Little: The Balance of Power in International Relations

Little, Richard. (2007). The balance of power in international relations : metaphors, myths, and models. New York: Cambridge University Press.

This book attempts to unpack the metaphor of “balance of power”. It is a constructivist account of how balance of power can be situated within theoretical debates between positivists and post-positivists. It also takes apart four different Realist theories of IR and situates the concept of balance of power within those theories, highlighting how these theories can also be seen as being constructive in their approach.

Balance of power in IR is initially associated with anti-hegemonic alliances. When one power becomes too strong, other nations will rally together to create a different pole in the international system. This pole is designed to balance the power of the hegemon. Waltz famously said that states will either balance or bandwagon.

“The aim of this book is to illuminate the central, complex and yet contentious role that the balance of power plays in the theory and practice of international relations” (11). “Although there are significant areas of disagreement among…realists, it is generally accepted that the great powers monitor the material power possessed by all the other states in the international system and endeavour [sic] to manipulate the resulting distribution of power in their own favor as a means of enhancing their chances of survival” (11). By contrast…English school theorists…also link the balance of power to the existence of an international society and their approach requires them to take account of ideational l as well as material factors” (11-2). “For critics, the balance of power looks increasingly anachronistic and unhelpful as a tool for understanding international relations” (12).

He claims to make two main “moves”. These are a movement from agency to structure, as the metaphor eventually becomes so institutionalized that it becomes accepted as being a salient effect of international structure. The second move is to associate the balance of power with myth and metaphor and then to relate this to some of the most important attempts to understand IR since WWII.

Little then discusses the complex, confusing and ambiguous meaning that metaphors can come to have. The balance of power, for example, can be understood to mean a variety of things, and is defined in 9 different ways (27). The metaphor was originally used to explain Italian city states interacting.

He examines the metaphor from the perspective of scales on which power is balanced. “What impact does the scales metaphor have on this conception of power? In essence, it moves us away from an agency-based conception of power and towards a structural conception of power. It tells us less about the power possessed by the participants as agents and more about how the power possessed by the members of the system defines the structure of the social setting” (47).

Summing up chapter two’s argument, Little states, “…I argue that metaphors are not only a surprisingly complex phenomenon but also that any assessment of the balance of power is profoundly affected by whether we regard the concept as a substitution or an interaction metaphor” (50).

In the third chapter, Little makes a distinction between positivist and post-positivist approaches to understanding the relationship between metaphor, model and myth. “From a positivist perspective, myth is used in a colloquial sense and is associated with a fundamental error of some kind, whereas postpositivism associates myths with ideological narratives that draw on deep-seated beliefs about the nature of reality” (51).

The remainder of this third chapter further fleshes out the distinction between myth, metaphor and models from the positivist and post-positivist perspectives. There is a relation of the metaphor in the rhetoric of Churchill and George W. Bush. There is an extension of the balance of power metaphor to include bodies and arches. There is also a very informative flow-chart that tracks different iterations of balance of power metaphors and how these relate to the four authors that Little examines.

The next four chapters are explorations of the concept of balance of power within the structure of Mearsheimer, Waltz, Bull and Mortenthau. They are not detailed here, but should be reviewed. This is a limited review focusing on the first three chapters.

UPDATE:

Ch. 4: Morgenthau: Politics among Nations

The balance of power is a central feature of Morgenthau’s book. Wight highlights two processes that Morgenthau conflates: “One associates the balance of power with the unintended outcome of great powers engaged in a mechanistic drive for hegemony. The other dynamic is associated with a complex set of social, ideational and material factors that ameliorate the effects of the first dynamic and assists the great powers in maintaining an equilibrium that promotes their collective security and common interests” (92).

A first general criticism of Morgenthau’s approach is that it is ahistorical. A second criticism is that it is generally ambiguous. Thirdly, it is generally thought to be incoherent. For example, Donnelly (2000) critiques Morgenthau’s conception of balance of power as being two mutually exclusive things.

For Morgenthau, power politics are eternal, as this is deeply rooted in human nature. However, he also argues that the balance of power is made possible by a certain kind of international structure that some might call modern and rooted in European history. There is a dualism at play here which is difficult to reconcile, though I would be tempted to explain it through the same distinction as that between structural realists and neo-classical realists.

Morgenthau highlights the golden age of the balance of power at the Peace of Westphalia, which ended the Thirty Years’ War. “He justifies this assessment on two grounds; first, that this was the time when most of the literature on the balance of power was published, and second, that this was the era when princes most explicitly drew on the balance of power to guide their foreign policy” (101).

“…as I have tried to show in this chapter, from his perspective, the nature of international politics has undergone at least tw2o major transformations over the last three hundred years” (124). The first was the French Revolution, which challenged the aristocracy. The second was after WWI, with international super-powers. In this sense, Morgenthau begins to look somewhat like a constructivist. While international structure pushes countries towards something resembling hegemony, countries can fight back and bring about a sort of stability to the system. Morgenthau spoke against nationalistic universalism and thought of the historical transition as moving towards a world order. As we move there, we must attempt to achieve an associational balance of power (as opposed to an adversarial balance of power) through the tool of diplomacy.

Ch. 5: Bull: Anarchical Society

The concept of the balance of power figures strongly in Bull’s The Anarchical Society.

He begins by using Vattel’s definition (Swiss diplomat): “’a state of affairs such that no one power is in a position where it is preponderant and can lay down the law to the others’” (135). “For Vattel, therefore, the balance of power is contrasted with hegemony and it applies to a political arena where there is no overarching authority” (135).

Bull refers to balance of power as an institution, as defined as the following: “’a set of habits and practices shaped towards the realization of common goals’” (135).

Balancing then necessarily implies, “....’self-restraint as well as the restraint of others’” (135). In this sense, structure impels countries to work to resist the hegemonic rise of other countries, as well as resist hegemonic attempts of their own.

There are six complications to this: 1.) polarity is important; 2.) there are multiple types of power; 3.) the way that power is distributed geographically is important; 4.) the way that power is perceived is important; 5.) nuclear weapons change things; and 6.) the type of balance of power is important, for example, whether or not it is fortuitous or contrived.

“An international system exists…whenever ‘states are in regular contact with one another and where in addition there is interaction between them, sufficient to make the behavior of each a necessary element in the calculation of the other’” (139).

“By contrast, an international society exists when states, on the one hand, are ‘conscious of certain common interests and common values’ and, on the other, ‘conceive of themselves to be bound by a common set of rules in their relations with one another, and share in the working of common institutions’” (139).

Bull’s view of the institutional relationships involved in international society are represented in Figure 5.4: In the middle there is balance of power. As nodes that move away from this central point, there is international law, diplomacy, war and great power management (149).

Ch. 6: Kenneth N. Waltz’s Theory of International Politics:

“Waltz…insists that if there is any ‘distinctively political theory of international politics, balance of power is it’” (167).

Little argues that, while Waltz is typically seen as being a proponent of adversarial balances of power, the story can also be read as promoting an associational balance of power.

“So…Walt…has drawn a distinction between balance of power theory and balance of threat theory and he argues that the latter incorporates the idea of power but subsumes it, in conjunction with geography, offensive capabilities and intentions, within the more general concept of threat. He then goes on to argue that where as the balance of power theory predicts that states will ally against the strongest state, the balance of threat theory predicts that states will ally against the most threatening state” (169-70).

Reverse Balancing: “…identifies collaborative policies that are designed to promote stability by reducing the level of arms or implementing measures that are designed to inhibit the use of weapons” (172).

Waltz tries to establish an international political realm that is distinct from the realm of domestic politics, or unit level analyses. There are two forms of political order, one with an organizing principle of hierarchy and another with an organizing principle of anarchy.

The issue of power is central to Waltz’s theory. Firstly, he conceptualizes power in material terms, and disputes whether or not these material ends need to actually control outcomes of others. Secondly, he assumes that there is only ever a small amount of states that can affect the system. Thirdly, he assumes power is relative.

“From Waltz’s perspective, it is not that ‘anarchy is what states make of it’, in Wendt’s memorable phrase, but rather ‘anarchy is what polarity makes of it’ (192).

“…the two great powers are much more able to manage international affairs constructively than are the great powers in a mltipolar world” (206).

“He accepts, however, that a theory that is based on the structure of the international system can only help to explain ‘some big, important, and enduring patterns’… In essence, he makes three major claims in the book. The first is that anarchy is an extremely resilient political structure and that the balance of power provides the best theoretical explanation for this phenomenon. The second claim is that the nature of international politics is very different in bipolar and multipolar systems and this is because the balance of power operates on a very different basis in these two kinds of systems. The third claim, closely related to the second, is that the international system can be more constructively managed in a bipolar system than in a multipolar system. This is because the miltipola4r balance of power inhibits the constructive management of international affairs. Structural explanations, therefore, can account for continuity within systems and differences between systems” (209-10).

Ch. 7: John J. Mearsheimer’s The Tragedy of Great Power Politics:

Little explains that this book was written in response to those who believed that the end of the cold war represented some sort of “end of history” (213).

Little earlier argues that reading Waltz as a defensive realist is a misreading, something that Mearsheimer relies on in his situating of his IR theory. In line with the focus on metaphors, myths, etc., Little analogizes the international system to a tread mill. In Waltz’s theory, states run and run on the treadmill and there will always be competition and conflict, unless only two states remain. Only then is there the possibility of working together to solve problems. Mearsheimer, on the other hand, presents a treadmill where the great powers try to run faster than the other states until other states succumb to fatigue and only one state remains.

“The aim of this chapter is to highlight the role that the balance of power plays in Mearsheimer’s theory of international politics and to show how his theory transforms the conventional or certainly the Waltzian image of the international system and reveals that it is, inherently, a regionally based system” (215).

Assumes that great powers shape the international system. States are overwhelmingly concerned with their own survival because the international system is a self-help system. The, “…logic of anarchy compels every great power to adopt an aggressive stance in the international system” (224). States strive to be hegemons, though it’s virtually impossible (espseically in the age of nuclear weapons) to become the hegemon (based on Mearcheimer’s definition).

Mearsheimer then moves away from some more foundational, Waltzian structural realist assumptions and brings geography into the equation by talking about the “stopping power of water”.