Ricerc@Sapienza

The rise of revisionist powers is regarded as a constant of international politics. Once peace or major arrangements are settled and a new international order arises, Dissatisfied states might mount challenges against this status quo as they perceive a growing mismatch between their core interests and the existing conditions. These actors may, then, turn into revisionists and opt for altering the status quo or ¿ when they behold a critical incompatibility ¿ overthrowing and wholly replace it. Usually, when the latter option is preferred, they end up waging a full-scale war against the status quo powers, those willing to preserve and defend the existing conditions. More generally, revisionist powers may wage a full-scale challenge and direct their attack towards the underpinning distribution of power and resources ¿ e.g. territory, population, energy, military capacity, status ¿ and/or the prevailing rules of interaction ¿ defining the right and wrong of international life ¿ or membership ¿ defining who is admitted to join the international order.
As hinted by many ¿ see Literature Review below ¿ revisionism may entail very different policies and strategies that span from diplomatic disputes to revisionist alliances and wars. The research aims to advance a more fine-grained typology of revisionism in international politics and a new understanding of how States moderately challenge the existing status-quo. The question the research aims to address is: ¿How do revisionists moderately pursue change in the international status-quo?¿. More specifically, moderate revisionism will be studied with regards to the security dimension of regional international status quos.