Dynamics of a trilateral game of influence: Interactions between major powers’ foreign policy instruments and the behavior of weaker states

Since no work has been done to empirically test the impact of a bipolar structure on developing countries, this article serves as the first systematic attempt to operationalize the concept of bipolar competition. By using the case of U.S.‐Soviet rivalry during the Cold War period, we scientifically operationalize the concept based on the geopolitical approach to international relations. Also, since few works have tried to analyze the relative impact among the foreign policy instruments used by major powers—namely, arms transfers, trade, and economic aid —this article incorporates all of them to examine their relative impact, as well as that of the competition, upon the consensus between each of the superpowers and developing countries. Furthermore, it analyzes the critical link between the global system and foreign policy instruments by examining the mutual influence between the foreign policy instruments and the influence of various structural variables, such as the competition, upon the instruments. The results of the pooled time‐series, multiple regressions—run by using Two‐Stage Least Squares—demonstrate our success in measuring the concept, Competition, and its, as well as the other structural variables’, impact on the Consensus and the foreign policy instruments.