Alcock and Newcombe:  The Perception of National Power

Alcock, Norman Z., and Alan G. Newcombe. “The Perception of National Power.” The Journal of Conflict Resolution 14, no. 3 (September 1, 1970): 335–343.

"...if international relations is to become a science it will have to establish a definitive quantitative measure for its most basic variable--national power" (335).

"There may be differences between 'real' power and 'perceived' power.  Given some objective level of 'real' power, a nation may nevertheless be perceived as stronger, or weaker, y the people of another nation.  Yet both objective and subjective power must ber based on a number of measurable facts.  The purpose of this empirical study is to ascertain these measurable facts and thus help to establish a quantitative definition of national power.  In addition to its theoretical value, a quantitative measurement of power can have an immediate practical application for peace--that is, in devising formulas for weighted voting in the United Nations, which is now floundering on the 'one nation, one vote' principle" (335).  

They survey folks asking them to rank countries by "importance".  This is the dependent variable for their analysis.  

"We conclude, therefore, that perceived national power is some function of GNP or military expenditure (in purchasing-power-equivalent dollars) if none of the nations has been at war recently, but is a function of military expenditure alone if warring nations are included in the rating"  (342).

Two regressions that are salient:  Relative Power = -8.85 + 0.67 population + 0.47 GNP/cap

Relative power = 9.4 - 0.09 population + 0.93 GNP

Kugler and Arbetman:  Choosing Among Measures of Power

Kugler, Jacek, and Marina Arbetman. “Choosing Among Measures of Power:  A Review of the Empirical Record.” In Power in World Politics, edited by Richard J Stoll and Michael Don Ward. Boulder, Colo: L. Rienner Publishers, 1989.

"We show that, for major powers, a number of indicators used in international politics to index power are highly related.  Whether one chooses to use GNP, the COW Indexes, or adjust these for military expenditures is not critically relevant for the analysis of relations among major powers over time.  This choice affects cross-sectional analysis since rank varies at one point in time but even here the average disparity is on the order of 10%" (73-4).

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.

Lemke:  Regions of War and Peace

Lemke, Douglas. Regions of war and peace. Cambridge, UK; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002.

The book begins with an overview of power transition theory juxtaposed with balance of power theory.  "The critically important variables associated with war and peace within power transition theory are thus relative power relations and status quo evaluations" (25).

Lemke then applies the logic of power transition theory to regional levels.  He deploys a "multiple hierarchy model" which argues that a regional "status quo" and dominant power is common, and that global powers do not frequently interfere with these regional dynamics (Vietnam and Korea are exceptions).  "In spite of the fact that these authors variously use the terms lesser-, subordinate-, "inferiour"-, local-, or regional balances, they all seem to be suggesting the same thing; namely, the international balance or international system is a set of international systems arranged geographically, or in positions of relative inferiority/superiority, or both" (58).

He uses both COW CINC measures and GDP/GNP to measure relative power.  The threshold for parity is 70 percent of the power of the dominant.  He outlines regional groupings and and regional powers.  Does much more than I describe here.

Levy, Jack.  Power Transition Theory and the Rise of China.  

In:  Ross, Robert S, and Feng Zhu. China’s ascent: power, security, and the future of international politics. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2008.

"I argue that applications of power transition theory to the rise of China are compromised by the failure to recognize both the theoretical limitations of power transition theory and the contextual differences between a potential Sino-American transition and past power transitions.  I give particular attention to the theory's focus on a single international hierarchy and its lack of a conceptual apparatus to deal with global-regional interactions, which are important because China is more likely to pose a threat to US interests in East and Southeast Asia than to US global interests, at least for many decades" (11).

Reviews Organski's contribution to power transition theory.  "Organski and his colleagues measure productivity in terms of GDP/capita.  Their aggregate measure of power is the product of GDP and political capacity.  If a great power increases in strength to the point that it acquires at least 80 percent of the power of the dominant state, it is defined as a 'challenger' to the dominant state and to that state's ability to control the international system" (13).

"It is the combination of parity, overtaking, and dissatisfaction that leads to war, though power transition theorists have been inconsistent regarding the precise relationship among these key causal variables.  In the most recent statement of the theory, it appears that dissatisfaction and parity each approximate a necessary condition for war between the dominant state and the challenger" (14).

"Thus, population has a critical impact on power in the long term; economic growth has a large impact in the medium term; and political capacity has its greatest impact in the short term" (16).

"The question, according to power transition theory, is not whether China will eventually overtake the United States, since that is practically inevitable once China completes its modernization and moves up its growth trajectory, but rather when and with what consequences.  Power transition theorists equivocate in their discussion of the timing of the transition  but not about the conditions determining whether the transition will be peaceful or warlike" (16).

"Power transition theory posits that national power is a function of population, economic productivity, and the political capacity to extract resources from society and transform them into national power.  Thus in most applications of the theory national power = population * GDP/capita * political capacity.  One problem with the emphasis on population and GDP is that while GDP captures quantitative changes in the growth of the economy as a whole it does not fully capture qualitative changes int eh form of technological innovations that generate new leading economic sectors and trigger paradigmatic shifts in economic production" (18).

"To summarize, although power transition theory suggests that China's overtaking of the United States is both inevitable and imminent sometime within the next generation, a focus on the leading economic sectors and technological innovations that drive them suggests a more cautious attitude in predicting a Sino-American power transition" (20).

"To summarize, although power transition theory claims to provide a theory of great power war at the top of the international hierarchy, a look at its application to historical cases reveals that in important respects the theory mis-specifies the causal mechanisms leading to war" (30).

McNally: Sino-Capitalism

McNally, Christopher A. “Sino-Capitalism: China’s Reemergence and the International Political Economy.” World Politics 64, no. 4 (2012): 741–776.

Outlines the IR debate on the rise of China.  Then focuses on IPE interpretation of Sino-Capitalism in contrast to Anglo-Capitalism.  Sino-Capitalism:  "...relies on informal business networks rather than on legal codes and transparent rules.  It also assigns the Chinese state a leading role in fostering and guiding capitalist accumulation." (744)  "Central to Sino-capitalism's institutional structure is a unique duality that combines top-down state-led development with bottom-up entrepreneurial private capital accumulation" (744).

Piece goes on to place Sino-Capitalism within the varieties of capitalism literature.  It argues that the unique characteristics of this economic structure will be challenging to assimilate within the liberal economic order.  Author makes the interesting observation that China is entering the international system characterized by neoliberal globalization and other Asian countries that entered the system earlier did so  when it was more characterized by embedded liberalism.  

The article then goes on to document the moves that China is making to internationalize the yuan.  The further implications for the rise of China and US-China relations are ambiguous, but the author claims that the rise of Sino-Capitalism will continue to challenge the international financial order.

Ray and SInger: Measuring Concentration of Power

Ray, James Lee, J. David Singer. 1973. Measuring the concentration of power in the international system. Sociological Methods & Research. 1: 403.

"The purpose of this paper is to examine some earlier efforts to measure the inequality of distribution within several different substantive contexts, and to see how appropriate these different measures might be if they were applied to the distribution of 'power potential' in the international system or any of its subsystems" (405).

 "We should admit, and indeed will even emphasize, that the criteria for selection of an index will vary as research purposes change" (405).

Mearshimer: The Gathering Storm

Mearsheimer, John J. “The Gathering Storm: China’s Challenge to US Power in Asia.” The Chinese Journal of International Politics 3, no. 4 (December 21, 2010): 381–396.

 The argument here is that "China cannot rise peacefully" (382). This is because of power transition theory and standard Realist accounts of behavior in the international system. There are three arguments for why China will rise peacefully and Mearsheimer refutes each. 1. China will mitigate fears of it's revisionist nature by signaling to their neighbors that it will be peaceful. This isn't possible because states can have no truthful expectation about the behavior of other states. Cites Hobbes related work. Second, China could build defensive military capabilities in place of offensive. This isn't plausible because the line between defensive and offensive capabilities is blurry. 3. China's behavior to her neighbors has been peaceful lately. Problem with this thinking is that past behavior isn't predictive of future behavior.

 He also addresses the US role in the future and its desire to remain the global hegemon. This will further initiate conflict.

Then, after telling the reader that we can't understand the decisions of leaders in 2025 he goes on to tell us how we should expect countries to behave.

German: A Tentative Evaluation of World Power

German, Clifford. 1960. A tentative evaluation of world power. Conflict resolution. Vol IV. No 1.

"Four basic dimensions have been selected and then modified and added in order to show the interplay of other factors and to obtain a sum total representing an estimate of total national strength. The four are; (1) national economy, which includes the resources of agriculture, minerals, raw materials and industry; (2) land and ((3) population (both used advisedly to avoid the implications of Raum and Volk); and (4) military power" 139). "Sheer area is undeniably a potent factor..." (139). "For the purposes of this article, the basis of calculation is the national area in thousands of square kilometers. This figure is divided by 5, 10, or 20, according to the effectiveness of national occupancy, represented by a scale of population density, and still further reduced in most cases by a third, a half, or two-thirds, according to the excellence or otherwise of communications. This is measured by the proportion of railroad mileage to area" (139). For population only uses working age population between fifteen and sixty.

 "Then, since food is literally a vital commodity, the number of the total population surplus to home produced food supply is deducted, or the hypothetical number of people who could be fed by a food surplus is added" (139);. Also adds something related to morale, which is basically a modified population for human capital productivity. "up to 50 per cent of the total working population may be added to represent this" (139). the economy is further broken down and manufacturing workers are counted as five times more. Also, energy consumption per capita is considered. Communist countries are given double the production because things are able to be controlled or orientated towards more strategic production as compared with Crude steel production is also considered and is added to both oil and coal production as well as hydro-electric production. Author also considers energy production as being a potential drag on material power for importing countries Considers nuclear weapons to double the sum total of other military factors. Order of great powers for 1958: USA, USSR, UK, China, West Germany, Canada, Japan, France, India, Poland, Australia, Brazil, Czeschoslovakia, Italy, East Germany, Argentina, Union of South Africa, Sweden, Belgium

Hohn: Four Early Attempts to Develop Power Formulas

Hohn, Karl. Four early attempts to develop power formulas (1741-1995). International Relations. 3-4. 2011. http://powermetrics.bplaced.net/earlyformulas.pdf

Reviews the history of power formulas. First there is the work of Submilch (1741) which argued that power is a factor of population times population density. Next there is the work of Friedensburg (1936) who argued that power is a factor of the supply of raw materials times population. Third, there is the work of Stewart (1945/1954) who argued that power was a function of population divided by the distance between one country and another. Fourth there is the work of Wright (1955) who argued that power is a function of population times secondary energy production.

Keohane and Nye: Power and Interdependence

RO Keohane and JS Nye, Power and interdependence (Longman New York, 2001).

"We live in an era of interdependence. This vague phrase expresses a poorly understood but widespread feeling that the very nature of world politics is changing" (3).

Some see the traditional state as unraveling and being supplanted by newer actors. Traditionalists call this view "globaloney", according to the authors (3).

"Our task in this book is not to argue either the modernist or traditionalist position. Because our era is marked by both continuity and change, this would be fruitless. Rather, our task is to provide a means fo distilling and blending the wisdom in both positions by developing a coherent theoretical framework for the political analysis of interdependence" (4).

The authors explore how increasing economic interdependence is changing politics. They also are interested in how politics is changing the nature of economic interdependence, and refer to governmental programs and actions designed to create procedures, rules, etc., as international regimes. They wonder how and why these international regimes are alter over time.

They explore the rhetoric of interdependence.

Some believe that interdependence will lessen conflict. This is naïve, and interdependence could just as easily increase conflict. This empirical question aside, the more likely claim is that interdependence will change the nature of conflict. Also, interdependnece is not synonymous with mutual benefit. Cases of mutual dependence, where both do not benefit but both are still wedded represent interdependence. Also, interdependence will change the cost of interaction because it has the potential to restrict autonomy.

The authors explore the distinction between joint gains and how those gains are divided. Economists typically address the former, not the later.

"We must therefore be cautious about the prospect that rising interdependence is creating a brave new world of cooperation to replace the bad old world of international conflict" (10).

Power and Interdependence:

"Power can be thought of as the ability of an actor to get others to do something they otherwise would not do...Power can also be conceived in terms of control over outcomes. In either case, measurement is not simple" (11).

The authors make a distinction between sensitivity and vulnerability. The former is how responsive changes in one country make impacts in other countries. "Sensitivity interdependence is created by interactions within a framework of policies" (12). "Vulnerability can be defined as an actor's liability to suffer costs imposed by external events even after policies have been altered...Vulnerability dependence can be measured only by the costliness of making effective adjustments to a changed environment over a period of time" (13).

International Regime Change:

International regimes are not insignificant, though they may lack serious teeth, ie., enforcement mechanisms.

"International regimes are intermediate factors between the power structure of an international system and the political and economic bargaining that takes place within it. The structure of the system...profoundly affects the nature of the regime...The regime, in turn, affects and to some extent governs the political bargaining and daily decision-making that occurs within the system" (21).

Ch 2: Realism and Complex Interdependence:

"The realist assumptions about world politics can be seen as defining an extreme set of conditions or ideal type. One could also imagine very different conditions. In this chapter, we shall construct another ideal type, the opposite of realism. We call it complex interdependence" (23).

Realists focus on power and international anarchy.

Three factors give rise to complex interdependence: linkage strategies; agenda setting; transnational and transgovernmental relations.

Gilpin: US Power and the Multinational Corporation

R Gilpin, US Power and the Multinational Corporation: The Political Economy of Foreign Direct Investment (Basic Books, 1975).

Chapter 1:

Gilpin begins this piece by exploring two schools of thought on the relationship between international capital and the nation-state. One school believes that the state should be continuously eroded as it is both poorly suited for this differently structured world. The other school of thought argues that the nation should be bolstered and buttressed and act as a balance against the power of international capital. This debate, however, is not as novel as many have made it out to be.

"The argument of this study is that the relationship between economics and politics, at least in the modern world, is a reciprocal one. On the one hand, policies largely determines the framework of economic activity and channels it in directions intended to serve the interests of dominant groups, the exercise of power in all its forms is a major determinant of the nature of an economic system. On the other hand, the economic process itself tends to redistribute power and wealth; it transforms the power relationships among groups" (21-2). "thus, the dynamics of international relations in the modern world is largely a function of the reciprocal interaction between economics and politics" (22).

Gilpin then defines politics and economics. He uses Kindleberger's distinction in methods of distributing resources, either through the market or the budged. He then cited Keohane and Nye's work on the international political economy. "[They] define economics and politics in terms of two levels of analysis: those of structure and of process" (22).

"In this study, the issue of the relationship between economics and politics translates into that between wealth and power. According to this statement of the problem, economics takes as its province the creation and distribution of wealth; politics is the realm of power" (22). Gilpin goes on to acknowledge that the concept of power and wealth are complex, but attempts to provide operational definitions. Wealth: anything that can generate future income (23). Power: from Morgenthau: "Man's control over the minds and actions of other men" (24). While there is a separation between these two concepts, Gilpin argues that it is only analytical, and that they are practically always intertwined.

This chapter focuses on three major schools of thought in IPE: liberalism, Marxism and mercantilism. "Liberalism regards politics and economics as relatively separable and autonomous spheres of activities...Marxism refers to the radical critique of capitalism identified with Karl Marx and his contemporary disciples; according to this conception, economics determines politics and political structure. Mercantilism is a more questionable term because of its historical association with the desire of nation-states for a trade surplus and for treasury...One must distinguish, however, between the specific form mercantilism took in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and the general outlook of mercantilistic thought. The essence of the mercantilistic perspective...is the subservience of the economy to the state and its interests" (25).


Table 6: (27)

The author explores the differences in the above three schools of thought in more detail.

"My own perspective on political economy rests on what I regard as a fundamental difference in emphasis between economics and politics; namely, the distinction between absolute and relative gains. The emphasis of economic science...is on absolute gains; the ultimate defense of liberalism is that over the long run everyone gains" (33). "The essential fact of politics is that power is always relative; one state's gain in power is by necessity another's loss. Thus, even though two states may be gaining absolutely in wealth, in political terms it is the effect of those gains on relative power positions which is of primary importance" (34).

The author then expands upon the importance of relative power.

If, however, relative power is so important, why is there an international liberal economy? This is partially explained through hegemonic stability theory and the work of Kindleberger. "The argument of this study is that the modern world economy has evolved through the emergence of great national economies that have successively become dominant" (40). "An economic system, then, does not arise spontaneously owing to the operation of an invisible hand and in the absence of the exercise of power. Rather, every economic system rests on a particular political order; its nature cannot be understood aside from politics" (40-1).

"In brief, political economy in this study means the reciprocal and dynamic interaction in international relations of the pursuit of wealth and the pursuit of power" (43).

Chapter II:

"The thesis of this chapter is that foreign investment is a strategy employed by both rising and declining dominant capitalist economies--for quite different reasons. Although a strategy of foreign investment has been central to both the British and the American experience as alternately rising and declining industrial powers, there has been no analysis of foreign investment from the perspectives o fits role within the dynamics of international relations. For this reason, this study will examine British portfolio investment in the nineteenth century and American direct investment...in the context of international political change" (45).

Foreign investment is not, obviously, the only way that political power can be put forth through economic metrics, as the author rightly mentions.

Two phases of investment: The first requires foreign investment because rates of savings in the core are too large. The second is a response to a relative stagnation in industrial manufacturing in the core.

"Although foreign investment is not the primary cause of the shift in the locus of industrial power from core to periphery, it both accelerates this tendency and tends to abort any effort to reinvigorate the core's industrial base" (77). "In a world of competing nation-states, wherein power rests ultimately on an industrial base, foreign investment contributes to an international redistribution of power to the disadvantage of the core" (77).

Zakaria: The Post-American World

F Zakaria, The Post-American World (WW Norton & Company, 2008).

The book traces possible future worlds where the US is no longer the sole hegemon. The author posits that there have been three fundamental shifts in global power historically: the rise of the West from the 1500s through the Industrial Revolution and into the 20th century, the rise of the US as the world's main super power from WWII on and the coming "rise of the rest", which will change the way that the world works.

Zakaria briefly explores a seeming paradox between strong economic growth and a seemingly increasingly dangerous world. Even as, for example, war between Israel and Hezbollah raged, the Israeli stock-market drove skywards. The author claims that the apparent violence that is presented graphical and perpetually is overstated by the nature of modern media. This proclamation is obviously poorly timed, as global financial contractions also indicate that previously strong economic growth may have been based on faulty premises.

There is great global abundance of peace and wealth, and this, the author claims, stems from deep structural drivers that have been around for quite a while. These drivers are related to either politics, the economy or technology. These forces create problems of plenty, ie., the most pressing problems that we face globally are those that are a result of our resounding "success".

Will the future world be clearly Western or not? What will the role of culture be? China is positioned as the challenger and India is positioned as the ally. What role will American power play in this post-American world? Now that America has succeeded in globalizing the world, has it failed in globalizing itself?

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).

Treverton and Jones: Measuring National Power

Treverton, G. & Jones, S., 2005. Measuring National Power, Rand Corporation.

This is a summary of RAND conference proceedings with SAG and IFs.

The conference was designed to explore the changing nature of power. It initially explored power from three perspectives: the power of outcomes, the power of processes and the power of being. This is applied in a brief way to the changing nature of the US’ power in relation to other rising (and falling) international powers.

It also then explored the relationship between soft and hard power. This relationship is not entirely clear, and the distinction is not always very helpful.

It also looked at non-state actors and the power that they can wield. Specifically, it mentioned the land-mine ban as well as the Kyoto protocol.

Six kinds of non-state actors were mentioned: corporations, NGOs and civil society, IOs (WTO, IMF, WB, UN), regional economic associations, terrorists/criminals, virtual networks (hackers).

A different break-out group assessed different goals of non-state actors: change policy, disrupt state, work with state.

A third group identified ways in which ‘soft power’ could be changed to be more useful. They highlighted a range from coercion to attraction along economic, ideational and cultural lines. One way to determine soft power would be to poll a population and ask, “where would you like to live?”

Morgenthau: Politics among Nations

Morgenthau, Hans. 1948. “Politics among Nations: The Struggle for Power and Peace.” New York.

Six Principles of Political Realism:

1.

“Political realism believes that politics, like society in general, is governed by objective laws that have their roots in human nature. In order to improve society it is first necessary to understand the laws by which society lives. The operation of these laws being impervious to our preferences, men will challenge them only at the risk of failure” (4).

“For realism, theory consists in ascertaining facts and giving them meaning through reason. It assumes that the character of a foreign policy can be ascertained only through the examination of the political acts performed and of the foreseeable consequences of these acts” (4).

Must approach politics through the lenses of rationality and assume that leaders are operating with a certain amount of rational calculus.

2.

“The main signpost that helps poli8tical realism to find its way through the landscape of international politics is the concept of interest defined in terms of power” (5). This is the connection between the rationality of the actors and what they are striving for. “The concept of interest defined as power imposes intellectual discipline upon the observer, infuses rational order into the subject matter of politics, and thus makes the theoretical understanding of politics possible” (5).

Political realism’s rationality is both descriptive and normative. It is rational for states to maximize the cost-benefit analysis that they undertake. It is also something that should happen if they are to survive. This has nothing to do with intentions, as the example of Neville Chamberlain illustrates.

3.

“Realism assumes that its key concept of interest defined as power is an objective category which is universally valid, but it does not endow that concept with a meaning that is fixed once and for all” (10). “…the kind of interest determining political action in a particular period of history depends upon the political and cultural context within which foreign policy is formulated” (11). “The same observations apply to the concept of power…Power may comprise anything that establishes and maintains the control of man over man” (11).

4.

“Political realism is aware of the moral significance of political action. It is also aware of the ineluctable tension between the moral command and the requirements of successful political action” (12). “There can be no political morality without prudence; that is, without consideration of the political consequences of seemingly moral action” (12). “Realism, then, considers prudence—the weighing of the consequences of alternative political actions—to be the supreme virtue in politics” (12).

5.

“Political realism refuses to identify the moral aspirations of a particular nation with the moral laws that govern the universe. As it distinguishes between truth and opinion, so it distinguishes between truth and idolatry. All nations are tempted…to clothe their own particular aspirations and actions in the moral purpose of the universe” (13). “…it is exactly the concept of interest defined in terms of power that saves us from both that moral excess and that political folly. For if we look at all nations, our own included, as political entities pursuing their respective interests defined in terms of power, we are able to do justice to all of them” (13).

6.

“The difference, then, between political realism and other schools of thought is real, and it is profound…Intellectually, the political realist maintains the autonomy of the political sphere, as the economist, the lawyer, the moralist maintain theirs. He thinks in terms of interest defined as power, as the economist thinks in terms of interest defined as wealth…” (13).

Realism views things in their nature, not as we would like them to be. They focus “political man” as a power maximizer as other disciplines have their own distinct foci.

Barnett and Duvall: Power in Global Governance

Barnett, Michael N. and Raymond Duvall. (2005). Power in global governance. Cambridge, UK ; New York: Cambridge University Press. http://www.loc.gov/catdir/toc/cam051/2004049735.html
http://www.loc.gov/catdir/description/cam041/2004049735.html
http://www.loc.gov/catdir/enhancements/fy0733/2004049735-b.html

This is the first chapter of an edited volume on the nature of power in international relations. The initial claim is that power has for too long been pigeonholed by realist conceptions. While there is a certain value to this construction of power, it is far from exhaustive. This focus has obscured the study of other forms of power.

Additionally, this book is tied into the current emphasis of study on issues of global governance. The increasing and intensifying connection between different peoples internationally socially, politically and economically is producing a world that is uniquely changing. In addition, because of the end of the Cold-War, many have thought that a qualitatively different world would emerge, one that would necessarily include some construction or increasing importance of global governance.

The authors argue that this focus on global governance has neglected one crucial aspect of governance: power. Without an adequate understanding of the nature of and the ways in that power can differently affect different situations, global governance literature remains relatively impotent.

This account offers four different kinds of power that are distributed over two different axes, forming a 2x2 box. These powers are compulsory power, institutional power, structural power and productive power. The two axes are separated based on the degree to which they emphasize the interaction of different units being closely occurring in space/time, and secondly the degree to which power operates through specific actors or through socially relationships.

“In general terms, power is the production, in and through social relations, of effects that shape the capacities of actors to determine their own circumstances and fate” (8).

“The first dimension concerns whether power works in interactions or social constitution. One position on this dimension treats social relations as composed of the actions of pre-constituted social actors toward one another. Here, power works through behavioral relations or interactions, which, in turn, affect the ability of others to control the circumstances of their existence…The other position consists of social relations of constitution. Here, power works through social relations that analytically precede the social or subject positions of actors that constitute them as social beings with their respective capacities and interests” (9).

“The second core analytical dimension concerns how specific—direct and immediate—are the social relations through which power works” (11).

Compulsory power: direct control over another.

Dahl’s definition: “…power is best understood as the ability of A to get B to do what B otherwise would not do” (13).

“Compulsory power is not limited to material resources and also includes symbolic and normative resources” (15).

Institutional power: actors’ control over socially distant others

“Specifically, the conceptual focus here is on the formal and informal institutions that mediate between A and, as A, working through the rules and procedures that define those institutions, guides, steers, and constraints the actions…and conditions of existence of others, sometimes even unknowingly” (15).

Structural power: direct and mutual constitution of the capacities of actors

“Structural power concerns the structures—or, more precisely, the co-constitutive, internal relations of structural positions—that define what kinds of social beings actors are” (18).

“Structural power shapes the fates and conditions of existence of actors in two critical ways. One, structural positions do not generate equal social privileges; instead structures allocate differential capacities, and typically differential advantages, to different positions…Two, the social structure not only constitutes actors and their capacities; it also shapes their self-understanding and subjective interests” (18).

Productive power: production of subjects through diffuse social relations

“Productive power and structural power overlap in several important respects…Yet structural and productive power differ in a critical respect: whereas the former works through direct structural relations, the later entails more generalized and diffuse social processes…productive power…is the constitution of all social subjects with various social powers through systems of knowledge and discursive practices of broad and general social scope” (20).

“This difference between direct and diffuse social relations of constitution has two important implications for thinking about productive power. First, productive power concerns discourse, the social processes and the systems of knowledge through which meaning is produced, fixed, lived, experienced, and transformed…Second, discursive processes and practices produce social identities and capacities as they give meaning to them…Discourse, therefore, is socially productive for all subjects, constituting the subjectivity of all social beings of diverse kinds with their contingent, though not entirely fluid, identities, practices, rights, responsibilities and social capacities” (20-1).

The chapter closes with a discussion of resistance. “Our taxonomy of power…generates a taxonomy of resistance” (22). Compulsory power causes balancing resistance. Institutional power causes resistance that attempts to change the rules of the game. Structural power causes resistance in the inequality that is inherent in that relationship. Productive power causes resistance in the remaking of subjectivities.

Foucault: Power/Knowledge: Truth and Power

Foucault, Michel, & Gordon, Colin. (1980). Power/knowledge : selected interviews and other writings, 1972-1977 (1st American ed.). New York: Pantheon Books.

Truth and Power:

This interview is concerned with Foucault’s understanding of the role of science, and how the ways in which questions are formulated can illuminate or obscure relevant facts. In Foucault’s first answer, he says that, in his examination of science and the ideological functions it aided, his questions always returned to this: power and knowledge (109).

He is critical of the dialectical approach to understanding history, as it, “is a way of evading the always open and hazardous reality of conflict by reducing it to a Hegelian skeleton, and ‘semiology’ is a way of avoiding its violent, bloody and lethal character by reducing it to the calm Platonic form of language and dialogue” (115).

Concerning his genealogical approach, Foucault explains the following: “But this historical contextualization needed to be something more than the simple relativisation of the phenomenological subject. I don’t believe the problem can be solved by historicizing the subject as posited by the phenomenologists, fabricating a subject that evolves through the course of history. One has to dispense with the constituent subject, to get rid of the subject itself, that’s to say, to arrive at an analysis which can account for the constitution of the subject within a historical framework. And this is what I would call genealogy, that is, a form of history which can account for the constitution of knowledges, discourses, domains of objects etc., without having to make reference to a subject which is either transcendental in relation to the field of events or runs in its empty sameness throughout the course of history” (117).

Foucault then takes issue with the applicability of the idea of ideology for three reasons: “it always stands in virtual opposition to something else which is supposed to count as truth”; “…[it] refers…to something of the order of a subject; and, “…[it] stands in a secondary position relative to something which functions as its infrastructure, as its material, economic determinant” (118).

Power is not just a concept working in the negative, to hold subjects down, etc. Power works and produces things. It, “induces pleasure, forms knowledge, produces discourse” (119). These new forms of power that Foucault is highlighting are much more efficient and much less wasteful in their allocation and promotion.

Power is also a concept that is broader than the State. “I don’t want to say that the State isn’t important; what I want to say is that relations of power, and hence the analysis that must be made of them, necessarily extend beyond the limits of the State. In two senses: first of all because the State, for all the omnipotence of its apparatuses, is far from being able to occupy the whole field of actual power relations, and further because the State can only operate on the basis of other, already existing power relations” (122).

There is then a discussion of the role of the intellectual, with a distinction being made between the specific intellectual and the general intellectual.

“The important thing here…is that truth isn’t’ outside power, or lacking in power: contrary to a myth whose history and functions would repay further study, truth isn’t the reward of free spirits…Truth is a thing of this world: it is produced only by virtue of multiple forms of constraint. And it induces regular effects of power” (131).

“In societies like ours, the ‘political economy’ of truth is characterized by five important traits: “…centered on the form of scientific discourse”; “…subject to constant economic and political incitement”; “…object, under diverse forms, of immense diffusion and consumption”; “…produced and transmitted under the control…of a few great political and economic apparatuses”; and, “…it is the issue of a whole political debate and social confrontation” (131-2).

He suggests the following: “’Truth’ is to be understood as a system of ordered procedures for the reproduction, regulation, distribution, circulation and operation of statements. ‘Truth’ is linked in a circular relation with systems of power which produce and sustain it, and to effects of power which induces and which extend it. A regime of truth. This regime is not merely ideological or super-structural; it was a condition of the formation and development of capitalism” (133).

The key is to divine how to produce new truth. You can not escape power, for truth is always power. It is a matter of discovering how to find emancapatory truth/power, knowledge/power.

Foucault: Power/Knowledge: Two Lectures

Foucault, Michel, & Gordon, Colin. (1980). Power/knowledge : selected interviews and other writings, 1972-1977 (1st American ed.). New York: Pantheon Books.

Two Lectures:

He begins by outlining some of his research projects, and moves to identifying an “increasing vulnerability to criticism of things” (80). “So, the main point to be gleaned from these events of the last fifteen years, their predominant feature, is the local character of criticism” (81).

Foucault also identifies a “return to knowledge”, that he defines at, “a fact that we have repeatedly encountered…an entire thematic to the effect that it is not theory but life that matters not knowledge but reality, not books but money…there is something else to which we are witness, and which we might describe as an insurrection of subjugated knowledges” (81). These subjugated knowledges (both erudite knowledge and popular knowledge) all deal with, “historical knowledge of struggles” (83).

This leads to the emergence of a genealogical approach to research. “Let us give the term genealogy to the union of erudite knowledge and local memories which allows us to establish a historical knowledge of struggles and to make sue of this knowledge tactically today” (83). “It is not therefore via an empiricism that the genealogical project unfolds…What it really does it to entertain the claims to attention of local, discontinuous, disqualified, illegitimate knowledges against the claims of a unitary body of theory which would filter, hierarchies and order them in the name of some true knowledge and some arbitrary idea of what constitutes a science and its objects. Genealogies are therefore not positivistic returns to a more careful or exact form of science. They are pre3cisely anti-sciences” (83). “…a genealogy should be seen as a kind of attempt to emancipate historical knowledges from that subjection, to render them, that is, capable of opposition and of struggle against the coercion of a theoretical, unitary, formal and scientific discourse” (85). “If we were to characterize it in two terms, then ‘archaeology’ would be the appropriate methodology of this analysis of local discursivities, and ‘genealogy’ would be there tactics whereby, on the basis of the descriptions of these local discursivities, the subjected knowledges which were thus released would be brought into play” (85). “What is at stake in all these genealogies is the nature of this power which has surged into view in all its violence, aggression and absurdity in the course of the last forty years, contemporaneously, that is, with the collapse of Fascism and the decline of Stalinism” (87).

Remaining in the first lecture, there is an extended discussion of the nature of power. Power is examined as a construct of economy, and asked whether or not this is not constraining. Power is not simply modeled on the commodity (89), but Foucault wonders how one can conduct a non-economic study of power. Power has been historically seen as a tool of repression, “…repression no longer occupies the place that oppression occupies in relation to the contract, that is, it is not abuse, but is, on the contrary, the mere effect of the continuation of a relation of domination” (92).

In the second lecture, Foucault begins by examine the relations of power, truth and right in the relation to one another like a triangle. “My problem is…: What rules of right are implemented by the relations of power in the production of discourses of truth? (93). “There can be no possible exercise of power without a certain economy of discourses of truth which operates through and on the basis of this association” (93).

Foucault then moves onto the concept of sovereignty. “When we say that sovereignty is the central problem of right in Western societies, what we mean basically is that the essential function of the discourse and techniques of right has been to efface the domination intrinsic to power in order to present that latter at the level of appearance under two different aspects: on the one hand, as the legitimate rights of sovereignty, and on the other, as the legal obligation to obey it” (95).

He then promotes five different methodological precautions to his study, which he summarizes as follows: “I would say that we should direct our researches on the nature of power not towards the juridical edifice of sovereignty…but towards domination and the material operators of power, towards forms of subjection and the inflections and utilizations of their localized systems, and towards strategic apparatuses” (102).

Foucault then goes on to talk about the rupture in the ways in which power has been enforced. It is through surveillance (104), it is the greatest invention of bourgeois society (105), it is crucial for the development of capitalism (105) and it involves the creation of a “society of normalization” (107).