Mansfield: Concentration, Polarity, and the Distribution of Power

Mansfield, E., 1993. Concentration, Polarity, and the Distribution of Power. International Studies Quarterly, 37, 105.

This article argues that a more helpful metric for measuring power in the international system is not polarity, but concentration. “The argument of this paper is that, for the purposes of explaining patterns of balancing behavior, the onset of war, and many aspects of the international political economy, scholars are likely to find it useful to analyze both features of the distribution of power that have been used repeatedly in studies of international relations: (1) polarity; and (2) concentration” (106).

“In this paper, I argue that, despite the fact that the use of polarity has enabled political scientists to make significant advances, it is also fraught with a number of limitations…These limitations can be redressed, in part, by focusing on concentration as well as on the number of poles in the global system. Concentration is entirely consistent with the microeconomic underpinnings of modern realist explanations of international relations. Unlike polarity, it also incorporates both the power inequalities among the major powers and the number of…major powers” (106).

Polarity is a problematic way to measure balance of power phenomena for a number of reasons. For example, even though Waltz said that anyone with “common sense” would be able to assert how many poles there were in the international system, it actually remains quite a contentious issue. Mansfield goes on to explain that IR should take an example from business literature, which measures the relative power of different firms using a more complex method.

Concentration is, “…a function of: (1) the number of major powers in the global system; and (2) the relative inequality of capabilities among the major powers” (111).

Mansfield then goes on to show how the concept of concentration can be helpfully applied to a debate about hegemonic stability theory. “By focusing on concentration, it is possible to assess empirically the influence of some aspect of the interaction between the number of major powers and the relative inequality of power among them on international economic outcomes” (121).