Professional Documents
Culture Documents
En Ethan B. Kapstein y Michael Mastanduno (eds.), Unipolar Politics. Realism and state
strategies after the Cold War, New York: Columbia University Press, 1999. Cap. 2. pp. 28-68.
1
scarcity rather than security are the root causes of conflict. The second section
addresses two questions: Is structural realism still relevant? What is the polarity
of the current system? Concluding that the concept of polarity no longer
captures the essential nature of todays system, the third section offers
stratification and status as an alternative way of conceptualizing the more
variegated positional aspects of international structure. The fourth section
articulates the relationship between positional goods and social and physical
scarcity. The fifth section extends the prior analysis to explain how growth
causes positional competition and conflict. Finally, I argue that realism can
remain a relevant and useful theory of international relations and foreign policy
by returning to its traditional concernsthat is, by emphasizing scarcity and the
struggle for primacy as the root causes of ethnic and international conflict, and
recognizing that states seek, in addition to security, to enhance their political
influence and autonomy.
HOBBESS THREE CAUSES OF CONFLICT UNDER ANARCHY
For structural (or neo-) realists, anarchy and its consequences are the
timeless factors defining the study of international relations. Operating in a
competitive, self-help realm, states, according to Waltz, cannot let power, a
possibly useful means, become the end they pursue. The goal the system
encourages them to seek is security. Increased power may or may not serve
that end. . . .The first concern of states is not to maximize power but to
maintain their position in the system.20 Positing security as the highest end of
states, Waltz maintains that great powers balance against, rather than
bandwagon with, the most likely winner in a competition for leadership:
Nobody wants anyone else to win; none of the great powers wants one of
their number to emerge as leader.21 The compelling impact of external
structural forcesbeyond the control of individual leadersstimulates states to
behave in ways that tend toward the creation of balances of power.22 In
addition to the prevalence of balancing over bandwagoning behavior,
neorealists claim that structural constraints explain the abovementioned
sameness effect: states either imitate the successful practices of their
competitors or they fall by the wayside.23
In balancing behavior and the sameness effect, the essential point is
that, for neorealists, the competition for leadership is framed in terms of selfpreservation, namely, states fear being dominated or even destroyed by
others.24 As a result, neorealists are relatively silent about other important
state goals, such as tranquility, profit, and power, which Waltz views as
secondary interests that can only be safely sought if survival is assured.25
Recognizing that survival is indeed, as Waltz claims, the sine qua non for the
pursuit of other goals, the question arises: When survival is assured, what
does neorealism explain?
Likening international politics to a Hobbesian state of nature, structural
realists usually explain conflict in tragic terms: even when all states seek
nothing more than survival, they may be continually disposed to fighting one
another as a result of their craving for security. This security-based
5
structure may be far less important today than in the past, such that unipolarity
now coexists with regional multipolarity. To account for these somewhat
contradictory trends, Samuel Huntington coined the term uni-multipolarity to
describe the systems structure, and several security experts have adopted this
view.46
Alas, there is no orthodoxy regarding the polarity of the current system:
descriptions of the systems structure run the gamut, from unipolarity to multimultipolarity. This is nothing new. In 1975, Joseph Nogee observed: Some of
the terms used to designate the current international structure are: bimodel,
bipolar, loose bipolar, very loose bipolar, tight bipolar, bi-multipolar,
bipolycentric, complex conglomerate, dtente system, diffuse bloc, discontinuity
model, hetero-symmetrical bipolarity, multipolar, multihierarchical, multibloc,
pentapolar, polycentric, oligopolistic, tripolar, and three tiered multidimensional
system within a bipolar setting.47 Two things are clear: the confusion
surrounding the concept of polarity predates the current era and this problem
will persist until scholars form a consensus on the question: What distinguishes
a pole from other actors in the system?
Some analysts identify polar status with economic capabilities, usually
gross national product (GNP).48 Measured by GNP, the structure of the present
system is tripolar, with the United States as the strongest pole and Japan and
Germany (or a German-led European Community) as lesser poles.49 Thus,
President Clinton, at the Tokyo summit in July 1993, spoke of a tripolar world,
driven by the Americas, by Europe, and by Asia.50 Adherents of the tripolar
view predict the emergence of regional trading blocs, each headed by one of
the Big Three capitalist states. In this vein, the Japanese Foreign Minister Yohei
Kono suggested in January 1995 that [t]here is a growing view that we have
entered an era when nations pit their economic interests and those of their
region in competition against one another;51 and Jacques Attali, in his Lignes
dHorizon, predicted that the United States will ally with Japan against a
European bloc that will eventually include Russia.52
Others studies rely exclusively on military power to determine polar
status. Members of this school disagree, however, over what capabilities should
be counted and precisely how much military power is required to qualify for
polar status. John Mearsheimer, for example, claims that a polar power is one
that has a reasonable prospect of defending itself against the leading state in
the system by its own efforts.53 Using this definition, the current system
remains bipolar, since Russia, though shorn of two layers of empire, can still
reasonably expect to defend itself against an American attack. Indeed, by this
definition, China might also qualify as a pole. Others in this school equate
polarity in the nuclear age with nuclear power; still others with superpower
status, and superpower status with possession of a second-strike capability.
Among the former, the international structure is pentapolar (India claims not to
possess nuclear weapons); the latter would identify the current system as still
bipolar.
Yet another school defines polarity in ideational or attitudinal terms. In
Action and Reaction in World Politics, for example, Richard Rosecrance
emphasized the ideological bases of polarity. This led him to categorize the
18221848 period as a bipolar split between liberalism and conservatism; the
9
polarity has changed only once, moving from multipolarity to bipolarity after
1945. Worse still for neorealists, there is no hint of military rivalry between the
United States and the other potential great powers, with the possible exception
of Chinaand even this seems unlikely given the prevailing view among
Chinese strategists that China cannot counterbalance US power but should try
to improve relations with it.59
Even if, as Layne and Krauthammer claim, unipolarity is only a
geopolitical interlude that will soon give way to multipolarity, it is unlikely that
security vis--vis the United States will be the driving force behind the predicted
structural change. The advent of the nuclear revolution has dramatically
increased the costs of war, while economic interdependence has lowered the
possible gains from territorial conquest. Moreover, the two most eligible
candidates for polar status, Japan and Germany, share Americas liberal
democratic values. In contrast with the recent past, todays generation sees
peace rather than war as the natural state of affairs among the developed
countries. The current industrialized powers simply do not feel threatened by
each other. Indeed, the Cold War ended peacefully precisely because the Soviet
Union did not face the same incentives to use force as did past declining states:
armed with an overwhelming nuclear deterrent, Gorbachev could safely
relinquish two layers of empire.60 The collapsing Soviet regime hardly feared a
predatory response from the triumphant rival superpower or the newly created
German hegemon in Europe; instead, it expected huge amounts of American
and German aid. In short, with regard to great power security, the present does
not appear to resemble the past.61 This is not to suggest that great power war
is impossible. Indeed, the situation could change dramatically if either Vladimir
Zhirinovksky or General Aleksandr Lebed, both nationalists, or Gennadi
Zyuganov, a Communist, came to power in Russia. But no matter who is
running the country, it is unlikely that Russia will be able to reclaim its
superpower status.
If a global view of polarity is no longer useful, one way to salvage
structural realism might be to apply it to regional subsystems, in which a group
of states interact mainly with one another. Several recent realist works have
explicitly adopted this regional perspective: John Mearsheimer employs
structural-realist logic to forecast the future of the new multipolar Europe;
Aaron Friedberg and Richard Betts work within a more traditional realist
framework to generate predictions on the future of Asia under multipolarity.62
The term multi-multipolarity, coined by Friedberg,63 implies that the
distribution of capabilities at the regional level is now driving state behavior,
particularly with respect to military competition, more than the global balance
of power. Why should this be so?
The term system means a set of elements so interrelated as to form a
whole. At its birth, the modern state system consisted solely of the contiguous
cluster of European states, and so its systemness could scarcely be
questioned. When, in the aftermath of World War I, extra-European great
powers emerged, the battle among three universalist ideologiesfascism,
communism, and liberal capitalismconnected the globe in such a way that it
still made sense to talk of an international system. The end of the Cold War
has, at least temporarily, eliminated global military competition, and so security
11
has become more of a regional issue. Only the United States has the capability
to engage in balancing behavior on a global scale, but against whom? Fantasies
aside, the United States is too weak to impose a Pax Americana on the world
and too powerful to return to the womb.64 The only realistic options available
are to assume the role of an offshore balancer la nineteenth-century Britain
or try to become the center of a global system of alliances la Bismarcks
Germany.65 In either event, the polarity of the present international system will
prove to be less important in determining the behavior of states than it was in
past systems. Lacking a global military competition, the current system may be
described as a chandelier-type structure composed of loosely coupled, regional
constellations. In this view, the structure of international politics is now
subsystem dominant, in that the behaviors of regional subsystems determine
the properties exhibited by the larger global system of which they are a part.66
Yet, this regional formulation, too, suffers from a military, brute-force
bias, which appears far less relevant for characterizing relations among todays
developed powers than it has in the past. With no aspirant to forceful global
domination on the horizon, we seem to have entered a period of world politics
when all of the most powerful states are freed of critical threats to their
physical security.67 As security issues have receded in importance, other issues
of great power competition (e.g., for political influence within regions and
institutions, technological leadership and global market share of home-based
firms) have risen to prominence. The point is that the concept of polarity
assumes that a single faultline can be constructed for the purpose of
distinguishing one class of states from another; that one and only one
important hierarchy exists in the international system. This has never been the
case, and it is even less so today. If we relax this assumption, status and
prestige in the international system more resemble the highly variegated nature
of stratification in most domestic societies. Let us, therefore, consider yet
another way to conceptualize the structure of the present global system: as a
system of diverse stratification in terms of the types of prestige and status, over
which the great powers compete and define their identities.
serve to perpetuate inequality rather than alleviate it.69 Polarity is one way to
capture this inequality in power and status, but there are others. David Strang,
for instance, defines status in terms of recognition by members of the Western
state society; this formulation yields three statuses: sovereign, dependent, and
unrecognized.70
As for the types of stratification in domestic and international systems,
status has been defined and won by many different means throughout the
ages. Sociologists commonly recognize that status in domestic societies is
achieved in various ways (e.g., birth, class, commerce, authority, education)
and that the criteria of status changes over time and across societies, (e.g., the
amount of land owned, the number of cattle owned, the number of slaves
owned, occupation, wealth, or the reputation of schools attended). Less
appreciated by international relations theorists is that status in the international
system also varies across time and space.71 To gain recognition as top dog,
states have engaged in all sorts of competitions: competitive acquisitions of
sacred relics in Ancient Greece, competitive palace-building in the eighteenth
century, competitive colonialism and railway building in the nineteenth, and
competitive space programs in the twentieth.72
Military success has always been the chief mark of status and prestige.
Thus, following R. G. Hawtrey, Robert Gilpin defines prestige as the reputation
for power, that is, other countries subjective calculation of a states military
strength and its willingness to exercise its power.73 Prestige is the everyday
currency of international relations that decides all diplomatic conflicts short of
war. For Gilpin especially, the hierarchy of prestige is a sticky social construct
that most accurately represents the actual power distribution among the great
powers after a hegemonic war, when the system is said to be in equilibrium.74
In most historical eras, however, prestige and status have not been
derived from military strength alone. In the ancient Chinese multistate system
(771680 B.C.), for instance, the position of a state in the hierarchy was
determined by both its military power and the rank of its ruler: duke, marquis,
earl, viscount, or baron.75 In the Greek city-state system (600338 B.C.), the
preeminent status of Sparta and Athens was partly a result of their
acknowledged leadership of the oligarchic and democratic forces. Similarly, the
prestige of the Soviet Union and the United States during the Cold War partially
derived from their leadership of the two rival ideological camps.
In contrast, status and prestige in Europe from the fourteenth to the
sixteenth centuries depended above all on dynastic glory, which was variously
measured by the amount of territory and population ruled, the extravagance of
royal display, the size of palaces and style of entertainment, and the dynastys
success in arms, in securing order and centralizing power, and, especially, in
the marriage stakes. Indeed, the dynastic principle, by conferring status
according to the whims of the marriage market, engendered a highly unstable
class structure, in which the meekest of states could suddenly attain an exalted
status.
From 1559 to 1598, Europe divided along religious lines between
Protestants (Calvinists) and Catholics; Geneva and Rome; the reformation and
the counter-reformation. In this Manichean world of believers and heretics, the
prestige of Spain and Sweden rested not only on their military power (and
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depended heavily on it) but also on their reputations as the most zealous
champions of their respective faiths. To conceive of international hierarchy
during these times simply in terms of state power would be to ignore the depth
of confessional strife that had virtually halted normal diplomatic discourse and
snapped the traditional links among states. In J. H. Elliotts words, those who
fought in the Protestant ranks all subscribed . . .to a common vision of the
world. It was a world in which the Christian was engaged in ceaseless struggle
against the power of Satan; in which the pope himselfthe child of Satanwas
the anti-Christ, and his works were the works of idolatry, of darkness and
superstition. The forces of darkness wrestled with the forces of light.76 In this
new system of stratification, respect was increasingly accorded not to the
dynasty but to the regime, and the conventional stratification along the lines of
size and power was supplemented by a new classification in terms of religion.77
After the Peace of Westphalia, the concept of sovereign widened beyond
that of the ruler to include the state. Rulers no longer simply subordinated the
nation to their own power; they attempted to advance the glory of the state,
whose greatness they personified. This led to a perpetual competition for glory
among sovereigns and their states that manifested itself in a series of
diplomatic disputes over status, for example, the precedence to be accorded to
ambassadors; frequent armed clashes at sea over the demands of one fleet for
a naval salute from another; at least two wars, the Anglo-Dutch War and the
War of Jenkins Ear; and new territorial ambitions, which every ruler in Europe
harbored.78
In addition to diplomatic and territorial ambitions, status and pride
became increasingly associated with a societys culture and civilization, and
prestige was conferred accordingly:
France won status as much through her artistic achievements, her
great writers and thinkers, and the finery of her court and
palaces, as through military conquests. The political system and
political philosophers of Britain won her as much prestige as her
overseas possessions. The governmental and cultural reforms of
Peter the Great and Catherine, as much as their military
successes, won Russias acceptance as a member of the European
family. Prussian administrative advances added almost as greatly
to her reputation and success as the conquest of territory.
Conversely, Spain sank almost as much because of the decline in
her cultural achievement as of her military power. Turkey, even
though she remained a significant military power, was not a
member of European society in the eyes of most contemporaries
because she lacked the marks of civilization.79
In the succeeding age of nationalism (17891914), the superior status of
five powersBritain, Russia, Austria, Prussia, and later Francewas codified in
the Treaty of Chaumont of 1814, which established the Concert of Europe. The
Concert system was designed as a great power club that exercised tutelage
over the rest of Europe, for, it was believed, only the great powers possessed
the resources, the prestige, and the vision to contend with the transcendent
14
concerns of peace and war, of stability and disorder.80 In this way, concert
diplomacy actively cultivated the conception of the great powers as a unique
and special peer group.81 The concept of prestige had as much to do with the
Concerts downfall as with its birth: because the Concerts decisions were
voluntary, unanimity rather than majority rule prevailed, and so issues that
entailed a possible challenge to the interests or an affront to the prestige of a
great power could not be feasibly discussed or resolved.82 As a result, many of
the most urgent problems did not receive attention or treatment, and the
system eventually collapsed.
By the late nineteenth century, possession of colonies became the mark
of status and a source of both pride and envy. Frances decision to occupy
Tunisia in 1881, for instance, was motivated less by the material interests at
stake than by a sense of injured national self-esteem and the belief that failure
to take action would result in insufferable humiliation. Europe is watching us, is
making up its mind whether we amount to anything or not; a single act of
firmness, of will and determination . . .and we shall regain our rightful place in
the eyes of other nations; but one more proof of our weakness, and we shall
end up by letting ourselves sink to the level of Spain.83 Similarly, Frances
determination to force Britain to abandon its unilateral occupation of Egypt,
climaxing in the Fashoda crisis of 1898, was driven more by injured self-esteem
and prestige considerations than by the Mediterranean balance.
France was by no means the only power that viewed colonies as a
source of prestige. Nations that had grown to power too late to hold a colonial
share commensurate with their actual power, such as Germany, Japan, and
Italy, felt deprived and aggrieved, and so sought to make up for lost ground.
Germanys call for a place in the sun was a demand for prestige, rather than
the territory or resources, derived from colonialism.84
From the end of World War I to the end of the Cold War, ideology once
again emerged as an important source of international status and prestige. In
the period between the world wars, the great powers were divided into three
ideological camps: fascism, communism, and liberal democracy. Other faultlines
existed depending on ones perspective. States dissatisfied with the Versailles
settlement saw a world divided between haves and have-nots; satisfied
countries saw it divided between peace-loving and bandit nations. However
one drew the lines, ideology played an important role in determining how states
chose sides, particularly at the outset of the war.
During the Cold War, status was gained in various ways: the United
States became the unquestioned leader of the West, while the Soviets and
Chinese competed for leadership of the Communist International. In response,
Nehrus India, Titos Yugoslavia, Sukarnos Indonesia, and Nassers Egypt
achieved status as co-leaders of the nonaligned movement to promote a third
path between capitalism and communism. Egypts stature was further enhanced
when Nasserhaving successfully defied Britain and France in 1956, and having
thwarted Iraqs bid for regional hegemony in 1957emerged as the leading
apostle of Pan-Arabism. Since Nasser, Egypts status has been defined by its
involvement in the Arab-Israeli peace process. In contrast, revolutionary Iran
has established its credentials among Muslim fundamentalists throughout the
world by asserting Islamic principles and waging war against both Soviet and
15
foreign
policy
as
policy
based
on
responsibility
(Verantwortungspolitick) rather than policy based on power
(Machpolitik) has remained unaffected by unification. It is only
through the continued adherence to these principles that a
European Germany can secure the kind of influence in the future
that it had acquired in the years up to 1989.90
To be sure, it is a decidedly anti-realist, seraphic vision of a Germany
diligently exercising its new found responsibilities in pursuit of universal
brotherhood.91 It is consistent, however, with the notion of different types of
stratification among states as opposed to a single hierarchical structurepoles
and nonpoles.
Germanys image of itself suggests that prestige need not always be a
positional good: if everyone defines prestige differently, it can be commonly
enjoyed; actors can feel good about themselves without bringing others down
in the process. In theory, it is possible to imagine a world in which states create
unique roles and images for themselves without harming others sense of self.
In practice, however, it is extremely unlikely that such a highly specialized
world will emerge. As Waltz points out, the pressures and dynamics of a
competitive self-help system produce a tendency toward the sameness of
competitors.92 Returning to the case of Germany, it seeks respect as the model
of a responsible civilian state; but without traditional military and political power
to back up that role, it will continue to be a political dwarf, e.g., relying on the
United States to clean up the mess it caused in Bosnia.
Relative Deprivation: The Appetite for Power and Prestige Grows with the
Eating
Another way that economic growth exacerbates conflict is by shifting
aspiration levels from comparisons of current performance with past experience
to comparisons with groups that have greater social, economic, and
occupational status. Social psychologists use the concept of relative deprivation
to explain this phenomenon. People who once acquiesced in deprived
economic conditions because they could visualize no practical alternative now
begin to reassess their prospects and possibilities. . . .They now compare their
present conditions and opportunities with those of other groups who are
materially better off than they and ask by what right the others should be so
privileged. Perversely, then, as their objective conditions improve, they become
more dissatisfied because their aspirations outdistance their achievements.114
For this reason, it is argued, social mobilization, often seen as a benefit of
modernization, tends to foster ethnic strife, particularly when the benefits of
modernity, such as economic and educational opportunities, are unevenly
distributed among ethnic groups:115
Peoples aspirations and expectations change as they are
mobilized into the modernizing economy and polity. They come to
want, and to demand, moremore goods, more recognition,
more power. Significantly, too, the orientation of the mobilized to
21
will soon have the worlds largest economy. They therefore feel
that they deserve recognition and respect as a superpower-inwaiting. It is not enough that they are already a permanent
member of the United Nations Security Council and one of the five
nuclear powers. Somehow all of their accomplishments of the last
two decades have not produced as dramatic a change in their
international status as they had expected or believe is their
due.123
It is significant that status-maximizing behavior of this sort is driven
more by an opportunity for gain than it is by fear. The correct analogy is not
Wolferss house on fire but rather his lesser-known race track analogy:
when an opening in the crowd appears in front of a group of people, they rush
forward to fill the gap.124 Likewise, a strong country will feel compelled by
opportunity to fill a power vacuum. Chinas recent military buildup, if motivated
by the desire for greater status, may thus not be related to others defense
spending. If a correlation does exist, it will be in the opposite direction of that
predicted by balance-of-power or threat theory: as others spend less, China,
seeking to make relative gains and increase its international status, will seize
the opportunity to spend more.
In summary, economic growth and social mobility are often a direct
cause of conflict and competition. This is because our satisfaction with many
objects often depends upon their publicly recognized scarcity irrespective of
their utility to us.125 Economic growth increases both the demand for and
scarcity of such positional goods. Because economic expansion causes
aspiration levels to rise and converge, it becomes impossible for most people to
achieve their goals of greater prestige and status. As a result, they become
more dissatisfied with their condition even though their absolute welfare has
improved. Thus, the economist E. J. Mishan pessimistically concludes, the
more truth there is in this relative income hypothesisand one can hardly deny
the increasing emphasis on status and income-position in the affluent society
the more futile as a means of increasing social welfare is the official policy of
economic growth.126
23
Acknowledgments
An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Olin Institute Conference on Realism and
International Relations After the Cold War, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA (December
1995). I am grateful to John Champlin, Daniel Deudney, Joseph Grieco, Richard Herrmann,
Judith Kullberg, Richard Ned Lebow, Michael Mastanduno, Richard Meltz, Kevin Murrin, Richard
Samuels, Jack Snyder, and Kim Zisk for their helpful comments.
Notes
Note 1: See Robert H. Frank, Positional Externalities, in Richard J. Zeckhauser, ed.,
Strategy and Choice (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1991), 2547; and Thomas Schelling,
24
25
Note 12: James M. Goldgeier and Michael McFaul, A Tale of Two Worlds: Core and
Periphery in the Post-Cold War Era, International Organization 46(2) (Spring 1992):
469. Robert Jervis makes a similar argument in his The Future of World Politics: Will It
Resemble the Past? International Security 16(3) (Winter 199192) pp. 4655.
Note 13: My claim that economic issues are inherently more positional than are
security concerns under most conditions partly explains, I believe, why the U.S. is, as
Mastanduno suggests, currently playing security softball and economic hardball in
its relations with other major powers. See Michael Mastanduno, Preserving the
Unipolar Moment: Realist Theories and U.S. Grand Strategy After the Cold War,
International Security 21(4) (Spring 1997): 4988; and Mastandunos chapter in this
volume.
Note 14: As Waltz points out, in self-help systems, competition produces a tendency
toward sameness of the competitors. Kenneth N. Waltz, Theory of International
Politics (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1979), 127.
Note 15: Similarly, Paul Kennedy observes: An economically expanding PowerBritain
in the 1860s, the United States in the 1890s, Japan todaymay well prefer to become
rich rather than to spend heavily on armaments. A half-century later, priorities may
well have altered. The earlier economic expansion has brought with it overseas
obligations (dependence upon foreign markets and raw materials, military alliances,
perhaps bases and colonies). Other rival Powers are now economically expanding at a
faster rate, and wish in turn to extend their influence abroad. The world has become a
more competitive place, and market shares are being eroded. Paul Kennedy, The Rise
and Fall of the Great Powers: Economic Change and Military Conflict From 15002000
(New York: Random House, 1987), xxiii.
Note 16: Richard Ned Lebow, Cold War Lessons for Political Theorists, The Chronicle
of Higher Education 42 (20) (January 26, 1996): B2.
Note 17: Charles W. Kegley, Jr., The Neoidealist Moment in International Studies?
Realist Myths and the New International Realities, International Studies Quarterly
37(2) (June 1993): 13132. Kegley continues: The long-term trajectories in world
affairs appear to have converged to create a profoundly altered international system in
which [Wilsons] ideas and ideals now appear less unrealistic and more compelling.
Ibid., 134.
Note 18: Ibid., 133, 135.
Note 19: See, for example, Stephen R. Graubard, ed., What Future for the State?,
special issue, Daedalus 124(2) (Spring 1995); James N. Rosenau, Turbulence in World
Politics: A Theory of Change and Continuity (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University
Press, 1990); John G. Ruggie, Territoriality and Beyond: Problematizing Modernity in
International Relations, International Organization 47(1) (Winter 1993): 13974;
James N. Rosenau and Ernst-Otto Czempiel, eds., Governance Without Government:
Change and Order in World Politics (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992); and
Ernst-Otto Czempiel and James N. Rosenau, eds., Global Changes and Theoretical
Challenges: Approaches to World Politics for the 1990s (Lexington, MA: Lexington
Books, 1989).
Note 20: Waltz, Theory of International Politics, 126.
Note 21: Ibid.
Note 22: Ibid., 118.
Note 23: Ibid., 77, 128; Christopher Layne, The Unipolar Illusion: Why New Great
Powers Will Rise, International Security 17(4) (Spring 1993): 11, 1516.
Note 24: Joseph M. Grieco, Understanding the Problem of International Cooperation:
The Limits of Neoliberal Institutionalism and the Future of Realist Theory, in David A.
Baldwin, ed., Neorealism and Neoliberalism: The Contemporary Debate (New York:
Columbia University Press, 1934), 303.
26
Waltz sees an emerging world . . .of four or five great powers, including the U.S.,
Germany, Japan, China, and Russia. Waltz, The Emerging Structure, 70. Mearsheimer
employs the same balancing logic in his discussion of the geopolitical future of postCold War Europe. See John Mearsheimer, Back to the Future: Instability in Europe
After the Cold War, International Security 15(1) (Summer 1990): 556.
Note 42: Mearsheimer, Back to the Future; Kenneth N. Waltz, The Spread of Nuclear
Weapons: More May Be Better, Adelphi Paper No. 171 (London: International Institute
for Strategic Studies, 1981); Waltz, Nuclear Myths and Political Realities, American
Political Science Review 81(3) (September 1991): 73146.
Note 43: Stephen D. Krasner, Power, Polarity, and the Challenge of Disintegration, in
Helga Haftendorn and Christian Tuschhoff, eds., America and Europe in an Era of
Change (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1993), 22; also see Robert O. Keohane, The
Diplomacy of Structural Change: Multilateral Institutions and State Strategies, in ibid.,
4359.
Note 44: Krasner, Power, Polarity, 22.
Note 45: Thus, many foreign policy experts currently advocate less is more grand
strategies for the U.S. in the post-Cold War period. See Eugene Gholz, Daryl G. Press,
and Harvey M. Sapolsky, Come Home, America: The Strategy of Restraint in the Face
of Temptation, International Security 21(4) (Spring 1997): 548; Christopher Layne,
Less is More: Minimal Realism in East Asia, The National Interest (43) (Spring 1996):
6477; Eric A. Nordlinger, Isolationism Reconfigured (Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 1995); and Barry R. Posen and Andrew L. Ross, Competing Visions for U.S.
Grand Strategy, International Security 21(3) (Winter 199697): 916.
Note 46: Samuel P. Huntington, Americas Changing Strategic Interests, Survival
33(1) (JanuaryFebruary 1991): 6. For a related view of current power structures see
Richard K. Betts, Wealth, Power, and Instability: East Asia and the United States after
the Cold War, International Security 18(3) (Winter 199394): 4143. Josef Joffe,
Bismarck or Britain? Toward and American Grand Strategy after Bipolarity,
International Security 19(4) (Spring 1995): 101.
Note 47: Joseph L. Nogee, Polarity: An Ambiguous Concept, Orbis 18(4) (Winter
1975): 11931224. at p. 1197. Much of the following discussion is drawn from this
essay.
Note 48: For studies employing GNP as the sole measure of power, see Bruce M.
Russett, Trends in World Politics (New York: Macmillan, 1965), 24; and A. F. K.
Organski and Jacek Kugler, The War Ledger (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press,
1980), 3038.
Note 49: See Jeffrey E. Garten, A Cold Peace: America, Japan, Germany, and the
Struggle for Supremacy (New York: Times BooksRandom House, 1992), 183; Lester
Thurow, Head To Head: The Coming Economic Battle Among Japan, Europe, and
America (New York: William Morrow, 1992); Jacques Attali, Lignes dHorizon (Paris:
Fayarde, 1990).
Note 50: President Clinton, Address to students and faculty at Waseda University,
Tokyo, Japan, July 7, 1993, U.S. Department of State Dispatch 4 (28) (July 12,
1993), 486.
Note 51: Quoted in Chalmers Johnson and E. B. Keehn, The Pentagons Ossified
Strategy, Foreign Affairs 74(4) ((JulyAugust 1995), 106. Similarly, Matsataka Kosaka,
a leading Japanese foreign affairs expert, opines: Japan [under current conditions]
can neither identify itself with Europe and the United States nor live in peace in Asia.
Quoted in ibid., 108.
Note 52: Attali, Lignes dHorizon. Attalis work is discussed in Joseph S. Nye, Jr.,
Patrons and Clients: New Roles in the Post-Cold War Order, in Haftendorn and
Tuschhoff, America and Europe in an Era of Change, 98.
28
Note 72: Evan Luard, Types of International Society (New York: The Free Press, 1976),
207. This section on stratification draws heavily from ch. 9 of Luards book.
Note 73: R. G. Hawtrey, Economic Aspects of Sovereignty (London: Longmans, Green,
1952), 65; Robert G. Gilpin, War and Change in World Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1981), 31.
Note 74: Inevitably, however, the system falls into disequilibrium as changes in the
actual distribution of capabilities, driven by the law of uneven growth, are not reflected
by the hierarchy of prestige, upon which rests the international superstructure of
economic, social, territorial, and political relationships. This built-in conflict between
prestige and power, which has always been decided by hegemonic war, drives
international change. Gilpin, War and Change, chap. 5.
Note 75: Richard Louis Walker, The Multi-State System of Ancient China (Hamden, CT:
The Shoestring Press, 1953), 2627. For the importance of prestige to the Chun-chiu
states, see ibid., 4748.
Note 76: John Huxtable Elliott, Europe Divided, 15591598 (New York: Harper, 1968):
1089.
Note 77: However great its prosperity and strength, a nation could not be respected if
it represented heresy, schism, and the forces of darkness. Luard, Types of
International Society, 215.
Note 78: Ibid., 92, 215
Note 79: Ibid., 216.
Note 80: Richard B. Elrod, The Concert of Europe: A Fresh Look at an International
System, World Politics 28(2) (January 1976), 164.
Note 81: Ibid., 167.
Note 82: Ibid.
Note 83: G. N. Sanderson, The European Partition of Africa: Coincidence or
Conjuncture? The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 3(1) (October
1974): 9.
Note 84: Luard, Types of International Society, 220.
Note 85: See, for example, John M. Stopford, Susan Strange, and John S. Henley, Rival
States, Rival Firms: Competition For World Market Shares (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1991); and Jeffrey A. Hart, Rival Capitalists: International
Competitiveness In the United States, Japan, and Western Europe (Ithaca: Cornell
University Press, 1992).
Note 86: For a discussion, see Jeffrey E. Garten, Is America Abandoning Multilateral
Trade? Foreign Affairs 74(6) (NovemberDecember 1995): 5062.
Note 87: See, for example, Peter Schweizer, The Growth of Economic Espionage,
Foreign Affairs 75(1) (JanuaryFebruary 1996): 915.
Note 88: Hans W. Maull, Germany and Japan: The New Civilian Powers, Foreign
Affairs 69(5) (Winter 199091): 91106.
Note 89: Quoted in Gunther Hellmann, Goodbye Bismarck? The Foreign Policy of
Contemporary Germany, Mershon International Studies Review (April 1996).
Note 90: Hans-Dietrich Genscher, Erinnerungen (Berlin: Siedler Verlag, 1995), 1016.
Also quoted in Hellmann, Goodbye Bismarck? p. ?
Note 91: David Marsh, Germany and Europe: The Crisis of Unity (London: Mandarin,
1995), 167.
Note 92: Waltz, Theory of International Politics: 11827.
Note 93: Hirsch, Social Limits to Growth, 27.
Note 94: Gilpin, War and Change, 200201.
Note 95: Thomas F. Homer-Dixon, Jeffrey H Boutwell, and George W. Rathjens,
Environmental Scarcity and Violent Conflict, Scientific American 268(2) (February
30
1993): 45. For a stinging critique, see Marc A. Levy, Is the Environment a National
Security Issue? International Security 20(2) (Fall 1995): 3562.
Note 96: Hirsch, Social Limits to Growth, 20.
Note 97: Shubik, Games of Status, 117.
Note 98: Mishan, What Political Economy Is All About, 149.
Note 99: Francesco Crispi and Marchese di Rudini as quoted in William L. Langer, The
Diplomacy of Imperialism, 18901902 (New York: Alfred Knopf, 1965): 272, 281.
Note 100: Friedberg, Ripe For Rivalry, 27.
Note 101: David Kinsella, The Globalization of Arms Production and the Changing
Third World Security Context, paper presented at the annual meeting of the
International Studies Association, Chicago, February 2125, 1995, p. 5. The phrase,
symbolic throw weight, appears in Mark C. Suchman and Dana P. Eyre, Military
Procurement as Rational Myth: Notes on the Social Construction of Weapons
Proliferation, Sociological Forum 7 (1992): 13761 at p. 154.
Note 102: Quoted in Eli Heckscher, Mercantilism, Vol. 2, Mercantilism as a System of
Power, translated by Mendel Shapiro (London: George Allen Unwin, 1935), 22. For
mercantilism and state power, also see William Cunningham, The Growth of English
Industry and Commerce During the Early and Middle Ages, 2 Vols. (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1890, 1892). For the classic critique, see Jacob Viner,
Power Versus Plenty as Objectives of Foreign Policy in the Seventeeth and Eighteenth
Centuries, World Politics 1(1) (January 1948): 129.
Note 103: Heckscher, Mercantilism 2: 21, 24.
Note 104: Findings of 1985 CBSNew York Times poll, as reported in David B. Yoffie,
Protecting World Markets, in Thomas K. McCraw, ed., America Versus Japan (Boston:
Harvard Business School Press, 1986), 61.
Note 105: Michael Mastanduno, Do Relative Gains Matter? Americas Response to the
Japanese Industrial Policy, International Security 16(1) (Summer 1991): 7374.
Note 106: Quoted in Heckscher, Mercantilism 2: 23.
Note 107: Michael J. Boskin, Macroeconomics, Technology, and Economic Growth: An
Introduction to Some Important Issues, in Ralph Landau and Nathan Rosenberg, eds.,
The Positive Sum Strategy: Harnessing Technology for Economic Growth (Washington,
D.C., National Academy Press, 1986), 35.
Note 108: Ibid., 3536.
Note 109: Grieco, Understanding the Problem of International Cooperation, 303.
Note 110: I am grateful to the anonymous reviewer for pointing this out.
Note 111: Josef Joffe, How America Does It, Foreign Affairs 76(5) (September
October 1997): 24.
Note 112: Donald L. Horowitz, Ethnic Groups in Conflict (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1985): 19697.
Note 113: Waltz, Conflict in World Politics, p. 464.
Note 114: Milton J. Esman, Ethnic Politics (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1994), 236.
For relative deprivation theory and ethnic conflict, also see Ted Robert Gurr, Why Men
Rebel (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1970), and idem, Minorities at Risk: A
Global View of Ethnopolitical Conflicts (Washington, D.C., U.S. Institute of Peace Press,
1993).
Note 115: See Robert H. Bates, Ethnic Competition and Modernization in
Contemporary Africa, Comparative Political Studies 6 (January 1974): 46264; Paul R.
Brass, Ethnicity and Nationality Formation, Ethnicity 3 (September 1976): 22541.
Note 116: Robert Melson and Howard Wolpe, Modernization and the Politics of
Communalism: A Theoretical Perspective, American Political Science Review 64(4)
(December 1970): 1114.
31
Note 117: Consistent with this argument, Samuel Huntington observes: The external
expansion of the UK and France, Germany and Japan, the Soviet Union and the United
States coincided with phases of intense industrialization and economic development.
Huntington, Americas Changing Strategic Interests, 12.
Note 118: Nazli Choucri and Robert C. North, Nations In Conflict: National Growth and
International Violence (San Francisco: W. H. Freeman, 1975). Also see Nazli Choucri,
Robert C. North, and Susumu Yamakage, The Challenge of Japan Before WWII and
After: A Study of National Growth and Expansion (London: Routledge, 1992).
Note 119: Choucri and North, Nations In Conflict, 28.
Note 120: The relationship between status inconsistency and international, as opposed
to ethnic, conflict has yet to be established. See Thomas J. Volgy and Stacy Mayhall,
Status Inconsistency and International War: Exploring the Effects of Systemic
Change, International Studies Quarterly 39(1) (March 1995): 6784.
Note 121: Jack A. Goldstone, An Analytic Framework, in Jack A. Goldstone, Ted
Robert Gurr, and Farrokh Moshiri, eds., Revolutions of the Late Twentieth Century
(Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1991), 39.
Note 122: Gilpin, War and Change, p. 48.
Note 123: Lucian W. Pye, Chinas Quest for Respect, New York Times (February 19,
1996), A11.
Note 124: Arnold Wolfers, The Actors in International Politics, in Wolfers, Discord and
Collaboration: Essays on International Politics (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University
Press, 1962): 1415.
Note 125: E. J. Mishan, Growth: The Price We Pay (London: Staples Press, 1969), 100.
Note 126: Ibid., 101.
Note 127: For the connection between political realism and mercantilismeconomic
nationalism, see Robert Gilpin, The Political Economy of International Relations
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987), esp. chap. 2; and more recently Gregory
P. Nowell, Mercantile States and the World Oil Cartel, 19001939 (Ithaca: Cornell
University Press, 1994): 2325.
Note 128: See Robert Jervis, Cooperation Under the Security Dilemma, World Politics
30(2) (January 1978): 167214; Charles l. Glaser, Realists as Optimists: Cooperation
as Self-Help, International Security 19(3) (Winter 199495): 5090; Thomas J.
Christensen and Jack Snyder,Chain Gangs and Passed Bucks: Predicting Alliance
Patterns in Multipolarity, International Organization 44(1) (Spring 1990): 13768; Ted
Hopf, Polarity, the Offense-Defense Balance and War, American Political Science
Review 85(2) (June 1991): 47594; Glenn H. Snyder, The Security Dilemma in
Alliance Politics, World Politics 36(4) (July 1984): 46195; Stephen Van Evera, The
Cult of the Offensive and the Origins of the First World War, International Security
9(1) (Summer 1984): 58107.
Note 129: See Peter Liberman, The Spoils of Conquest, International Security 18(2)
(Fall 1993): 12553; Choucri and North, Nations In Conflict; Manus I. Midlarsky, The
Onset of World War (Boston: Unwin Hyman, 1988); Spykman, Americas Strategy in
World Politics; Sir Halford J. Mackinder, Democratic Ideals and Reality: A Study in the
Politics of Reconstruction (New York: Henry Holt, 1919); idem., The Geographical
Pivot of History, Geographic Journal 23(4) (April 1904), esp. p. 495.
Note 130: See Ludwig Dehio, The Precarious Balance: Four Centuries of the European
Power Struggle (New York: Knopf, 1962); Gilpin, War and Change; George Modelski,
Long Cycles in World Politics (Seattle and London: University of Washington Press,
1987); A. F. K. Organski, World Politics, 2d ed. (New York: Knopf, 1968); A. F. K.
Organski and Jacek Kugler, The War Ledger (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
1980); George Modelski and William R. Thompson, Seapower in Global Politics, 1494
1993 (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1988); William R. Thompson, On Global
32
33