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International Area Studies Review
[ Article ]
International Area Studies Review - Vol. 28, No. 2, pp.103-112
ISSN: 2233-8659 (Print)
Print publication date 30 Jun 2025
DOI: https://doi.org/10.69473/iasr.2025.28.2.103

Why States Become Revisionists: A Literature Review

Weidong Zhang*
Department of Criminal Justice and Security Studies, University of Texas at El Paso, El Paso, TX, 79968, USA

Correspondence to: *Email: wzhang3@utep.edu

Abstract

Why have more and more states turned into revisionist states in the past decade? With Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the international norm of respecting states’ sovereignty and territorial integrity seems to be broken, and we may expect to see more revisionist behaviors by states. This paper reviews existing studies on why states become revisionists from various theoretical perspectives, including paradigms in international relations and the issue approach to studying international events. It highlights the importance of investigating both internal and external factors in explaining the revisionist behaviors of states.

Keywords:

State revisionism, Status quo, International conflict, International relations theory

AI Acknowledgment

Generative AI or AI-assisted technologies were not used in any way to prepare, write, or complete essential authoring tasks in this manuscript.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

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