Miki Hayashi

Miki Hayashi is a PhD candidate in political science at the University of California, Riverside. Her dissertation explores how a great power’s economic dependence on a rival state affects the security alliance between the great power and less powerful third parties. Her research expands the conventional capitalist theory’s dyadic-level approach by examining how economic integration between contesting states impacts their other strategic alliances. By employing a mixed-method analysis, including game theory, statistical analysis, and case studies, she argues that bilateral trade can be detrimental to third-party alliances when depending on a rival makes it more costly for a great power to maintain security cooperation with less powerful allies. Beyond this dissertation project, Miki has worked on a project that examines how the rise of China has affected the U.S.-Japan security alliance based on a novel dataset. Before beginning her PhD, she received an MA in political science from the University of California, Riverside, and California State University, Los Angeles.