Power Analysis and International Relations

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
David A. Baldwin
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
Social Science ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Intellectual History ◽  
Power Analysis ◽  
Balance Of Power ◽  
World War ◽  
History Of ◽  
The 1960S

This chapter is divided into two parts. The first is an intellectual history of the treatment of the concept of power in the international relations literature in America from World War I until the 1960s. The focus is on comparing and contrasting the treatment of power by Hans J. Morgenthau and his followers and the treatment of power by Harold and Margaret Sprout, Arnold Wolfers, Frederick Sherwood Dunn, Quincy Wright, Richard Snyder, Ernst Haas and others who viewed themselves as promoting the study of international relations as a social science. The second part of this chapter is organized in terms of different analytical perspectives on power in the international relations literature. These perspectives include the treatment of power as identity, goal, means, mechanism (balance of power), competition, and capability.

scholarly journals The hierarchical society: the politics of self-determination and the constitution of new states after 1919

2019 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 372-396
Author(s):  
Maja Spanu
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
International Relations ◽  
International Society ◽  
International System ◽  
World Politics ◽  
League Of Nations ◽  
Self Determination ◽  
World War ◽  
New States ◽  
History Of

International Relations scholarship disconnects the history of the so-called expansion of international society from the presence of hierarchies within it. In contrast, this article argues that these developments may in fact be premised on hierarchical arrangements whereby new states are subject to international tutelage as the price of acceptance to international society. It shows that hierarchies within international society are deeply entrenched with the politics of self-determination as international society expands. I substantiate this argument with primary and secondary material on the Minority Treaty provisions imposed on the new states in Central, Eastern and Southern Europe admitted to the League of Nations after World War I. The implications of this claim for International Relations scholarship are twofold. First, my argument contributes to debates on the making of the international system of states by showing that the process of expansion of international society is premised on hierarchy, among and within states. Second, it speaks to the growing body of scholarship on hierarchy in world politics by historicising where hierarchies come from, examining how diverse hierarchies are nested and intersect, and revealing how different actors navigate these hierarchies.

scholarly journals Anarchy Is What Explains the History of International Relations

2019 ◽  
Vol 64 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-18
Author(s):  
William C. Wohlforth
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
International Relations ◽  
International Politics ◽  
Great Powers ◽  
Political Realism ◽  
World War ◽  
National Interests ◽  
History Of ◽  
Historical Antecedents ◽  
The Great War

The article examines the major events of the two previous centuries of international relations through main concepts of political realism. The author argues that in order to understand the present dilemmas and challenges of international politics, we need to know the past. Every current major global problem has historical antecedents. History from the late 19th century constitutes the empirical foundation of much theoretical scholarship on international politics. The breakdown of the Concert of Europe and the outbreak of the devastating global conflagration of World War I are the events that sparked the modern study of international relations. The great war of 1914 to 1918 underlined the tragic wastefulness of the institution of war. It caused scholars to confront one of the most enduring puzzles of the study of international relations, why humans continue to resort to this self-destructive method of conflict resolution? The article shows that the main explanation is the anarchical system of international relations. It produces security dilemma, incentives to free ride and uncertainty of intentions among great powers making war a rational tool to secure their national interests.

The Balance of Power in International Law: A History of an Idea

1979 ◽  
Vol 73 (4) ◽  
pp. 555-580 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alfred Vagts ◽  
Detlev F. Vagts
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
International Law ◽  
Balance Of Power ◽  
Legal Order ◽  
World War ◽  
International Policy ◽  
The Past ◽  
Law Of Nations ◽  
International Legal Order ◽  
History Of

The existence of a significant relationship between the concept of the balance of power and international law would be regarded as improbable by most modern international lawyers. They would think of the balance as a wholly obsolete conception and, in any case, as a part of international policy, or worse, part of cynical Realpolitik rather than of law. Earlier generations of jurists, however, did see international equilibrium either as an integral part of the system of rules of the law of nations or at least as a necessary precondition to the existence of such a law. Such a view of the interrelationship was never unanimous; indeed, there were in the past many legal observers who saw the balance of power as an obstacle to the development of an international legal order based on something more moral than force alone. This article is devoted to a study of the relationships between those two concepts as seen by the publicists who created the corpus of international law, principally during the period from the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 to the outbreak of World War I in 1914. It is not a study of the balance of power at large—a topic to which volumes might be dedicated—but only of that idea’s relationship with law.

Peace and Security from a Feminist Perspective

2018 ◽  
pp. 14-25 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Ann Tickner
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Women Activists ◽  
Economic Security ◽  
Women's Activism ◽  
Feminist Scholarship ◽  
World War ◽  
Un Security Council ◽  
Peace And Security ◽  
History Of

Almost one hundred years ago women from both sides of World War I came together to design a postwar peace plan, the principles of which were remarkably similar to UN Security Council Resolution 1325. Since then, women activists have worked to place gender issues on the United Nations agenda. In the late 1980s, feminist international relations began to address peace and security from a gendered perspective. With this in mind, this chapter traces the history of the intersection between women’s activism and this emergent feminist scholarship. Feminists scholarship defines security as the physical and economic security of individuals as well as states. The scholars question the essentialist association of women and peace and advocate seeing women as agents in all aspects of peacemaking, positions that the international community is finally beginning to recognize. This chapter, as such, explores how feminist scholars have constructed knowledge that contributes to our understanding of the deeper reasons why women suffer particular physical and structural insecurities.

Repairing the entente cordiale And The New Diplomacy

1980 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 133-153 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan Cassels
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Sense Of Belonging ◽  
Balance Of Power ◽  
First World War ◽  
World War ◽  
Nation States ◽  
The First World War ◽  
The One ◽  
First World

At the close of World War I two schools of thought about the future conduct of international relations emerged into plain view. On the one hand, the traditionalists presumed that the principles and practices of pre-1914 diplomacy could and should be sustained. This implied a routine of continual competition among the sovereign nation states, the anarchy of which was mitigated only by the collective fear of hegemony by one state (the mechanism of the balance of power) and by a sense of belonging to a common civilization (the old Concert of Europe). Tacitly accepted as the final arbiter of vital questions was the instrument of war. On the other hand, the First World War had provided ample grounds for a swingeing critique of Realpolitik when practised in an age of mass armies and technological warfare.

Power and International Relations

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
David A. Baldwin
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Intellectual History ◽  
Conceptual Analysis ◽  
Social Power ◽  
International Relations Theory ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Controversial Issues ◽  
World War ◽  
The Social

Contrary to conventional wisdom, the concept of power has not always been central to international relations theory. During the 1920s and 1930s, power was often ignored or vilified by international relations scholars—especially in America. This book explores how this changed in later decades by tracing how power emerged as an important social science concept in American scholarship after World War I. Combining intellectual history and conceptual analysis, the book examines power's increased presence in the study of international relations and looks at how the three dominant approaches of realism, neoliberalism, and constructivism treat power. The clarity and precision of thinking about power increased greatly during the last half of the twentieth century, due to efforts by political scientists, psychologists, sociologists, economists, philosophers, mathematicians, and geographers who contributed to “social power literature.” The book brings the insights of this literature to bear on the three principal theoretical traditions in international relations theory. It discusses controversial issues in power analysis, and shows the relevance of older works frequently underappreciated today. Focusing on the social power perspective in international relations, this book sheds light on how power has been considered during the last half century and how it should be approached in future research.

Rethinking Randolph Bourne's Trans-National America: How World War I Created an Isolationist Antiwar Pluralism

2009 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 217-257 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher McKnight Nichols
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
World War I ◽  
Intellectual History ◽  
World War ◽  
Randolph Bourne ◽  
History Of ◽  
New Form ◽  
Domestic Reform

The intellectual and cultural critic Randolph Bourne originated the concept of a “transnational America” in 1916. More than a mere label, “trans-national America” was the articulation of Bourne's visionary new form of pluralism. This article aims to rethink Bourne's transnationalism as a form of isolationist antiwar idealism, thus helping to bridge his writings on domestic reform and foreign policy. Further, it illuminates an important moment in the intellectual history of isolationism as it assumed a positive, pluralist cast. This analysis also opens new vistas onto the development of a wide-ranging liberal opposition to American entry into World War I. Bourne's potent pluralistic, cosmopolitan ideas and the actions he took—along with those of other antiwar activists, politicians, and thinkers—helped to set the ideological parameters for antiwar thought in the period from 1916 to 1918 as well as for later American dissent, particularly in wartime.

The New History of World War I and What It Means for International Relations Theory

2007 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 155-191 ◽  
Author(s):  
Keir A. Lieber
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
International Relations ◽  
International Relations Theory ◽  
World War ◽  
Historical Case ◽  
European Continent ◽  
Core Concepts ◽  
History Of ◽  
Defensive Realism ◽  
Spiral Model

World War I looms large in international relations theory. The core concepts of defensive realism—the security dilemma, spiral model, and offense-defense balance—were largely inspired by this single historical case, and evidence from the war is frequently used to test explanations built on those concepts. The new historiography of World War I, however, challenges many of the long-held assumptions about the origins of the conflict. Newly available evidence strongly suggests that German leaders went to war in 1914 with eyes wide open. They provoked a war to achieve their goal of dominating the European continent, and did so aware that the coming conflict would almost certainly be long and bloody. Germany's leaders did not go to war with a bold operational blueprint for quick victory embodied in the Schlieffen Plan; they did not misjudge the nature of modern war; and they did not lose control of events on the eve of the conflict and attack out of fear that Germany's enemies would move first. In light of the new history, international relations scholars should reexamine their empirical understandings of this conflict, as well as their theoretical presuppositions about the causes of war.

International Relations—Still an American Social Science?: Toward Diversity in International Thought. Edited by Robert M. A. Crawford and Darryl S. L. Jarvis. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2001. 394p. $88.50 cloth, $29.95 paper.

2002 ◽  
Vol 96 (1) ◽  
pp. 258-259
Author(s):  
Timothy Dunne
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
World War I ◽  
Social Science ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Real World ◽  
State University ◽  
World War ◽  
American Social Science ◽  
Looking Glass

Early accounts of the development of the discipline of international relations (IR) attribute causal significance to changes in the “real” world. In this respect, historigraphy was a reflection in history's looking glass, such that World War I created idealism, and World War II prompted the revival of realism. The editors of International Relations—Still and American Social Science? remind us that the identity of the discipline is also a reflection of geopolitical and cultural circumstances. The sixteen essays seek to reawaken the question of the identity of the discipline and how this has been transmitted and contested. There is no doubt that the book will be widely read and is likely to find its way onto many postgraduate course lists. It is also likely to find critics and supporters in fairly equal number, which is reason alone to applaud the labors of the editors.

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