International System Structure

Question 1

Power as capacity

Answer 1

• Military strength
• Economic development
• Population size
• Level of literacy or skills
• Geographical factors

Question 2

Structural power

Answer 2

• Ability to affect the rules of the game

Question 3

Hard and Soft Powers

Answer 3

• Ability to attract or influence the behaviour or interest of others

Question 4

Power as status

Answer 4

If a country has “power” (as influence) in military, diplomatic, cultural and economic spheres.

Question 5

Power as security

Answer 5

Power is also used when describing states or actors that achieved military victories or security for their state in the International System.

Question 6

Power as influence

Answer 6

Actor’s ability to exercise influence over other actors within the International System.

Question 7

Hagemon

Answer 7

Leadership or predominant influence exercised by one nation over others

Question 8

Superpowers

Answer 8

State with a dominant position which is characterized by its extensive ability to exert influence or project power on global scale

Question 9

Great Powers

Answer 9

Sovereign state that is recognized as having the ability to exert its influence on a global scale

Question 10

Middle power

Answer 10

Sufficient strength and authority to stand on its own without the need of help from others

Question 11

Small powers

Answer 11

Instruments of the other powers and may at times be dominant.

Question 12

Buzan and Weaver: great powers

Answer 12

• Achieving great power status is less demanding in terms of both capability and behaviour.
• Great powers need not necessarily have big capabilities in all sectors, and they need not be actively present in the securitisation processes of all areas of the international system.
• Great power status rests mainly on a single key: what distinguishes great powers from merely regional ones is that they are responded to by others on the basis of system level calculations about the present and near-future distribution of power

Question 13

Buzan and Weaver: Regional Power

Answer 13

• Regional powers define the polarity of any given RSC: unipolar as in Southern Africa, bipolar as in South Asia, multipolar as in the Middle East, South America, and Southeast Asia.
• Their capabilities loom large in their regions, but do not register much in a broad-spectrum way at the global level.
• Higher-level powers respond to them as if their influence and capability were mainly relevant to the securitization processes of a particular region.
• They are thus excluded from the higher-level calculations of system polarity whether or not they think of themselves as deserving a higher ranking (as India most obviously does)” .

Question 14

Polarity

Answer 14

+Polarity in international relations is any of the varius ways in which power is distributed on the international system. It describes the nature of the International System at any given period.
+Generally, distinguishes four types of systems: + Unipolarity
+ Bipolarity
+ Tripolarity
+ Multipolarity (4+)
Type of system completely dependent on the distribution of power and influence of States in a region or globally.

Question 15

Unipolarity

Answer 15

• In international politics is a distribution of power in which one State exercises most of the cultural economic and military influence
• Interstate system, not an empire. Implies the existence of many juridically equal non-states.

Question 16

Characteristics of Unipolarity

Answer 16

• It’s anarchical
• Waltz “a great power cannot exert a positive control everywhere in the world”
• The power projection limitation is one of the differences between unipolar and hegemonic system.
• Unipolar system possesses only one great power (or superpower?) and faces no competition.
• For Walt the US is the only pole to possess global interest

Question 17

Why Polarity Matters?

Answer 17

• More stable – less prone to war
• Bipolar order are simple to menage
• Multipolar order can slip into war due to chain ganging and buck- passing
• Chain ganging: raise of the chances of conflict due to the formation of coalitions and alliances
• Buck-passing: avoid or refuse confrontation expecting others to do so +Idea of unipolarity as peace
• International institutions and hegemonic self-restrain

Question 18

Bipolarity

Answer 18

• Distribution of power in which two states have the majority of economic, military and cultural influence internationally or regionally
• Results from two rival power poles
• The world is devided into a sphere of influence.
• Power poles tries to win states away from their rivalry sphere of influence

Question 19

Multipolarity

Answer 19

• Distribution of power in which more than two nation-states have nearly equal amounts of military, cultural and economic influence
• 4+ power actors
• Balance of power
• Examples:
• 17th to 19th century
• Current system

Question 20

The debate on the academy

Answer 20

• One of the problems we face in this understanding of the distribution of power in the International System is that we don’t have a consensus.
• Some academics are going to defend that we are un a unipolar world, others are going to defend the idea the we are in a multipolar world, and there is Huntington idea of a uni- multipolar world.
• Also, there are differences about what is the better and safer system.