Power in the Changing Global Order

The US, Russia and China

Martin A. Smith

• Publisher: Polity
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9780745661339
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: International Relations
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Power has been compared to the weather: people discuss it all the time, but very few really understand it. This book seeks to demystify this complex concept by providing students with an incisive and engaging introduction to the shifting configurations of power in the contemporary global order.

Drawing on the work of leading international relations scholars, philosophers and sociologists, the analysis goes beyond simplistic views of power as material capability, focusing also on its neglected social dimensions. These are developed and explored through a detailed examination of the changing international role, status and capacities of the United States, Russia and China since the end of the Cold War. Far from achieving multipolarity, the book concludes that the contemporary world remains essentially unipolar; America having moved to correct the mistakes of George W. Bush's first term in office, while China and Russia have, in different ways, limited their own abilities to challenge American primacy.

This book will be essential reading for students of international relations and politics, as well as anyone with an interest in the shifting balance of power in the global system.

1

Understanding Power

As the discussions in the introduction here have indicated, there is relatively little for students of world politics and international relations to go on from within their own discipline in attempting to develop a deeper understanding of the nature of power. In order to do so it is, therefore, necessary to step outside disciplinary boundaries. It is worth considering, in particular, insights put forward by sociologists, who have argued that power is embodied in human relationships.

Power as relationships

Sociologists are, indeed, interested primarily in human relationships. Therefore, if it is accepted that power is essentially a social phenomenon, it is hardly surprising that notably detailed and sophisticated explorations of it should have been developed by them. Amongst the best known of those who have studied power has been the American sociologist Talcott Parsons. His distinctive insight was the suggestion that, in terms of its functionality, power can usefully be compared to money. In developing this metaphor, Parsons stressed that power is not primarily a material commodity or resource. Rather, he argued that it should be viewed as a vital – indeed the vital – medium of exchange in social and political relations, just as money is the vital medium of exchange in economic and commercial life.¹ In Parsons’s analysis, if it is viewed as a medium of exchange, then power, like money, is worth very little in its own right. Its real value is found in the extent to which – and the effectiveness with which – it can be operationalized to obtain desired outcomes. Thus, in this view, power is essentially instrumental. Its worth lies in the extent to which it helps in achieving or advancing desired objectives.

In the world politics and international relations literature, the power/money comparison has been quite widely criticized. Such criticisms have been made on the grounds that power resources, especially material ones, are less fungible than money. To speak of the fungibility of money means that it can be converted into something of equivalent worth and value in a variety of different transactions and contexts. With this in mind, it has been argued that, for example, a significant military capability will not necessarily convert into an effective power resource in the economic or commercial arenas. Traditional military capabilities might not even realize effective power in the face of certain types of armed threat, such as those involving the kinds of insurgency which occurred in Afghanistan after 2001 and Iraq after 2003.²

Yet, Parsons did not conceptualize power primarily in resource terms. The underlying point that he strove to make with his metaphor was that the operational utility and value of it are essentially interactive. Because it is relative, power can only be present in interactions amongst and between different actors. Power is therefore evident primarily in defined social processes and systems, rather than amongst essentially detached individual actors. This is an important core assumption of much of the sociological analysis.

Power is also more than just the sum total of the aggregate results of such interactions. Talcott Parsons rightly argued that it reflects, rather, ‘the capacity of a social system to get things done in its collective interest. Hence power involves a special problem of the integration of the system, including the binding of its units, individual and collective, to the necessary commitments’ [emphasis in the original].³

How might this view of power help us more usefully to understand it with particular reference to world politics and international relations? For realist scholars, the international system remains essentially anarchic, in the sense that there is as yet no established, reliable and embracing system of global governance, and therefore no ultimate global collective. Non-realists generally accept this, although they tend to be relatively more optimistic about the prospects for meaningful international cooperation and collaboration nonetheless.

Does the essentially anarchic nature of the international arena undermine the value of insights from those such as Parsons, who stress the importance of social systems? Not necessarily. A functioning social system does not have to be a structural entity, such as a state or government. Max Weber, perhaps the best-known sociologist of all, argued that a structured collective entity could not, in fact, exist. To that end, Weber wrote: ‘Collectivities must be treated as solely the resultants and modes of organization of the particular acts of individual[s], since these alone can be treated as agents in a course of subjectively understandable action … there is no such thing as a collective personality which “acts” ’ [emphasis in the original].⁴

Thus individual actors do matter, although their importance in terms of power relations accrues mainly through their interactions with others. A viable and meaningful social system develops on the basis of a defined sense of shared interests and values amongst the individual actors. This, in turn, produces shared objectives and promotes common activity in pursuit of them. It does not mean that the constituent actors must always agree with each other on individual issues. It does, however, suggest that they must reach enduring agreement on some basic objectives and principles, which then condition their behaviour over a period of time.

This is important in order both to underwrite and to maintain the value of the shared exchanges amongst themselves. Individual actor-participants must be aware of, and willing to take into account, the prospective impact of their actions and activities on others when making decisions and contemplating action. This is the essence of what Max Weber termed ‘social action’.⁵

Essential equivalence amongst actors

Bringing Parsons’s power/money metaphor back into the picture at this point suggests that chief amongst the ground rules for social action should be acceptance that those participating enjoy in some meaningful way an equivalent status as actors, although this does not necessarily mean being regarded as equals across the board. This is important if power (or money) is to constitute a genuine and meaningful medium of exchange, given the mutuality and fungibility inherent in that.⁶

This argument can be illustrated by considering the hypothetical example of two individuals. If money is to retain its overall value and continue to be generally trusted as the key medium of economic exchange, then £100 spent by someone with nothing else left in the bank has to be worth as much at the point of transaction – and therefore be able to purchase as much in the transaction – as £100 proffered by a millionaire. In this particular context, therefore, the two would enjoy an essential equivalence, notwithstanding the basic material differences that exist between them. The latter of course are hardly irrelevant in the wider picture. The level of sacrifice and commitment required of the relatively impoverished individual in spending their last £100 is self-evidently significantly greater than that demanded of the millionaire. Context and the relative command of resources are therefore important conditioning – if not always determining – factors.

In international politics, what might be called essential equivalence is best reflected in what is known as the juridical equality of states. This is a legal construct. Its essential meaning is twofold. Firstly, in terms of the overall international system, states are legally identified as the most important individual actors. Secondly, all recognized states are legally entitled to the same core rights, entailed in their possession of legal sovereignty. The principal sovereign rights are recognition of bounded territory, formal protection from aggression by other states, and the right to participate in international diplomatic relations and processes. Legally speaking it is these, rather than the possession of military and economic capabilities, that constitute the foundation of what might be called a state’s ‘national power’.

This might in practice, as Stephen Krasner has argued, rest to a significant extent on ‘organized hypocrisy’ on the part of the states themselves, particularly the larger and more materially capable amongst them.⁷ For Krasner, the ‘hypocrisy’ resides mainly in the extent to which the legal equality of all states is accepted as the basis for conducting international relations, notwithstanding the significant differences that exist amongst states in terms of size and material capabilities. States are clearly not equal in terms of their respective capabilities. Legally, however, they enjoy what is here called essential equivalence.

This is a very important ‘hypocrisy’. A clear majority of states have evidently felt it important to maintain it as the basis of the international system since it was formalized in the mid-twentieth century, mainly through the United Nations Charter. For the argument being developed in this book, this matters because it provides the structural framework within which processes of international power, as understood here, can and do operate.

Evidence for the enduring hold of the idea of juridical equality (enshrined since 1945 mainly in Article 2 of the UN Charter)⁸ can be seen in the intense controversies and hostile reactions engendered on the occasions when it can be seen to have been violated. Often this has occurred as a result of external military interventions. The North Korean attack on its southern neighbour in June 1950 and Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait in August 1990 are obvious examples. Perhaps more revealing are the controversies generated by proclaimed ‘policing actions’ designed to prevent or halt human rights abuses or attacks on civilians taking place within states. These declared ‘humanitarian interventions’ can themselves give rise to concerns about interference in a state’s ‘sovereign affairs’. The NATO bombing of Serbia over Kosovo from March to June 1999 is a well-known case in this context. Possibly mindful of the controversies generated by that action, NATO members in early 2011 accepted significant constraints on the military operations which they conducted over Libya, under a UN resolution calling for the protection of civilians from attack in the context of that state’s degeneration into a de facto civil war.

Overall, juridical equality has helped both to shape and to constrain the ways in which power is conceived and operationalized in the international system. This does not mean that Hans Morgenthau was wrong in his classic realist assertion that ‘international politics, like all politics, is a struggle for power’.⁹ What matters is how that ‘struggle’ is conducted. Many individuals might wish to make more money. It would make no sense, however, for them to ‘struggle for money’ in ways that risk destabilizing and beggaring their local, regional or national economies, and thereby impoverishing everybody, including themselves. By the same token, a ‘struggle for power’ can take place in ways and with means that do not presuppose that an international system based on the juridical equality of states will become seriously or terminally degraded. This does not, of course, guarantee that this will necessarily happen in practice. The situation outlined here assumes that the actors involved will proceed on the basis of a rational calculation that individual and collective gains are closely bound together, if not, indeed, inseparable.

Notwithstanding his contention that power is an ‘existential necessity’,¹⁰ Morgenthau did accept that, in international practice, states have devised means to ensure that it is channelled and constrained – imperfectly but nonetheless significantly – by a body of international law. This has been developed amongst states in relation to such fundamentally important matters as their own juridical equality, mutual recognition and territorial jurisdiction, and the use of armed force. These are the essential accoutrements of the legal concept of sovereignty.¹¹ As one analyst observed at the end of the twentieth century: ‘Although all states do not obey international law all the time, they obey it often enough for law to constitute an important formative fact in modern international relations.’¹² Analysts have further noted that formal international law has been buttressed by the evolution of more informal but nonetheless significant ‘international regimes’. These are principles, norms and patterns of accepted behaviour, which also help to shape the expectations and behaviour of state actors in the international system.¹³

Reflecting on the points made above, it can be said that the underlying nature of contemporary international relations is perhaps best represented as approximating to the ‘anarchical society’ depicted most famously in academic terms by Hedley Bull.¹⁴ There remain no overarching system or structures of global governance. Yet a significant and influential system of law, norms and rules has been constructed by and around the constituent state actors. Taken together, these serve significantly to shape and regulate the behaviour of most states for much of the time. As suggested earlier, they also provide the framework for the operationalization of international power.

‘Networked power’

Since the end of the Cold War, some analysts have been suggesting that, as a result of advances in communication and information technologies, a new dimension to the evolving ‘international society’ has been increasingly in evidence. The voguish concept of ‘networks’ has often been used to try to capture and explain this development.

As with many ‘in’ terms, this one has been used rather loosely and with reference to different phenomena. The notion of ‘networked power’ has been employed by some in specific reference to the role played by new and accessible information and communication technologies, such as Facebook, Google and Twitter, in helping to facilitate the mobilization of popular movements seeking change against esta...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title page
• Copyright page
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction: Power in the Changing Global Order
• 1 Understanding Power
• 2 Power Resources
• 3 Hegemony, Unipolarity and the US
• 4 The Multipolar Moment? The US and the World in the 1990s
• 5 A New Era? The George W. Bush Administration’s ‘War on Terror’
• 6 Return to Multilateralism?
• 7 Russia as a ‘Continuing’ or ‘Reviving’ Great Power
• 8 The Russian Multipolarity Debates
• 9 China: ‘Rising Power’ or ‘Constrained State’?
• 10 China, ‘Anti-Hegemonism’ and ‘Harmony’
• Conclusions: The US, Russia and China in a Changing World
• Selected Further Reading
• Index