scholarly journals Interpreting great power rights in international society: Debating China’s right to a sphere of influence

2020 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 210-230 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin Zala
Keyword(s):  
East Asia ◽  
International Society ◽  
Great Powers ◽  
Great Power ◽  
English School ◽  
Special Responsibilities ◽  
Sphere Of Influence ◽  
Special Rights ◽  
Scholarly Attention

The special rights and responsibilities of the great powers have traditionally been treated as a key component – even a primary institution – of international society in the English School literature. Recent interpretivist work has focused on the meanings of special responsibilities in contemporary international society with far less scholarly attention being given to the corollary of this – special rights. This article uses an interpretivist approach to attempt to uncover what recent debates over China’s right or otherwise to a sphere of influence in East Asia tells us about understandings of great power rights in contemporary international society. The argument advanced is that if Beijing’s right to a sphere of influence is successfully rejected by the rest of international society without repudiating its status as a great power more broadly, China will indeed be a great power without historical precedent.

The absence of great power responsibility in global environmental politics

2019 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 8-32
Author(s):  
Steven Bernstein
Keyword(s):  
Great Powers ◽  
Great Power ◽  
Economic Management ◽  
Global Environmental Politics ◽  
Global Environmental ◽  
Special Responsibilities ◽  
Development Goals ◽  
Global Affairs ◽  
Special Rights ◽  
The Relationship

Great powers routinely face demands to take on special responsibilities to address major concerns in global affairs, and often gain special rights for doing so. These areas include peace and security, global economic management, development, and egregious violations of human rights. Despite the rise in the importance and centrality of global environmental concerns, especially climate change and issues covered by the new Sustainable Development Goals, norms or institutions that demand or recognize great power responsibility are notably absent. This absence is puzzling given expectations in several major strands of International Relations theory, including the English School, realism, liberalism, and constructivism. Drawing on the reasoning behind these expectations, the absence of great power responsibility can be explained by a lack of congruence between systemic and environmental “great powers,” weak empirical links between action on the environment and the maintenance of international order, and no link to special rights. Instead, the institutionalized distribution of environmental responsibilities arose out of North–South conflict and has eroded over time, becoming more diffuse and decentered from ideas of state responsibility. These findings suggest a need to rethink the relationship among great powers and special rights and responsibilities regarding the environment, as well as other new issues of systemic importance.

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.”

English School Methodology and Methods

2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cornelia Navari
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Great Powers ◽  
Great Power ◽  
Historical Narratives ◽  
English School ◽  
Sociological Institutionalism ◽  
Positive Approach ◽  
Classical Realism ◽  
Historical Tradition ◽  
Hedley Bull

Coming from an empirical historical tradition, English School theory has a strong inductive core, represented in its historical narratives, and a positive approach to international law. But its core text is strongly deductive: Hedley Bull derived the basic precept of international society from a set of logical premises to which he attached a truth value. Its methodologies have varied accordingly, between agent-centered and structure-centered approaches, and it has deployed a variety of methods in respect to each, including anthropological interpretivism with regard to agents and historical and sociological institutionalism with regard to structures. Its focus on the state and institutions means that it shares method with regime theorists, and its focus on Great Powers and great power responsibility means that it shares some methods with regard to classical realism.

The strategist’s dilemma: Global dynamic density and the making of US ‘China policy’

2017 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 211-234 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hugo Meijer ◽  
Benjamin Jensen
Keyword(s):  
International Society ◽  
Large Body ◽  
Structural Realism ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Great Powers ◽  
English School ◽  
Dynamic Density ◽  
Strategy Formation ◽  
Global Dynamic ◽  
Grand Strategies

AbstractCombining the English School of International Relations and the study of grand strategy decision-making processes, this article investigates how dynamic density – growing volume, velocity, and diversity of interactions within international society – alters states’ strategy formation processes. By contrasting the perspectives of structural realism and the English School on the role of dynamic density in world politics, the piece illustrates the strategist’s dilemma: as global dynamic density in the international society increases, the ability of great powers to formulate coherent grand strategies and policies potentially decreases. Specifically, it contends that growing global dynamic density generates processual and substantive fragmentation in strategy formation. Building on a large body of elite interviews, US policy toward China – and the so-called US ‘rebalance’ to Asia – is used as a probability probe of the central idea of the strategist’s dilemma. In conclusion, we contrast our findings with complex interdependence theory and examine their implications for ‘great power management’ (GPM) as a primary institution of international society. We argue that, by generating processual and substantive fragmentation in strategy formation, global dynamic density complicates GPM by hindering the capacity of great powers to manage and calibrate the competitive and cooperative dynamics at play in a bilateral relationship.

Peaceful Change in English School Theory

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cornelia Navari
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Power Management ◽  
International Society ◽  
Great Power ◽  
State Sovereignty ◽  
English School ◽  
Security Community ◽  
The Third ◽  
Structural Determinant ◽  
Structural Conflict

The English School has made three contributions to the science of peaceful change: the inevitable conflict of order and justice; the necessity of Great Power management of peaceful change; and regional orders as the locus of peaceful change. The first refers to a structural conflict between state sovereignty and human rights and also serves as the parameters of a discourse on ethical possibilities among sovereign states. The second—the requirement of Great Power management—is both an observation on the course of history and a structural determinant, arising from the gross inequalities among states. The third—the notion that regional international societies can be peacemakers—is not unique to the English School. Its contribution is that any region can be a form of international society with its own distinctive rules and adjudicative procedures, and that accordingly, any region is potentially able to become a “security community.”

Factors Promoting Sphere of Influence Relationships

1973 ◽  
Vol 8 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 155-171 ◽  
Author(s):  
Trygve Mathisen
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Political Influence ◽  
The United States ◽  
Great Powers ◽  
Great Power ◽  
Small States ◽  
Factors Affecting ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Sphere Of Influence

In the following article an attempt has been made to identify factors affecting the implementation of expansionist and imperialist policies, and consequently it sheds light on the problem why some weaker states become the sphere of influence of greater powers while other small states are less exposed to such influence. Domestic motive forces which may prompt a great power to embark on policies of expansion are only briefly dealt with. On the basis of historical considerations a tentative conclusion is made concerning some factors affecting sphere of influence relationships. These factors are applied to the contemporary situation in an attempt to identify what areas are likely to remain exposed to strong great power influence, and to suggest in what directions the great powers are likely to expand their influence. It is assumed that the United States has reached at least a temporary climax with regard to the intensity and extension of its political influence. The Soviet Union and China, and most probably also Japan, are considered more capable of expanding their influence in the immediate future. It is, therefore, assumed that parts of Asia and Africa will remain areas of great power rivalry, but the present role of the great powers will reveal considerable changes, particularly in Southeast Asia.

scholarly journals From Yeltsin to Putin

2013 ◽  
Vol 21 ◽  
pp. 30-39
Author(s):  
Wonhee Lee
Keyword(s):  
East Asia ◽  
World Order ◽  
National Interest ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Great Powers ◽  
Great Power ◽  
The World ◽  
Nuclear Crisis

Russia has developed multipolar paradigm in its effort to reobtain the position of the Great Power since it realized that it could not exert influence strong enough to stake its claim in the world politics. The advocacy of a multipolar world order, referred to as the “Primakov Doctrine,” shifted Moscow’s attitude toward the two Koreas as well. In its pursuit of multipolarity in East Asia, Russia has designed its strategy toward Korea’s nuclear crisis and unification to best suit its national interest. Considering the competition among the Great Powers in East Asia, Russia’s Korea policy can better be understood under such a multilateral framework.

Community of common destiny: China’s “new assertiveness” and the changing Asian order

2018 ◽  
Vol 73 (3) ◽  
pp. 449-463 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen N. Smith
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
International Society ◽  
International Relations Theory ◽  
Great Power ◽  
English School ◽  
Xi Jinping ◽  
The West ◽  
Normative Basis ◽  
Common Destiny ◽  
Modes Of Governance

This essay will discuss China’s re-emergence as a great power through the lens of the English School. Following Ian Clark, I reconceptualize international society as a set of historically changing principles of legitimacy. I argue that China’s “new assertiveness” under Xi Jinping is best explained by China’s pursuit of legitimacy in an international arena where norms of legitimate modes of governance, development, and ordering principles have long been defined by the West. Furthermore, this essay will examine one recent development in Chinese International Relations theory, gongsheng, which purports to offer an alternative normative basis for interstate order, and probe its relationship to Xi Jinping’s recent declaration to build a “community of common destiny” in Asia.

scholarly journals The Significance of Foreign Military Bases as Instruments of Spheres of Influence

2020 ◽  
Vol 26 (87) ◽  
pp. 120-144
Author(s):  
Tomasz Klin
Keyword(s):  
Security Policy ◽  
Great Powers ◽  
Great Power ◽  
Sufficient Evidence ◽  
Military Bases ◽  
Strong Impact ◽  
Major Power ◽  
Spheres Of Influence ◽  
Depth Study ◽  
Sphere Of Influence

The category of the sphere of influence can explain some contemporary international processes. To define that category, however, much stress is laid on great powers’ exclusivity within their spheres of influence. The author takes into consideration the thesis of the aforementioned exclusivity’s erosion. Because foreign military bases are essential instruments of spheres of influence due to their strong impact on security policy, it is worth investigating their presence in this context. Specifically, the author carries out an in-depth study of military bases of more than one major power in one host country. Further, the article discusses the extent to which the gradual erosion of exclusivity undermines the significance of spheres of influence as such. In conclusion, the author states that the case of Djibouti undermines the idea of great power exclusivity. Yet, other cases do not provide sufficient evidence on such deep transformation because of either limited periods of bases’ existence or great power cooperative attitudes.

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