The Social Construction of Great Power Management, 1815–1822

2019 ◽  
pp. 44-82
Author(s):  
Mark Raymond
Keyword(s):  
Social Construction ◽  
Power Management ◽  
International System ◽  
Great Powers ◽  
Great Power ◽  
Napoleonic Wars ◽  
The Social ◽  
Rule Making ◽  
Concert Of Europe

This chapter shows that secondary rules help to explain the emergence of active practices of great power management of the international system after the Napoleonic Wars. Actors were aware of themselves as joint participants in a practice of rule-making and interpretation. They presented proposals according to the rules of that practice, both criticizing and justifying proposals on procedural grounds. The chapter covers the initial creation of great power management in the Congress of Vienna, and its development in the initial conferences of the Concert of Europe at Aix-la-Chapelle, Troppau, Laibach, and Verona. Actors who more skillfully employed secondary rules were more successful in obtaining their goals. Talleyrand secured France’s readmission to the ranks of the great powers, and Metternich and Castlereagh consistently employed procedural rules to achieve their objectives. Procedural rules also help explain the failure of the Tsar’s proposed Holy Alliance in contrast to the substantively similar Quadruple Alliance.

scholarly journals The Two Wars

2021 ◽  
pp. 277-301
Author(s):  
Ozan Ozavci
Keyword(s):  
Civil Wars ◽  
Alternative Assessment ◽  
Great Powers ◽  
Great Power ◽  
Napoleonic Wars ◽  
Crimean War ◽  
Death Toll ◽  
The World ◽  
Peace In Europe ◽  
Concert Of Europe

The first inter-imperial war amongst the Great Powers since the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815, the Crimean War (1853–1856) shook the world and devastated peoples, economies, and finances. Some historians argue that it symbolized the destruction of the Concert of Europe. This chapter offers an alternative assessment. It shows that the Concert continued to exist after 1856 even though the peace established on the heels of the Crimean War was delicate and repeatedly tested peace in Europe and the Levant. Like the aftershocks of a disastrous earthquake, its aftermath witnessed further Great Power wars, civil strifes, and rebellions. The precarious climate that emerged at the time dovetailed with the existing and newly emerging tensions in Mount Lebanon. These snowballed into further fighting in the mountain during the summer of 1860—a much more devastating conflict, with a death toll around three to five times greater than the civil wars of 1841 and 1845 combined.

Social Practices of Rule-Making in World Politics

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Raymond
Keyword(s):  
Social Construction ◽  
International System ◽  
Social Practices ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Self Defense ◽  
The Social ◽  
Practice Turn ◽  
International Systems ◽  
Constructivist Approaches ◽  
Rule Making

Social Practices of Rule-Making in World Politics identifies a class of social practices of rule-making, interpretation, and application, demonstrating the causal importance of these practices (and the procedural rules that constitute and govern them) in explaining outcomes in world politics. The book utilizes rule-oriented and practice-turn constructivist approaches to argue that procedural rules about rule-making, or secondary rules, shape the way that actors present and evaluate proposals for change in the rules and institutions that structure international systems. The book examines four important international security cases: the social construction of great power management after the Napoleonic Wars; the creation of a rule against the use of force, except in cases of self-defense and collective security, enshrined in the Kellogg-Briand Pact; contestation of the international system by al-Qaeda in the period immediately following the 9/11 attacks; and United Nations efforts to establish norms for state conduct in the cyber domain. The book makes several contributions to International Relations theory. It provides insight into how actors know how and when to engage in specific forms of social construction. It extends the application of practice-turn constructivism to processes of making and interpreting rules. It improves upon existing tools to explain change in the rules and institutions of the international system. Finally, it demonstrates the utility of the book’s approach for the study of global governance, the international system, and for emerging efforts to identify forms and sites of authority and hierarchy in world politics.

Great Power Leadership

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wesley B. O'Dell
Keyword(s):  
Power Management ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
21St Century ◽  
International System ◽  
Inductive Reasoning ◽  
Great Powers ◽  
Leadership Role ◽  
Great Power ◽  
Early 20Th Century ◽  
Institution Building

The notion that Great Powers fulfill a leadership role in international politics is old, influential, and contested. As the actors in the international system with the greatest capacity for taking action, Great Powers are assumed to think both further ahead and in broader, more systemic terms than other states; they then use their preeminent positions to organize others to promote public goods, reaping benefits along the way thanks to their direction of events. At the core of this understanding is the assumption that Great Power actions are, or ought to be, inspired by something more than simple self-interest and the pursuit of short-term gains. As an organic creation of international practice, Great Power leadership was traditionally the domain of historians and international legists; early students of the topic utilized inductive reasoning to derive general precepts of Great Power sociology from the landmark settlements of the 18th and 19th centuries. The framing of Great Powers as a leadership caste originated in the struggle against Louis XIV, was given tentative institutional form through settlements such as the Treaty of Utrecht (1713), and deepened considerably in both institutionalization and sophistication in the 19th century Concert of Europe. The return of France to full Great Power status, the Congress (1878) and Conference (1884) of Berlin, and the suppression of the Boxer Rebellion (1899–1901) all demonstrated the willingness and ability of the Powers to cooperate in the management of international change. In the early 20th century, the leadership of the Great Powers was both challenged as an unjust agent of catastrophe as well as increasingly formalized through recognition in new international institutions such as the League of Nations and the United Nations. Theorists of international relations began to formulate theories based on Great Power management at the time of the discipline’s beginnings in the early 20th century. Realists and liberals frequently utilize Great Power concepts to explain processes of equilibrium, hegemonic competition, and institution building, while approaches influenced by constructivism focus on the role of ideas, statuses, and roles in the formulation of Great Power identities and policies. The doctrine of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) is a 21st-century manifestation of the application of Great Power leadership to international problems; though hailed by some as the future of Great Power management, it provokes controversy among both theorists and practitioners. Similarly, extensive scholarly attention has been devoted to the management and accommodation of “rising powers.” These are states that appear likely to obtain the status of Great Power, and there is extensive debate over their orientation toward and potential management of international order. Finally, the position of Russia and China within this literature has provoked deep reflection on the nature of Great Power, the responsibilities of rising and established powers, and the place of Great Power management amidst the globalized challenges of the 21st century.

scholarly journals Great Expectations: The EU's Social Role as a Great Power Manager

2019 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 17-42 ◽  
Author(s):  
David M. Mccourt ◽  
Andrew Glencross
Keyword(s):  
Power Management ◽  
Security Policy ◽  
Social Role ◽  
International System ◽  
Great Powers ◽  
Great Power ◽  
Great Expectations ◽  
Power Role ◽  
Power Manager ◽  
The Eu

Through the case of EU foreign and security policy we reconsider the concept of great power. According to common wisdom, the EU cannot be a great power, whatever the pronouncements of its top officials may be. We argue that ‘great power’ has been miscast in IR theory as a status rather than as a social role, and, consequently, that the EU can indeed be viewed as playing the great power role. Such a conceptual shift moves analytical attention away from questions of what the EU is – ‘big’, ‘small’, ‘great’, and so on – to what it is expected to do in international politics. We focus on the expectation that great powers engage in the management of the international system, assessing the EU as a great power manager in two senses: first, in the classical sense of ‘great power management’ of Hedley Bull – which centers on great powers’ creation of regional spheres of influence and the maintenance of the general balance of power – and second, in light of recent corrections to Bull's approach by Alexander Astrov and others, who suggest great power management has changed toward a logic of governmentality, i.e. ‘conducting the conduct’ of lesser states.

Great power management and ambiguous order in nineteenth-century international society

2016 ◽  
Vol 43 (2) ◽  
pp. 367-388 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin Zala
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Power Management ◽  
International Society ◽  
Mutual Recognition ◽  
Power Structure ◽  
Social Institution ◽  
Great Powers ◽  
Great Power ◽  
Specific Focus ◽  
The Social

AbstractThis article considers what the nineteenth century can tell us about the nature of great power management under conditions of ambiguity in relation to the holders of great power status. It charts the development of an institutionalised role for the great powers as managers of international society but with a specific focus on the mutual recognition, and conferral, of status. Such a focus highlights the changing, and sometimes competing, perceptions of not only which states should be thought of as great powers, but also therefore whether the power structure of international society remained multipolar or shifted towards bipolarity or even unipolarity. The article argues that a ‘golden age’ of great power management existed during a period in which perceptions of great power status were in fact more fluid than the standard literature accounts for. This means that predictions surrounding the imminent demise of the social institution of great power management under an increasingly ambiguous interstate order today may well be misplaced.

Great Power and Foreign Policy

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carla Martinez Machain ◽  
Rebecca Kaye ◽  
Jared Oestman
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Policy Analysis ◽  
International System ◽  
Geographic Region ◽  
Great Powers ◽  
Great Power ◽  
Foreign Policy Analysis ◽  
Major Power ◽  
Major Powers ◽  
Minor Powers

Great powers have traditionally played a major role in the study of foreign policy. From a variety of work on foreign policy analysis, it is known that great powers are more active in their foreign policy than other states in the international system are. Whether the actions are disbursing foreign aid, creating alliances, conflict involvement, or others, studies will often control for great power status, with the underlying expectation being that major powers will be more likely to utilize these foreign policy tools. In fact, when considering relevant dyads in quantitative studies of foreign policy analysis, states have to be contiguous for the dyad to be considered relevant, but an exception is made for dyads containing at least one major power, given the ability of great powers to project their power beyond their borders. Key literature on the foreign policy behavior of great powers discusses different ways of defining great powers. In particular, the debate over defining great power status has focused on whether a great power should be defined solely on its physical capabilities, or also on intangible factors, such as its foreign policy interests or whether the state is recognized as a great power by others in the international system. Further, there are questions of whether great powers have to be military powers or whether economic superiority is enough to classify a state as a great power. There is also the issue of regional powers: states that are clearly military, economic, and political leaders within a limited geographic region, but not at the global level. Should these states be considered great powers, or should that classification be reserved for global powers? The literature on great-power foreign policy also discusses cooperative and conflictual behaviors of great powers in the international system. It addresses great power war, focusing on how they are more conflict prone than minor powers, and reviews the issues that drive great powers to engage in conflict, such as positional issues and the intent to shape the international system to their liking. It also discusses a variety of foreign policy actions, both coercive and cooperative, that major powers are more likely to engage in than their minor-power counterparts. In addition, there is much work done on the relationships between great powers and between great powers and minor powers, stressing the competitive nature of major-power interactions and the trade-off between economic and military security and policy concessions that defines major-minor power interactions.

Communism, fascism and counter-revolution in world politics

2001 ◽  
Vol 27 (4) ◽  
pp. 683-686
Author(s):  
Michael Mann
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Karl Marx ◽  
International System ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Great Powers ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
Religious Wars ◽  
The Social ◽  
Effects Of War

This is a rich, impressive and timely book. At a time when American and neoliberal triumphalism deny the significance of any revolution later than 1776, and when almost no-one in the social sciences is still studying either revolution or class, Fred Halliday has demonstrated that we have been living in a revolutionary age, dominated by the conjoined effects of war and class revolution. In case you find his sub-title mysterious, Karl Marx noted that the Europe of his time was dominated by five Great Powers, but Revolution, ‘the sixth Great Power’, would soon overcome them all. Halliday would suggest that Marx was only half-right. Revolution did not overcome all five Powers, but it did transform them all—and their successors. Hannah Arendt and Martin Wight also emphasized that couplings of war and revolution have dominated much of modernity. But Halliday adds that these are not to be seen as ‘disruptions’ of International Relations, they are International Relations, since they have set the overall parameters of the modern international system. They did so, he says, in three distinct revolutionary phases from the sixteenth century to the present-day: sixteenth-seventeenth century religious wars/revolutions, late eighteenth and early nineteenth century Atlanticist wars/revolutions, and twentieth century wars/revolutions which became increasingly dominated by communism.

scholarly journals Still in the “Drivers’ Seat”, but for how Long? ASEAN's Capacity for Leadership in East-Asian International Relations

2010 ◽  
Vol 29 (3) ◽  
pp. 95-113 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lee Jones
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Social Relationships ◽  
East Asian ◽  
Institutional Arrangements ◽  
Great Powers ◽  
Leadership Role ◽  
Great Power ◽  
Modus Operandi ◽  
Regional Role ◽  
The Social

This paper assesses the capacity of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to moderate great-power relations in East Asia, especially in light of recent regional developments that have challenged ASEAN's traditional modus operandi and its corporate cohesion. The first of three sections argues that capacity emerges not from institutional arrangements but rather the social relationships that give rise to particular institutions, and therefore can only be understood relationally. A number of key relationships are highlighted and explored in the rest of the paper. First, the relationships among regional great powers, which are considered in section two. Second, the relationships among ASEAN states, and between ASEAN states and their own societies, which are considered in section three. The paper's basic argument is that the first set of relationships is essentially what gives ASEAN its capacity to play a wider regional role. However, it also sets profound constraints for what this role can involve in practical terms. The second set of relationships also creates serious and deep constraints that are often not well understood. However, despite the serious limitations on ASEAN's leadership role, unless the first set of relationships change, this role is likely to continue, regardless of how frustrating or ineffectual it might be.

Colonies, semi-sovereigns, and great powers: IGO membership debates and the transition of the international system

2019 ◽  
Vol 46 (2) ◽  
pp. 278-298
Author(s):  
Ellen J. Ravndal
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
International System ◽  
Transition States ◽  
International Norms ◽  
Great Powers ◽  
Great Power ◽  
Sovereign State ◽  
The Core ◽  
The Past ◽  
Sovereign Equality

AbstractHow did the transition from a world of empire to a global international system organised around the sovereign state play out? This article traces the transition over the past two centuries through an examination of membership debates in two prominent intergovernmental organisations (IGOs). IGOs are sites of contestation that play a role in the constitution of the international system. Discussions within IGOs reflect and shape broader international norms, and are one mechanism through which the international system determines questions of membership and attendant rights and obligations. The article reveals that IGO membership policies during this period reflected different compromises between the three competing principles of great power privilege, the ‘standard of civilisation’, and universal sovereign equality. The article contributes to Global IR as it confirms that non-Western agency was crucial in bringing about this transition. States in Africa, Asia, and Latin America championed the adoption of the sovereignty criterion. In this, paradoxically, one of the core constitutional norms of the ‘European’ international system – the principle of sovereign equality – was realised at the hands of non-European actors.

Systemic Politics and the Origins of Great Power Conflict

2008 ◽  
Vol 102 (1) ◽  
pp. 77-93 ◽  
Author(s):  
BEAR F. BRAUMOELLER
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
International Politics ◽  
International System ◽  
Great Powers ◽  
Great Power ◽  
Related Activity ◽  
Second Stage ◽  
Ongoing Process ◽  
Spiral Model ◽  
Proximate Explanation

Systemic theories of international politics rarely predict conflict short of cataclysmic systemic wars, and dyadic theories of conflict lack systemic perspective. This article attempts to bridge the gap by introducing a two-step theory of conflict among Great Powers. In the first stage, states engage in a dynamic, ongoing process of managing the international system, which inevitably produces tensions among them. In the second stage, relative levels of security-related activity determine how and when those tensions erupt into disputes. A test of the theory on Great Power conflicts from the nineteenth century supports the argument and, moreover, favors the deterrence model over the spiral model as a proximate explanation of conflict in the second stage.

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