scholarly journals International Influences and Democratic Regression in Interwar Europe: Disentangling the Impact of Power Politics and Demonstration Effects

2016 ◽  
Vol 52 (4) ◽  
pp. 559-586 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jørgen Møller ◽  
Svend-Erik Skaaning ◽  
Jakob Tolstrup
Keyword(s):  
Political System ◽  
Balance Of Power ◽  
International Order ◽  
Great Powers ◽  
Political Polarization ◽  
Political Regime ◽  
Theoretical Frameworks ◽  
Power Politics ◽  
Interwar Europe ◽  
The Impact

Scholars have convincingly argued that theoretical frameworks that combine international influences and domestic factors are needed to understand political regime developments. We argue that exogenous shifts in the balance of power between great powers (‘power politics’) spark demonstration effects. These, in turn, are filtered into the domestic political system of smaller states via changes in political polarization – but with the effects being conditional on the domestic vulnerability of democracy. To assess this framework we turn to interwar Europe, where the international order changed from undergirding democracy to facilitating autocratic rule. An analysis of three countries (Poland, Austria and Denmark), backed by a more general glance at the remaining interwar cases, shows that the interaction between demonstration effects, pressure from great powers and the domestic resilience of democracy offers substantial leverage in accounting for patterns of democratic regression.

COVID-19 Vaccine Nationalism and Politicization

2021 ◽  
pp. 86-111
Author(s):  
Savithri Sellapperumage
Keyword(s):  
Developing Nations ◽  
Great Powers ◽  
The Political ◽  
Power Politics ◽  
Health Security ◽  
Political Dimension ◽  
The World ◽  
Vaccine Distribution ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Global Initiatives

The COVID-19 pandemic has swept the world uprooting people from their livelihoods and toppling the economy of the world. Thus, to everyone's interest, producing a vaccine became the priority to gain at least half the normalcy in day-to-day activities of the world. With over a year passing, several states have come to the front in producing vaccines, having completed tedious processes of research and clinical trials. The next mammoth task at hand is distribution and administration in countries. However, with only a few countries gaining the advantage of production, they are seen to exercise power politics in purchasing and distribution of the vaccine. Developing countries have succumbed to a difficult predicament amidst balancing the great powers and the financial inability to obtain the vaccination. Therefore, the chapter explores the political dimension to vaccine distribution and the plight of developing nations in obtaining the vaccine. Further, the chapter observes the global initiatives taken to address the issue and the impact of distribution on health security.

Orders of Exclusion

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kyle M. Lascurettes
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
The United States ◽  
International Order ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Great Powers ◽  
Great Power ◽  
Perceived Threat ◽  
Power Politics ◽  
Change Order ◽  
Do So

When and why do powerful countries seek to enact major changes to international order, the broad set of rules that guide behavior in world politics? This question is particularly important today given the Trump administration’s clear disregard for the reigning liberal international order in the United States. Across the globe, there is also uncertainty over what China might seek to replace that order with as it continues to amass power and influence. Together, these developments mean that what motivates great powers to shape and change order will remain at the forefront of debates over the future of world politics. Prior studies have focused on how the origins of international orders have been consensus-driven and inclusive. By contrast, this book argues that the propelling motivation for great power order building at important historical junctures has typically been exclusionary, centered around combatting other actors rather than cooperatively engaging with them. Dominant powers pursue fundamental changes to order when they perceive a major new threat on the horizon. Moreover, they do so for the purpose of targeting this perceived threat, be it another powerful state or a foreboding ideological movement. The goal of foundational rule writing in international relations, then, is blocking that threatening entity from amassing further influence, a motive Lascurettes illustrates at work across more than three hundred years of history. Far from falling outside of the bounds of traditional statecraft, order building is the continuation of power politics by other means.

Power Politics

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alex J. Bellamy
Keyword(s):  
East Asia ◽  
National Security ◽  
Balance Of Power ◽  
Great Powers ◽  
Military Power ◽  
Nuclear Deterrence ◽  
Power Politics ◽  
Security Practices ◽  
Security Relations

This chapter explores the role of “power politics”—the domain of national security interests and the procurement and use of military power—in the decline of mass atrocities in East Asia. It suggests that power politics made an important, but not the singularly most important, contribution. The chapter has three parts. First, it explores how conventional power politics contributed to the decline of mass atrocities in East Asia. Although not central to the overall story, once they were established, the balance of power and both conventional and nuclear deterrence played a role in limiting the further escalation of potential conflicts. Second, it examines the limits of power politics. Third, it points to specific security practices that were more consequential, including the development of omnidirectional security relations, a tendency to avoid destabilizing competition, de-polarization, and the enmeshing of great powers in the region’s norms

The Unipolar Illusion Revisited: The Coming End of the United States' Unipolar Moment

2006 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 7-41 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Layne
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Political System ◽  
Balance Of Power ◽  
The United States ◽  
Great Powers ◽  
Second Tier ◽  
Distribution Of Power ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
New Distribution

The conventional wisdom among U.S. grand strategists is that U.S. hegemony is exceptional—that the United States need not worry about other states engaging in counterhegemonic balancing against it. The case for U.S. hegemonic exceptionalism, however, is weak. Contrary to the predictions of Waltzian balance of power theorists, no new great powers have emerged since the end of the Cold War to restore equilibrium to the balance of power by engaging in hard balancing against the United States—that is, at least, not yet. This has led primacists to conclude that there has been no balancing against the United States. Here, however, they conflate the absence of a new distribution of power in the international political system with the absence of balancing behavior by the major second-tier powers. Moreover, the primacists' focus on the failure of new great powers to emerge, and the absence of traditional “hard” (i.e., military) counterbalancing, distracts attention from other forms of counterbalancing—notably “leash-slipping”—by major second-tier states that ultimately could lead to the same result: the end of unipolarity. Because unipolarity is the foundation of U.S. hegemony, if it ends, so too will U.S. primacy.

The Impact of International Politics on Commercial Flows in the Age of Globalization

2011 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefano Costalli
Keyword(s):  
International Politics ◽  
International System ◽  
Great Powers ◽  
Simultaneous Action ◽  
Empirical Literature ◽  
Power Politics ◽  
Reciprocal Relationships ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
High Degree ◽  
The Impact

The debate between realists and liberals in the field of International Relations concerning the causes and effects of economic interdependence among states has led to a remarkable branch of empirical literature. However, hardly any research has studied those dynamics in the period following the Cold War, which is so often defined “the age of globalization.” This article is based on a quantitative analysis of the influence of international politics on commercial flows in the post-bipolar period and it performs such analysis on two sets of data. The first one includes all countries of the system for which data is available and the second one focuses on the countries that previous similar studies have identified as great powers. The results show that the contemporary international system is marked by a high degree of complexity and by the simultaneous action of different and even contrasting logics. Liberal variables such as democracy and economic international institutions exert a remarkable influence on international trade, especially at the global level, but international security and even power politics issues are still relevant, particularly for the great powers in their reciprocal relationships.

The Russian vision of strategic balance in the 21st century in the spirit of political realism

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 252-261
Author(s):  
Malina Kaszuba
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Balance Of Power ◽  
International Order ◽  
Great Powers ◽  
Political Realism ◽  
The West ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Russian Federation ◽  
Strategic Balance

Over the past two decades, Russian foreign policy has evolved significantly. Its aim is to seek a change in the global balance of power. This evolution proceeded from attempts to establish cooperation with the West, through a confrontational narrative, ending with political and military actions. The purpose of this article is to analyze the present Russian view of the current international order and to define its future shape based on assumptions and specific actions in the sphere of the aforementioned foreign policy. Particularly useful for the needs of the conducted research is the reference to the theory of political realism. This is determined by the fact that the Russian Federation, contesting the current hegemonic international order, aims to create a multipolar world with the key balancing role of the great powers.

scholarly journals International relations in the corona age: The concept of entropy revisited

2021 ◽  
Vol 73 (1) ◽  
pp. 39-57
Author(s):  
Vladimir Trapara
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
International System ◽  
Research Question ◽  
Balance Of Power ◽  
Great Powers ◽  
Contemporary History ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
The Past ◽  
Global Catastrophe ◽  
The Impact

The paper deals with the relation between the concept of entropy in international relations and the influence of the coronavirus pandemic upon them. In many ways, the coronavirus pandemic is an unprecedented event in contemporary history, but the corona age only confirms the already present trend of chaos and unpredictability in post-Cold War international relations, which Randall Schweller explained by the concept of entropy - the tendency of the rise in the disorder of every closed system. The goal of the paper is to consider this concept and revisit it by an assessment of how the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on international relations fits into it. Starting from Schweller?s observation that, in the past, hegemonic wars were the primary mechanism of containing entropy in the international system, along with his prediction that some natural catastrophe could have a certain impact in that direction in the future, the author departs with this research question: Could the coronavirus pandemic bring a reduction of entropy in the post-corona age, or will it only deepen the trend of entropy? Confirming the latter, the author finds the explanation for the resilience of entropy in the absence of balance of power in the contemporary international system - which is opposed to Schweller?s expectation that only hegemony can contain entropy. The conclusion is that the great powers in the post-corona age should consciously work on restoring and maintaining a balance of power if they want to make the system more resilient to some next global catastrophe.

scholarly journals The covid-19 Pandemic, Geopolitics, and International Law

2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 237-248
Author(s):  
David P Fidler
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Global Health ◽  
International Law ◽  
International Health ◽  
Balance Of Power ◽  
The United States ◽  
Power Politics ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The Impact

Abstract Balance-of-power politics have shaped how countries, especially the United States and China, have responded to the covid-19 pandemic. The manner in which geopolitics have influenced responses to this outbreak is unprecedented, and the impact has also been felt in the field of international law. This article surveys how geopolitical calculations appeared in global health from the mid-nineteenth century through the end of the Cold War and why such calculations did not, during this period, fundamentally change international health cooperation or the international law used to address health issues. The astonishing changes in global health and international law on health that unfolded during the post-Cold War era happened in a context not characterized by geopolitical machinations. However, the covid-19 pandemic emerged after the balance of power had returned to international relations, and rival great powers have turned this pandemic into a battleground in their competition for power and influence.

After Victory

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. John Ikenberry
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Politics ◽  
World Order ◽  
Balance Of Power ◽  
The United States ◽  
Big Bang ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Napoleonic Wars ◽  
Power Politics ◽  
The Cold War

The end of the Cold War was a “big bang” reminiscent of earlier moments after major wars, such as the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815 and the end of the world wars in 1919 and 1945. But what do states that win wars do with their newfound power, and how do they use it to build order? This book examines postwar settlements in modern history, arguing that powerful countries do seek to build stable and cooperative relations, but the type of order that emerges hinges on their ability to make commitments and restrain power. The book explains that only with the spread of democracy in the twentieth century and the innovative use of international institutions—both linked to the emergence of the United States as a world power—has order been created that goes beyond balance of power politics to exhibit “constitutional” characteristics. Blending comparative politics with international relations, and history with theory, the book will be of interest to anyone concerned with the organization of world order, the role of institutions in world politics, and the lessons of past postwar settlements for today.

The Impact of BRICS in Reconstructing the International Order

2020 ◽  
pp. 87
Author(s):  
Tareq Mohammed Dhannoon AL Taie
Keyword(s):  
International System ◽  
Political Influence ◽  
Active Role ◽  
International Order ◽  
First Century ◽  
International Affairs ◽  
Strategic Action ◽  
Brics Countries ◽  
Future Work ◽  
The Impact

The BRICS countries have a historical aspiration for global leadership, especially Russia and China, and other countries trying to have a position in the pyramid of international powers in the twenty-first century, especially Brazil, India and South Africa, they worked to unify their efforts, in order to achieve integration in the strategic action, activate its role in International affairs, ending American domination , and restructuring an international system that have an active role in its interactions.       The research hypothesis is based on the idea that the BRICS group, despite the nature of its economic composition and its long-term goals, but its political influence as a bloc, is greater than the proportion of its economic influence in restructuring the new international order. The BRICS group has the capabilities to reshape the international order, but disputes among some of its members represent a challenge to its future work. Its goals will not be achieved without teamwork. Third world countries, especially those that reject unipolarism, have regarded one of the pillars supporting multi-polarity, aiming of giving them freedom of movement in international relations. The ultimate goal of the BRICS is a political nature, as economic mechanisms are used to achieve political goals.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document