The Price of Prestige

32 chapter one

consumed by a wider set of actors and by a different stratum of interna-

tional social hierarchy, expanding the scope of the empirical inquiry. Iden-

tifying persistent patterns of conspicuous consumption despite all these

differences would bolster the generalizability of the theory.

Finally, each of these cases allows us to explore an interesting and non-

trivial empirical puzzle. In each case, conspicuous consumption allows us

to make sense of what otherwise seems like inexplicable behavior.

Why do countries routinely procure expensive, suboptimal, and, at times,

ineffective weapons systems? In order to answer this question, in chapter 3

I explore the logic behind the procurement decisions of the navy, the most

expensive branch of the military, and of the navy’s most exclusive and glitzy

showpiece — the aircraft carrier.

Why do states volunteer resources and personnel for peacekeeping

operations? Why do they donate foreign aid? Why do states offer their

services as mediators for faraway conflicts? Prosociality is puzzling in the

supposed self- help world of international relations. In order to answer

these questions, in chapter 4 I examine patterns of prosocial behavior in

international relations.

What explains governmental investment in extravagant Big Science

projects such as the race to space? Moreover, what explains the intense

sense of international competition that tends to accompany these projects

(especially when science might benefit from a more collaborative and well-

coordinated effort)? In order to answer these questions, in chapter 5 I ex-

plore four early cases of Big Science — the international races to measure

the precise distance between the Earth and the sun through the observa-

tion of the transits of Venus in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries —

quite likely the first examples of an international race to space.^53

Together these three cases show that conspicuous consumption does

occur in international relations. Far from an oddity, it is a persistent pat-

tern of state behavior that affects important policy decisions. The combi-

nation of price, conspicuousness, hierarchy, and cycles of status symbols is

distinctive to the Veblenian approach. By combining evidence on all four

dimensions across three cases, this research provides, at the very least,

powerful circumstantial evidence for the validity of the theory that con-

spicuous consumption aimed at gaining symbolic stature matters a great

deal in international relations.