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Politics Notes International Relations Notes

Power In International Relationes Notes

Updated Power In International Relationes Notes Notes

International Relations Notes

International Relations

Approximately 35 pages

These notes contain a complete summary of my module on International Relations. The notes cover the main topics of IR, and each set of notes consists of an in-depth analysis of how the topic relates back to core IR theory, multiple examples and case-studies and a summary of the key literature of the topic, as well as possible answers to essay questions. ...

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Power Notes

  • Important note: it is a sub-topic of the ‘competing approaches to the study of IR topic’, meaning that competing approaches should be addressed in terms of how they discuss power.

  • Weber: power is ‘the opportunity to have one’s will prevail within a social relationship’

  • Analysing power requires very specific analysis that is case by case, there is no universal index for measuring power

  • If we were to measure power based on how well states achieve their outcomes, this is difficult because it is based on the assumption that states have complete consensus in their motivations – states instead have very broad guidelines

  • Power under classical realism is set up with a narrow view, power = military capability

  • Understandings of power:

    • Classical Realism – Morgenthau on power: ‘Power may comprise anything that establishes and maintains the control of man over man. Thus, power covers all social relationships which serve that end, from physical violence to the most subtle psychological ties by which one mind controls another.’

    • Fallacy of the single factor

  • Hard vs. soft power:

    • Hard: using material capabilities to get other states to do what you want

    • Soft: using ideas, identities and values to get other states to do what you want

  • Changing power dynamics:

    • Syria, Ukraine, North Africa, South East Asia: America forced to adapt to will of the EU and China, as well as Russia, can’t just unilaterally exert influence, globalisation has collided with this

    • Rising powers: Russia, China and India, veto players but do not have agenda-setting power (Narlikar), they strive for agenda other institutions bring. Eg. Russian focus upon G8 primary, Chinese opposition to UNSC P5 which would weaken their relative importance

    • Fall of US hegemony is not a movement towards the fall of institutions as a site of power, instead reconfiguration of this platform with plurilateral world

    • Rising powers are in opposition to US hegemony, eg. Chinese and Russian challenges to US involvement in Asia and Eastern Europe respectively

  • Different dimensions of power:

    • Power through material gains/coercion

      • First dimension of power, compulsory power

      • Dahl: A getting B to do what they would otherwise not do

      • Realism: incentives to build military dominance, and pursue hegemony in anarchy

    • Power through structures: the direct relations of states through established social constructions.

      • Most prominent example is power through Marxism: global capitalist system determines capacities of state actors and shapes how actors understand their own interests

      • This type of power reinforces itself, and it fundamentally very difficult to change

      • Often those subject to this type of power are increasingly unaware of how this power is dictating their decisions and processes

    • Power through institutional agenda setting: ability to control the actions of a socially distant other

      • IR is enmeshed in a web of institutions, norms and rules, ability to achieve will in this context is fundamental through agenda setting

      • Luke’s second dimension of power

      • Ikenberry: ‘rules are most durable and legitimate when they emerge from a consensual process of rule-making’

      • Platform is more dominant than consultation, idealistic claim made by neo-liberal institutions is mostly wrong

      • Influences outcomes to the advantage of those who determine the engagement

      • Hurrell: institutions operate on spectrum from Kantian notion of ‘progressive enmeshment’ to Waltzian neo-realist ‘hegemonic imposition’

      • Institutions are also constraint on power, eg. UNSC couldn’t prevent US invading Iraq, but imposed diplomatic and economic costs in terms of lost legitimacy, which constrain US exercises of power since

      • Sight for actors to operate + shape actors

      • South America + Eastern European states are tending towards democratization, economic integration and human rights (Layne), minor states are influenced in constructivists manner by dominant institutional battlegrounds

    • Power through cultural norms and attitudes = soft power/productive power

      • Nothing soft about it

      • Best example = Vatican

      • Effect of soft power often isn’t immediate

      • Easier to identify the causal relationship when we study non-state actors eg. NGOs and activist groups

      • Often ability to exercise soft-power is dependent on exercising hard-power in the past

      • Nye: US got a lot of soft power through the multilateral institutions set up after WWII – they constrain the US making US power much less threatening, and they provide benefits for those who sign up to them

      • Israel lobby example: loose coalition of individuals working to steer US foreign policy in pro-Israel direction, main expression of congressional support has been through foreign aid, providing nearly 3 billion since 1985

  • Power in IR Theory:

    • Morgenthau (1960): all politics is the struggle of power.

    • Wilson: anti-power theory proponent, assume man is tolerant and that human community unites through many bonds. Statesman have choice between practicing power politics and conducting foreign relations by some other means.

    • An act which is central to international politics: A commits an act towards B so that B pursues a course of behaviour in accordance with A’s wishes. This act contains several elements:

  1. Influence: essentially a means to an end, usually instrumental, used for other goals

  2. Act implies a base of capabilities: mobilized in his efforts to influence B. capability = any physical or mental object or quality available as an instrument of inducement.

  3. Relationship between A and B: but this may not involve communication, becomes a process if over time

  4. If A can get B to do something but B cannot get A to do something, then A has > power than B. power is relative

So power is a means, it is based on capabilities, it is a relationship and it can be a quantity

  • Balance of power theory: national security enhanced when military capability distributed such that no one state is strong enough to dominate all others. If one is, prediction of attack, provides...

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