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The Making of Balance-of-Power—Power Asymmetry, Domestic Politics, and the Making of Balancing Practices
Abstract
This article joins the growing body of literature that perceives balance of power as a social construct containing shared understandings that comprise states’ repertoire of balancing practices. Distinct repertoires of balancing have prevailed in different international orders. We build on this work and focus on a less explored, though important, political process to explain the variation in balancing practices over time. We suggest that external threats, domestic considerations of key states, and diffusion mechanisms deriving from hierarchical relations can explain the evolution of balancing practices. More specifically, we suggest that balancing practices evolve in the domestic arena of the dominant state at a given time, as leaders frame their foreign policy in terms that most closely resonate with their domestic circumstances. Secondary states, who depend on the dominant state for their security, will tend to adopt its balancing practice. They will do so because the hierarchy of the international system enables the dominant state to use positive and negative leverage tools to pressure them, or because they voluntarily calculate that this choice will enhance their security. To demonstrate the importance of studying the social construction of balancing practices and the impact of dominant states on the content of these practices, we examine two central case studies of different balancing practices—the rise of early eighteenth-century Britain and the emergence of the logic of a contrived balance of power, and the rise of American hegemony in the aftermath of World War II that generated the practice of ideological balancing
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Realist and rationalist approaches to balance of power politics underplay the degree to which balances are socially constructed. We develop a constructivist approach that accounts for the elusive and contentious nature of the balances that states seek to balance. The approach foregrounds contests over balance interpretations between states that shape whose conceptions and assessments underpin the making and remaking of balances. We argue that shifts in balancing practices are crucial to the dynamics of these contests. To substantiate this argument, we empirically study the contests over the conventional and theatre nuclear balances between East and West in the last two decades of the Cold War. The case study shows that the conventional and theatre nuclear arms control negotiations – that is, the partial shift from adversarial to associational balancing – initially fuelled and amplified both contests. At the same time, the arms control negotiations eventually resolved the contests through the development of shared understandings of the two balances, thus ending the adversarial balancing between East and West. Overall, we contribute to theory development on balance of power politics by highlighting the importance of contests over balance interpretations and by providing insights into the politics and dynamics that shape these contests.
Cambridge Core - International Relations and International Organisations - Scientific Cosmology and International Orders - by Bentley B. Allan
This is the only modern study of European politics to cover the entire timespan from the end of the Seven Years' War in 1763 to the revolutionary year of 1848. Paul Schroeder's comprehensive and authoritative volume charts the course of international history over this turbulent period, in which the map of Europe was redrawn time and again. Professor Schroeder examines the wars, political crises, and diplomatic opportunities of the age, many of which - the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, the Congress of Vienna and its aftermath - had far-reaching consequences for modern Europe. Professor Schroeder provides a new account of the course of international politics over these years and a major reinterpretation of the structure and operation of the international system. He shows how the practice of international politics was transformed in revolutionary ways, with far-reaching and beneficial effects. The Vienna Settlement established peace by abandoning the competitive balance-of-power politics of the eighteenth century, and devising a new political equilibrium. It created a European consensus on a new political balance with new rules to maintain it, ushering in a uniquely peaceful, progessive period in European international politics.
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After the end of World War II, various iterations of hegemony studies focused on such topics as the connection between hegemonic powers and the provision of international public goods, the causes of war during hegemonic transitions, and the stability of hegemonic orders. In this article, we discuss and forward the emergence of a new wave of international hegemony studies. This research program concerns itself with the politics of hegemonic orders and hegemonic ordering. It treats hegemonic orders as means, mediums, and objects of cooperation and contestation. It sees hegemons as not simply order makers but also order takers whose domestic political processes significantly interact with the dynamics of international order. It incorporates insights about how different dimensions of hegemonic orders interact to shape the costs and benefits of hegemony. In short, it treats hegemony and hegemonic orders as objects of analysis amenable to multiple theoretical perspectives and methodological approaches.
This study of French-American relations in the critical postwar period, 1945–1954, makes use of recently opened diplomatic archives and personal papers in France and the United States. Irwin Wall examines the American role in French diplomacy, economic reconstruction, military policy, politics, and the reshaping of French society from labour unions to consumer tastes and films. Particular emphasis is placed on American attempts to combat the influence of French Communism and achieve a stable, centrist regime avoiding the extremes of right and left.
Issues involving ‘statecraft’ lie at the heart of most major debates about world politics, yet scholars do not go far enough in analyzing how the processes of statecraft themselves can reshape the international system. We draw on the growing relational-processual literature in international relations theory to explore how different modes of statecraft can help create and refashion the structure of world politics. In particular, we argue that scholars should reconceive statecraft in terms of repertoires. An emphasis on repertoires sheds light on a number of issues, including how statecraft influences patterns of technological innovation, the construction of institutional and normative orders, and the pathways through which states mobilize power in world politics.
This book aims to reinterpret current perceptions of the Dutch Forty Years War (1672-1713), usually regarded as a struggle against the expansionism of Louis XIV, birthing the European balance of power. Particular attention is given to recent international relations theory, through the examination of popular and official documents, as well as political and diplomatic correspondence. While focusing on the emergence and appropriation of Universal Monarchy and Balance of Power discourses, this book also provides counter discourses, allowing readers to explore the lively domestic debate on foreign policy along partisan lines.
This book celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by showing how global human rights norms have influenced national government practices in eleven different countries around the world. Had the principles articulated in the Declaration had any effect on the behavior of states towards their citizens? What are the conditions under which international human rights norms are internalized in domestic practices? And what can we learn from this case about why, how, and under what conditions international norms in general influence the actions of states? This book draws on the work of social constructivists to examine these important issues. The contributors examine eleven countries representing five different world regions - Northern Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa, Southeast Asia, Latin America, and Eastern Europe - drawing practical lessons for activists and policy makers concerned with preserving and extending the human rights gains made during the past fifty years.
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How presidents spark and sustain support for wars remains an enduring and significant problem. Korea was the first limited war the United States experienced in the contemporary period-the first recent war fought for something less than total victory. This book explores how Truman and then Eisenhower tried to sell it to the American public. Based on primary sources, this book explores the government's selling activities from all angles. It looks at the halting and sometimes chaotic efforts of Truman and Acheson, Eisenhower and Dulles. It examines the relationships that they and their subordinates developed with a host of other institutions, from Congress and the press to Hollywood and labor. And it assesses the complex and fraught interactions between the military and war correspondents in the battlefield theater itself. From high politics to bitter media spats, this book guides the reader through the domestic debates of this messy, costly war. It highlights the actions and calculations of colorful figures, including Taft, McCarthy, and MacArthur. It details how the culture and work routines of Congress and the media influenced political tactics and daily news stories. And the book explores how different phases of the war threw up different problems.
Recent debates about British political and military strategies, derived in particular from dissension about Britain's relationship with Europe and from disagreement over the Iraq war, has led to a greater awareness of the problematic nature of the concept of 'national interests'. This major new work delivers a long view of this issue, its twin strands are captured by an assessment both of the Continental commitment and British interventionism in the 18th Century. The extent to which Britain's rise to superpower status in America and Asia was related to the Continental connection, and her Hanoverian interests, is a central theme of this study, as is the relationship between the domestic position of the Crown and its interests as Electors of Hanover. The issue of Continental interventionism opens up the question of how alliances generate their own pressures, at the same time that they are supposed to help overcome challenges; while also indicating how the domestic support for alliances shifts, creating its own dynamics that in turn affect the international dimension. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of international relations, British foreign policy, British history and war and conflict studies.
In the Cold War battle for hearts and minds Britain was the first country to formulate a coordinated global response to communist propaganda. In January 1948, the British government launched a new propaganda policy designed to 'oppose the inroads of communism' by taking the offensive against it.' A small section in the Foreign Office, the innocuously titled Information Research Department (IRD), was established to collate information on communist policy, tactics and propaganda, and coordinate the discreet dissemination of counter-propaganda to opinion formers at home and abroad.
This book offers a conceptual framework that explains when and why a great power would choose to cooperate with smaller states via regional cooperation forums rather than in a bilateral setting.