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Reconceiving the balance of power: a review essay

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 November 2010

FENG ZHANG
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Abstract

Richard Little's new book has considerably widened the scope for thinking about the balance of power in International Relations (IR), both by beginning to provide a conceptual history of the idea and by expanding existing balance-of-power models. His concept of the associational balance of power is an important corrective to the prevailing realist understanding of the balance of power. However, Little does not explore more fully the relationship between the balance of power as a myth and a reality. Moreover, the usefulness of distinction between adversarial and association balance of power is not given a direct evaluation against the historical record, nor is his own composite model of the balance of power partly based on the distinction fully developed.

Type
Research Article
Information
Review of International Studies , Volume 37 , Issue 2 , April 2011 , pp. 641 - 651
Copyright
Copyright © British International Studies Association 2010

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References

1 See, for example, Paul, T. V., Wirtz, James J., and Fortmann, Michael (eds), Balance of power: Theory and Practice in the 21st Century (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2004)Google Scholar ; Schweller, Randall L., Unanswered Threats: Political Constraints on the Balance of Power (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006)Google Scholar ; and Kaufman, Stuart J., Little, Richard, and Wohlforth, William C. (eds), The Balance of Power in World History (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007)Google Scholar . For a review of these works, see Nexon, Daniel H., ‘The Balance of Power in the Balance’, World Politics, 61:2 (April 2009), pp. 330–359Google Scholar .

2 The four texts are: Morgenthau, Hans J., Politics Among Nations: The Struggle for Power and Peace, 5th edition (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1973)Google Scholar ; Bull, Hedley, The Anarchical Society: A Study of Order in World Politics, 3rd edition (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2002)Google Scholar ; Waltz, Kenneth, Theory of International Politics (Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1979)Google Scholar ; and Mearsheimer, John J., The Tragedy of Great Power Politics (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2001)Google Scholar .

3 Specifically, an adversarial balance of power means a situation where ‘great powers monitor the material power possessed by all the other states in the international system and endeavour to manipulate the resulting distribution of power in their own favour as a means of enhancing their chances of survival’ (p. 11). By contrast, an associational balance of power means a situation where great powers recognise that ‘they have a collective responsibility to maintain order in the international society and that as a consequence they are required to establish and maintain the balance of power’ (p. 12).

4 Bull, The Anarchical Society.

5 Vagts, Alfred, ‘The Balance of Power: Growth of an Idea’, World Politics, 1 (1948), pp. 82–101Google Scholar ; Wright, M., The Theory and Practice of the Balance of Power (London: 1975)Google Scholar ; Sheehan, Michael, The Balance of Power: History & Theory (London: Routledge, 1996)Google Scholar .

6 This is traditionally how power is conceived of in IR. Most realists today still favour this conception. See, for example, Waltz, , Theory of International Politics, pp. 191–192Google Scholar ; Gilpin, Robert, War and Change in World Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), p. 13Google Scholar ; Mearsheimer, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics, chap 3.

7 The original formulation is Dahl, Robert, ‘The Concept of Power’, Behavioral Science, 2:3, pp. 201–215Google Scholar . But also see Bachrach, Peter and Baratz, Morton S., ‘Two Faces of Power’, American Political Science Review, 56:4 (December 1962), pp. 947–952Google Scholar ; Bachrach, Peter and Baratz, Morton S., ‘Decisions and Nondecisions: An Analytical Framework’, American Political Science Review, 57:3 (September 1963), pp. 632–642Google Scholar .

8 Lukes, Steven discusses this kind of power in his Power: A Radical View, 2nd edition (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2005)CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

9 See, for example, Gulick, Edward Vose, Europe's Classical Balance of Power: A Case History of the Theory and Practice of One of the Great Concepts of European Statecraft (New York: W. W. Norton, 1955)Google Scholar ; Sheehan, , The Balance of Power; John Lewis Gaddis, Strategies of Containment (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982)Google Scholar ; and Layne, Christopher, Peace of Illusions: American Grand Strategy from 1940 to the Present (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2006)Google Scholar .

10 Bull, , The Anarchical Society, p. 308Google Scholar .

11 Claude, Inis L. Jr., Power and International Relations (New York: Random House, 1962), chap. 3Google Scholar .

12 But perhaps this is what some post-positivists think.

13 As Little says, ‘If the answer to this question had been that the Soviet Union could not keep up, then the implication that followed from Waltz's analysis was crystal clear: bipolarity would give way to unipolarity. Given this assessment, it was remiss of Waltz not to open up the question of unipolarity.’ (p. 188).

14 Waltz, , Theory of International Politics, pp. 181, 183Google Scholar .

15 Waltz, Kenneth, ‘The Emerging Structure of International Politics’, International Security, 18:2 (Fall 1994), pp. 44–79Google Scholar ; and Waltz, , ‘Structural Realism after the Cold War’, International Security, 25:1 (Summer 2000), pp. 5–41Google Scholar .

16 Waltz, , Theory of International Politics, p. 191Google Scholar . He says in a later article that ‘Power in neorealist theory is simply the combined capability of a state.’ See Waltz, , ‘Realist Thought and Neorealist Theory’, Journal of International Affairs, 44:1 (Spring 1990), pp. 21–37, at p. 36Google Scholar .

17 Mearsheimer, for example, says that ‘Power […] represents nothing more than specific assets or material resources that are available to states.’ See Mearsheimer, , The Tragedy of Great Power Politics, p. 57Google Scholar .

18 Mearsheimer, , The Tragedy of Great Power Politics, p. 2, fn. 3Google Scholar .

19 Another example is Gilpin, Robert, War and Change in World Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981)CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

20 Mearsheimer, , The Tragedy of Great Power Politics, pp. 31–32Google Scholar .

21 For an argument on the importance of ‘analytical eclecticism’ that combines different theoretical approaches in IR, see Katzenstein, Peter J. and Okawara, Nobuo, ‘Japan, Asian-Pacific Security, and the Case for Analytical Eclecticism’, International Security, 26:3 (Winter 2001/2002), pp. 153–185CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

22 An important such attempt is Wohlforth, William C., ‘The Stability of a Unipolar World’, International Security, 24:1 (Summer 1999), pp. 5–41CrossRefGoogle Scholar .