Merritt and Zinnes: Alternative Indexes of National Power
Merritt, Richard L, and Dina A Zinnes. “Alternative Indexes of National Power.” In Power in world politics, edited by Richard J Stoll and Michael Don Ward. Boulder, Colo.: L. Rienner Publishers, 1989.
"Our task is threefold first, to summarize the more prominent indexes of power that researches have proposed, highlighting both similarities and differences; second, to compare the empirical consequences of these alternative approaches; and third, to explore the implications of these findings" (12). They define power in line with what others have said, "...how probable it is that X can exert d amount of influence over Y with respect to issue g" (12).
Referring to single variable models of power: "A high national income...can imply a country's long-term ability to influence others, but not if it means that the population is less willing and even less able than others to engage in activities such as wars that might jeopardize its high standard of living. A healthy, skilled population may be a capability; an equally large but disease ridden and illiterate population can diminish the government's capacities. General s never tire of telling us that even the best-equipped army is ineffective without good leadership and high morale. Is energy used to drive television sets and compact-disk players equivalent to energy used for industrial production? Without strong evidence that a single-variable indicator predicts..relevant outcomes,k it is difficult to answer the complaints of 'realists' who point to a more complex world than any single indicator suggests" (14).
They list various contributions to measurements of power:
Knorr: very early, measured potential military power
Alcock and Newcombe: interested in perceptions, used Russet 1968 (in Singer Quantitative International Politics). Find three equations that can be used to assess relative power. The two they like are:
Relative Power = -8.85 + 0.67 population + 0.47 GNP/cap
Relative power = 9.4 - 0.09 population + 0.93 GNP
Singer: COW.
Demographics: Total population and urban population
Industrial: energy consumption and iron and steel production
Military: total spending and size of military
Fucks: non linear formulas that combine population, energy, and steel. In German. "Fucks predicts that growth in US power will taper off and reach 200 [base 100 US in 1960] by 2040. Meanwhile, China's power will outstrip that of the United States in about 1975 and reach a score of approximately 3000 in the year 2040" (17).
Cline: measures "capabilities" (population, territory, income, resource production, military capabilities) as well as "commitment" (national strategy, national will).
German: non-linear, and influenced by possession of nuclear weapons.
