The united states facing allies' populist blackmail: why the Philippines and Turkey threatened to realign with China and Russia/ Jonathan Paquin

Given China and Russia’s increasingly aggressive behaviour, balance of threat theory posits that formal US allies should close ranks behind the United States. Recent developments, however, have somewhat undermined these claims, as the president of the Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte, and the president of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, publicly threatened to break ranks with Washington and to realign with China and Russia respectively. How can we make sense of such defiant behaviour? This article argues that populist blackmail elucidates this phenomenon and compares it to three alternative propositions: conventional bandwagoning, bandwagoning for profit, and hard hedging. Furthermore, the article infers that two concomitant factors – political grievances and the perceived lack of security assurance – propelled both presidents to resort to blackmail.

BALANCE OF THREAT THEORY, ALLIANCE POLITICS, BLACKMAIL, BARGAINING POWER, POLITICAL GRIEVANCES, NEWARTICLS