Dissertation Project
“Advisors, Aid, and Arms: Limited Intervention in Conflict” examines when, and to what extent, states intervene in conflict by supporting local proxies and how they manage the politics of proxy war. Using a blend of game theory, original quantitative data, interviews, and archival research at eight physical and digital archives, the dissertation shows how intervening states attempt to shape the proxy’s war goals, conduct of war, political coalitions, and leadership over time. Military advisors emerge as a key means used by intervening states to shape proxy behavior through monitoring and influencing its military. Qualitative case studies focus on U.S. intervention in the Salvadoran Civil war under the Carter and Reagan administrations from 1979-89; Soviet intervention in Afghanistan from 1978-79; and US intervention in Syria against the Islamic State, and Russian intervention in the Donbas, from 2014 to present.
Dissertation committee: Paul Poast (chair), Austin Carson, Monika Nalepa, and Paul Staniland
Dissertation committee: Paul Poast (chair), Austin Carson, Monika Nalepa, and Paul Staniland
Publications
Poast, Paul and Chinchilla, Alexandra. Good for democracy? Evidence from the 2004 NATO expansion. International Politics (2020).
Did NATO expansion foster democratic development in Eastern Europe? Past scholarship offers conflicting answers to this question. We seek to bring clarity by focusing on the 2004 NATO expansion to include the three Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, as well as Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia. We leverage the fact that we now as many years of data since NATO entry as we have between the collapse of the Soviet Union and the 2004 NATO expansion. We also use newly available and highly refined data on regime type. We show that NATO membership and anticipation thereof had little to no influence on democratic development in Eastern Europe. However, anticipation of European Union membership appears to have bolstered democratic development. Although the results cannot fully rule out NATO playing a secondary role, they make clear that NATO membership was not a necessary condition for democratic survival in Eastern Europe.
Chinchilla, Alexandra and Poast, Paul. Defense Institution Building from Above? Lessons from the Baltic Experience. Connections QJ 17, no. 3 (2018): 61-71.
Defense institution building (DIB) seeks to create the means and mechanisms that enable effective capability aggregation within NATO. Can external assistance with DIB help states become suitable NATO members? We discuss the post-Cold War experience of the Baltic States to understand the role of external assistance in defense institution building and how this can enable a state to gain NATO membership. We then consider whether lessons in the Baltic experience are applicable to Georgia and Ukraine.
Did NATO expansion foster democratic development in Eastern Europe? Past scholarship offers conflicting answers to this question. We seek to bring clarity by focusing on the 2004 NATO expansion to include the three Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, as well as Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia. We leverage the fact that we now as many years of data since NATO entry as we have between the collapse of the Soviet Union and the 2004 NATO expansion. We also use newly available and highly refined data on regime type. We show that NATO membership and anticipation thereof had little to no influence on democratic development in Eastern Europe. However, anticipation of European Union membership appears to have bolstered democratic development. Although the results cannot fully rule out NATO playing a secondary role, they make clear that NATO membership was not a necessary condition for democratic survival in Eastern Europe.
Chinchilla, Alexandra and Poast, Paul. Defense Institution Building from Above? Lessons from the Baltic Experience. Connections QJ 17, no. 3 (2018): 61-71.
Defense institution building (DIB) seeks to create the means and mechanisms that enable effective capability aggregation within NATO. Can external assistance with DIB help states become suitable NATO members? We discuss the post-Cold War experience of the Baltic States to understand the role of external assistance in defense institution building and how this can enable a state to gain NATO membership. We then consider whether lessons in the Baltic experience are applicable to Georgia and Ukraine.
Work in Progress
"Authoritarian Commitment to Military Professionalism: How Security Alliances Reduce Coups and Coup Attempts Under Dictatorships." with Tolgahan Dilgin, University of Illinois.
"Training Future Leaders: The Effect of US Military Training on Human Rights in Recipient Countries," with Genevieve Bates and Andres Uribe, University of Chicago.
"The Effect of Coups During Civil War on Third Party Intervention Strategies."
"Do Threats Work? Third Party Intervention and Humanitarian Violations in Civil War."
"Gray Zone Bargaining: Coercion through Low Intensity Warfare and the Credible Threat of Escalation." with Jonathan Askonas, Catholic University.
"Training Future Leaders: The Effect of US Military Training on Human Rights in Recipient Countries," with Genevieve Bates and Andres Uribe, University of Chicago.
"The Effect of Coups During Civil War on Third Party Intervention Strategies."
"Do Threats Work? Third Party Intervention and Humanitarian Violations in Civil War."
"Gray Zone Bargaining: Coercion through Low Intensity Warfare and the Credible Threat of Escalation." with Jonathan Askonas, Catholic University.
Other Writing
Alexandra Chinchilla. Review of Groh, Tyrone L., Proxy War: The Least Bad Option. H-Diplo, H-Net Reviews. May, 2020.
Rauta, Vladimir, Matthew Ayton, Alexandra Chinchilla, Andreas Krieg, Christopher Rickard & Jean-Marc Rickli (2019) A Symposium – debating ‘surrogate warfare’ and the transformation of war, Defence Studies, 19:4, 410-430.
"The Development of the Modern U.S.-Polish Relationship and Its Future Prospects." with Stephen D. Mull in Projekt 'Polska': Silne i Bezpieczne Panstwo? ed. Anna Antczak-Barzan. Warszawa: Vizja Press, 2014: 255-267.
Rauta, Vladimir, Matthew Ayton, Alexandra Chinchilla, Andreas Krieg, Christopher Rickard & Jean-Marc Rickli (2019) A Symposium – debating ‘surrogate warfare’ and the transformation of war, Defence Studies, 19:4, 410-430.
"The Development of the Modern U.S.-Polish Relationship and Its Future Prospects." with Stephen D. Mull in Projekt 'Polska': Silne i Bezpieczne Panstwo? ed. Anna Antczak-Barzan. Warszawa: Vizja Press, 2014: 255-267.