be distinguished from hedging in legalistic terms.Footnote 68 Concretely, they refer to the former to single out instances of small states that explicitly adopted it to seek protection under international law during a competition between two powers, both during peacetime and in case of war. Such a view of neutrality is a formal-legalistic one, dating back to the codification of the neutrals’ rights and duties in the Hague Convention of 1907.Footnote 69 By contrast, the two scholars conceive of hedging as a specific policy behaviour pertaining to the realm of alliance politics and put in place by a minor actor allied with a major power, defining it as the ‘unilateral steps by a weaker alliance partner to minimize its risk of abandonment by its great power ally’.Footnote 70
Finally, Johny makes an interesting case by implying that the difference between hedging and non-alignment hinges on the fact that the former can also be used by individual members of a formal military alliance, such as NATO, as a strategic tool to navigate their relations with an opposing external power. The author hence seems to imply that hedging could be interpreted as a concretisation of a flexible and careful foreign policy (even pertaining to aligned states), while non-alignment should instead be understood as a long-standing posture with ‘historical and cultural roots’.Footnote 71
Crucially, on the other hand, a few studies have started to various degrees to draw explicit parallelisms between hedging and neutrality. Fiori and Passeri have associated hedging with non-alignment, one of the subcategories along which neutrality can be differentiated. In a contribution assessing Myanmar’s foreign policy, they affirm that the hedging policy adopted by Myanmar today could be seen as descending from the non-alignment stance that the country adopted throughout the Cold War.Footnote 72 Even more relevantly, a recent contribution by Passeri and Marston draws a taxonomy to distinguish the underlying features of neutralism and non-alignment, and their interplay with the concept of hedging. According to the authors ‘hedging’s multi-pronged and multi-directional nature intimately resonates with the practice of positive non-alignment during the Cold War era, which persuaded various non-aligned countries to alternatively tilt from a great power’s orbit to the other. Thus, in light of these vast similarities between the two constructs … the following analysis will therefore consider hedging as an actualised version of positive non-alignment.’Footnote 73 Differently from previous contributions, such work presents a rigorous, theory-informed elaboration directly associating hedging with a distinct category of neutrality, that is non-alignment.
Finally, recently the literature has started to explicitly conflate hedging with the concept of neutrality itself. In Koga’s view, for instance, hedging represents the ‘combination of “balancing” and “bandwagoning”’, which serves, among others, the goal of ‘attaining a strategic benefit to maintain the state’s neutral position in a manner that maximizes autonomy’,Footnote 74 whereas for Kuik Malaysia’s hedging stance can be pictured as ‘active neutrality’.Footnote 75 Along the same lines, Lobell et al. place hedging in the alignment box of ‘neutral strategies’, together with fence-sitting.Footnote 76
These papers clearly demonstrate that the time is ripe to associate the concept of hedging with that of neutrality more clearly and more rigorously. Acknowledging and taking the recent scholarly advancements as a point of departure, and weaving together for the first time the literatures on neutrality and hedging in a comprehensive way, the next section will show how hedging is not a sui-generis phenomenon, but simply an empirical category within the neutrality alignment family.
Hedging as a new empirical category of neutrality? Exploring the relevant analytical features
As it has been observed, at an empirical level neutrality presents itself in four different categories: occasional, long-term voluntary, permanent, and non-alignment. Far from being just mere labels, each of these categories presents peculiar and unequivocal features, which define their ontological profile. Crucially, if one contends that hedging can be associated with neutrality (as this paper does), then analysing how those features apply in the case of hedging is in order. This way, it will be possible to check whether hedging can be reconducted to one of the four existing categories of neutrality, or whether it should be considered as a new one. In order to do so, this section will critically review the most relevant literature on hedging against neutrality’s nine analytical features which have been previously singled out.
How is it adopted?
In scanning the literature, there is a consensus on the fact that hedging is adopted voluntarily by the concerned state. While for sure systemic stimuli connected to a changing power ratio between great powers are the fundamental starting point to understand hedging,Footnote 77 choosing hedging over balancing or bandwagoning (or other more nuanced strategic options) to navigate through them is a policy decision taken freely by the political elite of a nation. Indeed, it has been demonstrated that unit-level and domestic-related considerations act as a central filter in any strategic elaborations relating to a state’s hedging strategy.Footnote 78 In particular, as has been amply evidenced, a deep-rooted willingness to retain agency, autonomy, and freedom of action on the international stage is one of the main determinants behind the adoption of hedging on the part of the concerned states.Footnote 79
Where is it grounded?
Hedging is not based on any legal provisions, nor on any moral considerations or idealistic principles. Rather, it is grounded in a state’s own strategic calculations. Concretely, the states adopting hedging consider it as their best chance to manage security risks stemming from a changing international environment at a given time and amid a specific power configuration. As such, there is a broad consensus over the fact that hedging is best understood as a risk-management tool, which is directly connected to a country’s strategic reasoning.Footnote 80 To be sure, some current hedging states have a long-standing preference for equidistance and aloofness in international affairs.Footnote 81 However, such past track record does not significantly impact the hedging states’ strategic posture at another time. Taking the case of Singapore as an example: its emphasis on not aligning with any power was a constant refrain in the conduct of its foreign policy during the Cold War.Footnote 82 However, Singapore’s current hedging is to be interpreted as a specific strategy to cope with the risks stemming from today’s Sino-American great power competition in the Indo-Pacific. Therefore, hedging is purely based on strategic considerations.
When is it adopted?
Hedging is adopted when a state perceives a significant rise of great power tensions and a possible power transition. As outlined in the introductory part, the adoption of hedging is directly linked to the perception of the commencement of rival interactions among an established but relatively declining power and a rising one across multiple domains on the part of other lesser states. In such a situation, these great power frictions give way to a significant security uncertainty for the system’s minor actors. As effectively synthesised by Kuik, states ‘do not hedge against any specific power per se, but against the general uncertainties embedded in big powers’ actions and inter power relations at the systemic level’.Footnote 83 The indeterminateness is especially linked to the prospects of a possible power transition between the two competing powers, which can alter the system’s basic structure and the established pattern of interstate relations among the units therein.Footnote 84 Hence, there is ample evidence available that states resort to hedging at the moment when they start perceiving signals about a possible power transition between major international players, first and foremost in their region of reference.Footnote 85
Is it declared explicitly?
No. Hedging is a strategic posture that is not manifested explicitly by the state adopting it. In Kuik’s words, ‘hedging is a policy that is implemented without pronouncement’.Footnote 86 This is one of the main elements that would make it perilous to draw conceptual parallels between hedging and non-alignment (even in the case of an ‘actualisd’ version of it), as the latter in its classic understanding was an alignment choice widely advertised internationally by the nations adopting it.Footnote 87 Conversely, among academics there is substantial concurrence over the fact that states using hedging purposefully keep an ambiguous stance in the conduct of their external relations vis-à-vis the competing powers, which is the empirical concretisation of such avoidance to publicly declare that they have adopted a hedging strategy. The reason behind such course of action is that ‘doing otherwise would invite unwanted suspicion from contending big powers, defeating the very purpose of this deliberately ambiguous act, which include developing robust relationships to the greatest extent possible with both contending powers (working toward the best outcome)’ and ‘cultivating as many layers of protection as possible to offset the risks of uncertainties (preparing for the worst scenarios)’.Footnote 88
What is the strategic rationale behind it?
The strategic rationale of hedging is to successfully navigate a great power rivalry and, ultimately, maximise security and the chances of survival. In particular, some authors have linked the motivation to hedge to a state’s perception about the evolving balance of power in its region of reference, and (again) the prospect of a great power transition, with the established great power growing more and more weak vis-à-vis its challenger. According to Meijer and Simón, an actor ‘will hedge when it feels threatened by the rising Great Power but is uncertain about the ability (or willingness) of the established Great Power(s) to keep the rising Great Power in check’.Footnote 89 On a very similar note, Fortier and Massie note that ‘fears of being abandoned by a declining US unable to provide public security goods amidst rising Chinese and Russian revisionism is said to have created an environment conducive to hedging’.Footnote 90 Regardless of the specific combination of factors that lead an individual state to hedge, what emerges from the literature is that security-based motivations deeply inform a state’s strategic rationale to adopt this form of alignment. Here, it should be noted that many authors also link hedging to a desire to capitalise on economic opportunities and inducements provided by the contending powers.Footnote 91 However, it seems clear that security and survival-centred considerations occupy the centre of a country’s strategic thinking when opting for a hedging strategy, and that economic factors may at best provide an additional explanation as to why countries choose to hedge.Footnote 92
What is the temporal horizon?
Hedging lasts as long as it is deemed useful or feasible by the concerned state. For instance, if the initial risk assessment that persuaded a state to adopt a hedging strategy remains as such, and no immediate threats appear on the horizon, it is unlikely for the the state to change it in favour of other alignment options. On the contrary, the transformation of some security risks into security threats can render the maintenance of hedging unpalatable in the medium to long term.Footnote 93 To be sure, miscalculations about security risks and threats and the underlying feasibility of keeping hedging in the long run can happen, leading to a ‘failure’ that usually brings about a high price to pay for the state falling into error.Footnote 94 Some literature also points towards the fact that great powers can constraint the ability of other states to hedge over an extended time frame. According to this interpretation, when the competition between great powers scales up in intensity, they will apply pressure on the minor hedging players, forcing them to take sides.Footnote 95 Yet such a claim is for the most part unsubstantiated, both theoretically and empirically; as observed by Zha, ‘previous studies have not specified the mechanisms through which great power competition undermines the hedging strategy’.Footnote 96 For instance, in the case of current Sino-American rivalry in the Indo-Pacific, this does not seem to be the case (at least for now), and hedging may indeed be there to stay for the foreseeable future. In addition, historical research on hedging seems to point towards the fact that states may hold on to hedging even during periods of open war, and that great powers may actually be willing to accommodate and respect it.Footnote 97 While more research is needed on this specific point, it is fair to affirm that, given the strategic flexibility that it allows, states will generally try to hold on their hedging policies for as long as it is possible, feasible, and strategically convenient.
Can it be easily abandoned in favour of another alignment choice?
Yes. As hedging is a strategic tool to cope with contextual and time-bound conditions, and as it is not ingrained in any legal, moral, or deeply rooted foreign policy provisions, it can easily be ditched and replaced with another strategy that is deemed more suitable to ensure a state’s security needs under new international circumstances. As a matter of fact, a strand of relatively recent works has evidenced how different nations have renounced their hedging tactics in favour of other options in light of a revised risk assessment.Footnote 98 Importantly, as recent scholarship has shown, a state can abandon hedging even in the absence of emerging external security threats, when such strategic turn suits the interests of that state’s ruling elite.Footnote 99 Either way, such instances illustrate well how states have few qualms about brushing their hedging aside, if need be.
Who are the actors adopting it?
Secondary states adopt hedging. This specific hedging feature is one on which there is a certain consensus. Some articles (especially belonging to the ‘first wave’ of hedging studies) have associated the phenomenon of hedging also with great powers.Footnote 100 Some have also linked hedging to states that have a formal alliance treaty in place with the United States.Footnote 101 Yet the majority of articles nowadays see hedging as pertaining exclusively to secondary states which do not have any alliance in place with anyone. Such secondary states are defined as such in contrast to the referent of ‘great powers’, which are those who can autonomously and effectively provide for their own security. Hence, given the lack of resources and capabilities to cope with major powers on an equal footing, it is logical to assume that, in order to pursue their security interests, secondary states need to resort to forms of alignment that are peculiar to them. This is not to say that hedging is always the preferred alignment choice of such nations. As already observed within this paper, opting for hedging over other options is contingent on the specific state. However, the specific need to maintain a balanced and prudent approach to navigate an unstable international situation characterised by great power frictions, which is directly linked to the adoption of hedging, points towards the fact that the actors choosing it are minor polities, on the receiving side of systemic upheavals.Footnote 102 Finally, it has been highlighted that hedgers are usually secondary states who find themselves in important geostrategic locations, such as for instance a maritime chokepoint, that hold value to both competing powers.Footnote 103 As such, they anticipate the potential future dangers to side with one rival over the other and hedge out of prudence. A cautious approach is hence a recurrent attribute of such actors; as commented by Jones and Jenne, hedging is ‘the necessary mixed prudence of small states caught between a rock and a hard place’.Footnote 104
Does it pertain to a specific historical period?
No. For one thing, as the literature quoted in the previous pages testifies, almost all the hedging cases have been discussed in the context of the contemporary US–China competition, especially in south-east Asia. However, recently a small group of scholars has started to apply a hedging framework to analyse past instances of neutrality. Mendiolaza et al. present the strategic behavior of 19th-century Siam amid Anglo-French competition in the Indochinese peninsula as a case of hedging.Footnote 105 The same operation is carried out by Bilhar et al., who frame Brazil’s pragmatic equidistance vis-à-vis Nazi Germany and the United States during the Second World War as yet another case of such phenomenon.Footnote 106 Finally, Simón and Figiaconi read the Netherlands’ active neutrality in relation to Wilhelmine Germany and Great Britain before and during the First World War through the lens of hedging.Footnote 107 While still limited, this nascent literature shows the feasibility of looking at historical cases that were previously associated with the aforementioned listed ‘classic’ types of neutrality, and re-assess them as instances in hedging.
As in can be observed from the Table 2, it appears evident that, by looking at the previously identified analytical features and by applying them to the main hedging features as found in the relevant literature, hedging cannot be neatly linked to any of the established categories of neutrality. Hence, what logically follows is that hedging should be conceptualised as a specific, ‘new’ category within the broader neutrality family, possessing specific features of its own (Table 3).
Table 2. Hedging as a (new) category of neutrality.
Table 3. A revisited typology of neutrality categories.
Thus, building on its main features identified here, the present paper advances a new conceptualisation of hedging, defining it as a ‘category of neutrality, pertaining to secondary states, who adopt it by their own accord out of risk-management considerations amid the rise of great power tensions, for as long as they deem it strategically viable or useful’.
Conclusion
This paper has argued that hedging can be considered a category of neutrality. This has been done first by detailing the main features of the other ‘established’ categories of the neutrality phenomenon. Then, by comparing these features to main features of hedging as found in the relevant literature, it has emerged that it cannot unequivocally fit with any of the established categories. It is logical to assume, then, that hedging must be considered as a new, self-standing category of neutrality, to be added to the existing ones.
By carrying out this exercise, this paper has aimed to provide an important theoretical contribution to the literatures on alignment and neutrality by adopting a more granular lens and adding another category to the possible forms of neutral alignments, in this case pertaining to secondary states. Further, it has provided a key contribution to clarifying one of the most important blind spots of the hedging literature, i.e. the ‘nature’ of the phenomenon. In fact, the present work has demonstrated that hedging should not be considered as mixed strategy, a prudent behaviour, as a basket of policy tools, or as a vague and ill-defined ‘middle way’, but simply as a category of alignment.
Moreover, by linking hedging to neutrality, which is a recurrent alignment behaviour across space and time, this paper also provides for the possibility of further expanding the nascent research agenda beyond south-east Asia and contemporary cases to historical instances of hedging. Crucially, the analysis that has been carried out in this paper will allow future scholars to more clearly identify cases of hedging in different eras against well-delineated analytical features, and possibly re-evaluate some cases that were previously classified as instances of non-alignment as instances of hedging, thus allowing them to tap into a much broader empirical base when it comes to selecting case studies for hedging analyses.
To be sure, this paper leaves other research gaps open. For instance, here hedging is mainly framed as a category of neutrality adopted vis-à-vis two competing powers. However, it would be interesting to analyse whether this kind of strategy could also be adopted by a secondary state to navigate a security conundrum involving multiple competing poles (a good case study could be Switzerland over the course of the 19th century) and, as such, whether such instances would neatly fit into the existing hedging criteria here identified in the case of a secondary state navigating a dyadic rivalry.
Moreover, this paper does not delve into analysing whether and how a state can transition from one category of neutrality to another. For instance, can a state transform its long-term voluntary neutrality into hedging? Could non-alignment be replaced by a hedging strategy? How would this change take place in practice? How and according to which criteria could scholars check for the precise cut-off point? Future scholarship should clarify such important open issues.
Finally, in outlining the possibility of extending the hedging research agenda to other historical eras, this paper has quoted the very few existing works which have started to do so. However, they all analyse relatively recent cases of historical hedging (the oldest one being Siam’s hedging, assessing an episode dating back just to the late 19th century). As things stand, it would be opportune to start researching other previous instances in hedging, for instance in the Napoleonic era, the modern period, the Middle Ages, back to the Classical period (a fitting case could be the island of Melos refusing to take sides in the struggle between Athens and Sparta in the fifth century BCE).
In many respects, the research programme on hedging remains a work in progress, and there is still much theoretical investigation that needs to be carried out to better delineate the contours of the hedging phenomenon. By helping clarify the linkage between hedging and neutrality, this paper has aimed to provide a useful contribution in this direction.
Acknowledgements
The author would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their thoughtful and helpful comments and suggestions. He would also like to thank the editors for their support during the review process.
Fabio Figiaconi is a PhD researcher in International Security at the Centre for Security, Diplomacy and Strategy (CSDS) at the Brussels School of Governance (Vrije Universiteit Brussel).
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