Professor Kimberly Martin and Counterfactuals in International Relations Research

On the 17th March 2015 in the European Club, a series of academic encounters organised by the Department of International Relations at the Faculty of World Economy and International Affairs, Professor Kimberly Marten gave a talk asking, ‘Could NATO have avoided expansion?’

Kimberly Marten, Professor at Columbia University is a well known academic in international security and Deputy Director for Development at the Harriman Institute.

Professor Marten used the method of counterfactual analysis in her research which involves identifying key moments, potential divergences in a particular political process which crucially determine the outcome. The researcher musn’t interfere with the structural processes and using Ockham’s Razor (building a theory with the fewest possible assumptions), chooses the most natural and likely variations for how events could unfold.

Professor Marten’s conclusion is that NATO couldn’t avoid expanding. The process could have been slowed down if at several key points, different decisions had been made, but expansion would have happened nevertheless. The main factors which brought it about were 1) that already in 1992-93 both parties in Washington agreed on the question of expansion, 2) clever lobbying by the Polish diaspora in the US, and 3) uncertainty in Russian foreign policy in the early 1990s. 

By Dr. M.V. Bratersky, Professor in the Department of International Relations