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the intersubjective social context in which Britain and the United States are operating.
Constructivism, for instance, might prove to explain much of how the special relationship
was formed and how it has been sustained throughout changes in leadership and changes
in circumstance.
To be sure, this is a work in progress, one that has only scratched the surface of
the sort of research that can be done not only in regard to the special relationship, but in
alliance theory as a whole (including crises within the relationship, as, for instance, the
aforementioned Suez and Vietnam). When one explores the former through the lens of
the latter, one sees that there is much room for expansion within the realm of alliance
politics—expansion that may include a heightened attention to norms, to the role of
domestic politics, and to the role of the individual actors themselves. What this
compromises in parsimony it may make up for in explanatory value. Snyder does grant
some value to the notions of statesmen’s expectations (see above regarding alignment),
but it still seems understood that these expectations are not necessarily contrary to the
state and not a matter of an individual level of analysis. As Snyder sees it, alliance theory
is not necessarily about the leaders themselves, but rather the states that they are
representing, and in the end one would expect Snyder to argue that Blair’s moral
convictions are but a footnote to what really matters in the British-American alliance.
At this point it is important to remind ourselves the exceptions that we had to
make to use the Snyder thesis at all. But again, this may be the tip of the iceberg in terms
of research in this field. While Snyder is the preeminent expert on alliance maintenance
today, we may find that we look back thirty years to the work of Ole P. Holsti, Terrence
Hopmann, and John D. Sullivan. Holsti et al. take a different approach to alliance theory.
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Naughtie, p. 47.
Convention