Thoughts on Power Transitions, Past and Future

2021 ◽  
pp. 142-154
Author(s):  
Manjari Chatterjee Miller
Keyword(s):  
Essential Elements ◽  
Great Powers ◽  
Great Power ◽  
Rising Powers ◽  
Active Behavior ◽  
China And India ◽  
The World ◽  
Rise Of China ◽  
Material Power ◽  
The Rise Of China

This chapter reviews the patterns found in the book and draws conclusions about the rise of China and India today. It argues that economic power, military power, and narratives about becoming a great power are all essential elements that rising powers which became great powers possessed, and in order to actively rise, these countries recognized the current norms of great power and initially played by the rules of the international order. Those that did not possess all those elements stayed reticent. Particularly, the absence of narratives about how to become a great power stymied these countries from active behavior on the world stage even when they possessed important elements of material power. This difference between active and reticent powers helps us understand why some nations rise to become great powers, as well as the differences between China and India today.

scholarly journals The Distribution of Identity and the Future of International Order: China’s Hegemonic Prospects

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bentley Allan ◽  
Srdjan Vucetic ◽  
Ted Hopf
Keyword(s):  
International Order ◽  
Great Powers ◽  
Current Debate ◽  
The Future ◽  
Rise Of China ◽  
Near Term ◽  
Material Power ◽  
Hegemonic Transition ◽  
The Rise Of China

Existing theories predict that the rise of China will trigger a hegemonic transition and the current debate centers on whether or not the transition will be violent or peaceful. This debate largely sidesteps two questions that are central to understanding the future of international order: how strong is the current Western hegemonic order and what is the likelihood that China can or will lead a successful counter-hegemonic challenge? We argue that the future of international order is shaped not only by material power but also by the distribution of identity across the great powers. We develop a constructivist account of hegemonic transition that theorizes the role of the distribution of identity in international order. In our account, hegemonic orders depend on a legitimating ideology that must be consistent with the distribution of identity at both the level of elites and masses. We map the distribution of identity across nine great powers and assess how this distribution supports the current Western neoliberal democratic hegemony. We conclude that China is unlikely to become the hegemon in the near-term. First, the present order is strongly supported by the distribution of identity in both Western states and rising powers like India and Brazil. Second, China is unlikely to join the present order and lead a transition from within because its authoritarian identity conflicts with the democratic ideology of the present order. Finally, China is unlikely to lead a counter-hegemonic coalition of great powers because it will be difficult to build an appealing, universal ideology consistent with the identities of other great powers.

Why Nations Rise

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Manjari Chatterjee Miller
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
The United States ◽  
International Order ◽  
Great Powers ◽  
Great Power ◽  
Economic Power ◽  
Rising Powers ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
China And India ◽  
The Military

What are rising powers? Do they challenge the international order? Why do some countries, but not others, become rising powers? Why Nations Rise answers these questions and shows that some countries rise not just because they develop the military and economic power to do so, but because they develop particular narratives about how to become a great power in the style of the great power du jour. These active rising powers accept the prevalent norms of the international order in order to become great powers. On the other hand, countries that have military and economic power but not these narratives do not rise enough to become great powers—they remain reticent powers. This book examines the narratives in historical (the United States, the Netherlands, Meiji Japan) and contemporary (Cold War Japan, post–Cold War China and India) cases to show patterns of active and reticent rising powers. It ends with lessons for how to understand two rising powers today, China and India.

scholarly journals The Distribution of Identity and the Future of International Order: China's Hegemonic Prospects

2018 ◽  
Vol 72 (4) ◽  
pp. 839-869 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bentley B. Allan ◽  
Srdjan Vucetic ◽  
Ted Hopf
Keyword(s):  
International Order ◽  
Great Powers ◽  
Current Debate ◽  
The Future ◽  
Rise Of China ◽  
Near Term ◽  
Material Power ◽  
Hegemonic Transition ◽  
The Rise Of China

AbstractExisting theories predict that the rise of China will trigger a hegemonic transition and the current debate centers on whether or not the transition will be violent or peaceful. This debate largely sidesteps two questions that are central to understanding the future of international order: how strong is the current Western hegemonic order and what is the likelihood that China can or will lead a successful counterhegemonic challenge? We argue that the future of international order is shaped not only by material power but also by the distribution of identity across the great powers. We develop a constructivist account of hegemonic transition and stability that theorizes the role of the distribution of identity in international order. In our account, hegemonic orders depend on a legitimating ideology that must be consistent with the distribution of identity at the level of both elites and masses. We map the distribution of identity across nine great powers and assess how this distribution supports the current Western neoliberal democratic hegemony. We conclude that China is unlikely to become the hegemon in the near term.

scholarly journals Rising Powers, Responsibility, and International Society

2017 ◽  
Vol 31 (3) ◽  
pp. 287-311 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jamie Gaskarth
Keyword(s):  
International Society ◽  
Creative Thinking ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Great Powers ◽  
English School ◽  
Rising Powers ◽  
China And India ◽  
Societal Values ◽  
Un Security Council ◽  
Responsible Action

Responsibility is a key theme of recent debates over the ethics of international society. In particular, rising powers such as Brazil, China, and India regularly reject the idea that coercion should be a feature of world politics, and they portray military intervention as irresponsible. But this raises the problem of how a society's norms can be upheld without coercive measures. Critics have accused them of “free riding” on existing great powers and failing to address the dilemma of how to deal with actors undermining societal values. This article examines writing on responsibility and international society, with particular reference to the English School, to identify why the willingness and capacity to use force—as well as creative thinking in this regard—are seen as important aspects of responsibility internationally. It then explores statements made by Brazil, China, and India in UN Security Council meetings between 2011 and 2016 to identify which actors they see as responsible and how they define responsible action. In doing so, it pinpoints areas of concurrence as well as disagreements in their understandings of the concept of responsibility, and concludes that Brazil and India have a more coherent and practical understanding of the concept than China, which risks incurring the label “great irresponsible.”

scholarly journals Future of US-China Relations: Conflict, Competition or Cooperation?

2020 ◽  
Vol 16 (7) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Syed Muhammad Saad Zaidi ◽  
Adam Saud
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
International Relations ◽  
The United States ◽  
Great Powers ◽  
Political Agenda ◽  
Eastern Hemisphere ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Future ◽  
Rise Of China ◽  
The Rise Of China

In contemporary times, the geo-political agenda and geo-economic strategy of the world is being dominated by the ongoing US-China hegemonic competition. Where the United States is trying to prolong the ‘unipolar moment’ and deter the rise of China; China is trying to establish itself as the hegemon in the Eastern hemisphere, an alternate to the US. The entirely opposite interests of the two Great Powers have initiated a hostile confrontational competition for domination. This paper seeks to determine the future nature of the US-China relations; will history repeat itself and a bloody war be fought to determine the leader of the pack? or another prolonged Cold War will be fought, which will end when one side significantly weakens and collapses? Both dominant paradigms of International Relations, Realism and Liberalism, are used to analyze the future nature of the US-China relations.

Mapping the intellectual public sphere in China today

2018 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 107-120 ◽  
Author(s):  
Timothy Cheek ◽  
David Ownby ◽  
Joshua Fogel
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
New Left ◽  
Academic Scholarship ◽  
The World ◽  
The Status ◽  
Rise Of China ◽  
World Economic ◽  
Chinese Scholars ◽  
China Today ◽  
The Rise Of China

The papers in this research dialogue section are the product of a project that examines intellectual life in China since the 1990s – chiefly the efforts by academic public intellectuals to rethink China’s past, present, and future in light of the excesses of Mao’s revolution, the challenges emerging from reform, and the rise of China to the status of world economic power. Chinese scholars, having benefited from China’s openness to the world and the relative relaxation of political pressure in China (until recently), have much to say about China and the world that merits our attention. Through creative collaboration between Chinese and international scholars, the articles collected here explore that intellectual public sphere since the late 1990s. The articles were written in Chinese by young PRC scholars and rendered into English through ‘collaborative translation’ teams that pair these Chinese with non-Chinese scholars based in Canadian universities. The net result, grounded on repeated conversations and revisions, is not a simple translation but a co-production of knowledge about China that aims to capture the discourse of Chinese scholarship in a way to make it meaningful to anglophone readers. The articles themselves are not traditional surveys of academic scholarship. Rather they map significant areas of an intellectual world and the arguments within it. Three widely accepted intellectual streams of thought ( sichao 思潮) organize these soundings: liberals, New Left, and New Confucian. These reports explore connections between and diversity within and beyond each.

America’s exceptional empire

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jude Woodward
Keyword(s):  
World Order ◽  
Great Power ◽  
Power Politics ◽  
The Us ◽  
Rise Of China ◽  
Great Power Politics ◽  
Strategic Position ◽  
The Rise Of China ◽  
Line P ◽  
Liberal Perspective

The Obama administration announced in 2010 that the US would make a strategic foreign policy turn towards Asia i.e. China. This chapter shows that the discussion on this policy in the US is framed by a shared perception that the rise of China presents an existential challenge to the US-led world order that has prevailed since 1945. Some see conflict as an inevitable consequence of Great Power politics; others allege conflict will be unavoidable because China has regional expansionist aspirations or because China is a revisionist power that does not accept the rules of the ‘pax Americana’. The Pentagon is developing military strategies in the case of conflict with China. This chapter demonstrates that wherever the argument, starts, whether from a neocon or liberal perspective, whether concerned about the US’s economic, military or strategic position, all arrive at the same conclusion: China must be brought into line.

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