“Hegemony leads to balance through all of the centuries we can contemplate” Kenneth Waltz, 1993:77
Is the balance of power as it has been understood by IR scholars, specifically realist scholars, a trans-historical fact, as Waltz claims? This book has been written to disprove this claim by looking at different historical periods where the actual imposition of balancing politics may or may not exist. There is even a nice quantitative overview of polarity in world history in the last chapter. The authors argue that balancing has had a role historically, but this is only about half of the time. Therefore, we can throw away the antiquated (and presumptuous) notion that balancing is a trans-historical fact.
The ways in which the term balance of power has been used is discussed. Haas (1953) has argued that balance of power is used in four ways: descriptively, prescriptively, normatively and analytically (2). Levy claims that balance of power, “is ‘that hegemonies do not form in multi-state systems because perceived threats of hegemony over the system generate balancing behavior by other leading states in the system’” (3).
“Overall, we conclude, the contemporary unipolar system is best understood not by assessing the logic of balancing, or balance-of-power theory; but by considering the logic of domination, and hegemonic stability theory” (20).
The rest of the book compromises the case studies, which are very interesting. I will not detail them here.
