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With the rise of new powers and the decline of seemingly unchallenged US dominance, a conventional wisdom is gaining ground in contemporary discourse about world politics that a new multipolar order is taking shape. Yet ‘multipolarity’ – an order with multiple centres of power – is variously used as a description of the current distribution of power, of the likely shape of a future global order, or even as a prescription for how power ‘should’ be distributed in the international system. This book explores how the concept of a multipolar order is being used for different purposes in different national contexts. From rising powers to established powers, contemporary policy debates are analysed by a set of leading scholars in order to provide an in-depth insight into the use and abuse of a widely used but rarely explored concept.
plausible contenders for great power status, if not currently then at least in the foreseeable future, the contributions by both Luis Schenoni and Ian Hall raise serious questions about the status of Brazil and India respectively in this regard. Similarly, despite the language of ‘peer competitors’ in the context of a global power transition that linger in British strategic documents, David Blagden's blunt assessment that ‘Britain is not a pole and will not be again’ in Chapter 7 paints a very different picture of London's role in the international system. Even the
This chapter presents the discourse around multipolarity in the United Kingdom as perhaps the ultimate symptom of the contested and often contradictory arguments about power and status that define the current global power transition. Reflecting what is described as ‘the country’s own tortured concerns with power and status’, the chapter pitches discussion around the emergence of a new multipolar order as being a debate about the nature of ‘greatness’ in international relations itself. This chapter examines London’s now decades-long history of attempting to project an image of itself as a pole of power long after the material bases of its formerly unambiguous global status have atrophied. Ultimately, it argues that the United Kingdom’s dogged persistence in attempting to cultivate and maintain a role as one of the great powers at the global level has hampered its ability to pursue more narrowly defined economic and security interests. In particular, it outlines a set of vital interests that can be secured in a post-unipolar era as long as London can become less fixated on a performative identity divorced from material realities.
Relations (IR) scholars have long recognised the central role that technological innovation plays in power transitions, the balance of power, and international politics and security more broadly. 2 IR scholars of various stripes have also begun to reflect on the nuanced relationship between advances in technology, the rise of new powers and political and military prominence in the international order, and responses to these trends by dominant powers. 3
buckles and fractures, international affairs may well return to the old, inherently unstable and dangerous order based on bargaining between the major powers, with international disputes once again being resolved through the naked exercise of military, economic and political power. Epilogue 249 These are particularly dangerous times as the world is going through one of its periodic power transitions with Sino-American, Sino-Japanese and US/ European-Russian competition on the rise. It is significant that only once has such a power transition occurred peacefully
arguments about power and status that define the current global power transition. Reflecting what Blagden describes as ‘the country's own tortured concerns with power and status’, this chapter pitches discussion around the emergence of a new multipolar order as being a debate about the nature of ‘greatness’ in international relations itself. This chapter examines London's now decades-long history of attempting to project an image of itself as a pole of power long after the material bases of its formerly unambiguous global status have atrophied. Ultimately, Blagden argues
includes power transition theorists – use Germany in similar ways. The biggest difference among them is the extent to which their analyses are based on the relative capability of great powers in 1914 and 1939, their leaders’ perceptions of likely changes in these capabilities, and their respective goals (expansion vs. defence of the status quo). Some of these theorists do not see Germany as exceptional in any way in comparison to other great powers, but those who stress leader goals do. Table 11.2 Number and percentage of index entries per country US
-making and may cause misperceptions of others’ intentions. 14 ‘Stability’ is concerned with the relationship between these factors, particularly what increases their capabilities and for what purpose. 15 The role of technological change and strategic stability can be conceptualized, therefore, as part of a complex interaction of disruptive forces (or agents of change), which during periods of heightened geopolitical rivalry, great-power transitions, and strategic surprise, may erode strategic stability and make
–Pakistan hyphenated relationship in South Asia.16 Structural realists argue that because of the anarchic nature of the international system with no higher authority above the states, distribution of power defined in terms of material capabilities is the most important determinant of state behavior. The changing balance of power in Asia-Pacific made the Bush administration realize the importance of recalibrating its strategic posture vis-à-vis the region. The United States faces a prospect of an emerging power transition involving China and dealing with this is likely to be the most
. Moreover, the post-Communist states are characterised by certain developmental traits, some of which are conducive to implementation of environmental policies, but many of which have the opposite effect. These traits can be summed up as democratisation and decentralisation of political power, transition from a planned to a market economy and extensive changes in the legal sphere. A crucial factor that has exacerbated or impaired the impact of these processes, is the fact that in most cases they have been accompanied by considerable economic decline. The political sphere