Power Shifts and International Order

Question 1

Redistribution of power destabilize existing international rules and institutions

Answer 1

John Mearsheimer (1994/1995)
- Great powers create international rules and institutions in order to maintain or increase their share of world power
- Redistributions of power weaken the foundations of existing international rules and institutions and often lead to war
- New great powers create new rules and institutions

Question 2

Redistributions of power don’t necessarily destabilize existing international rules and institutions (power shifts and international order)

Answer 2

Robert Keohane (1984)
- Hegemons (great powers) create international order (rules on trade, etc.) that benefits them, and use their power to maintain it
- Wise hegemons create international order that also provide public goods (benefits accessible to all)
- As hegemon declines, other states fear loss of public goods, so they invest in maintaining existing rules and institutions

Question 3

Rising powers seek recognition and voice (power shifts and international order)

Answer 3

Edward Newman and Benjamin Zala (2018)
- Argument
– The difficulty of adapting international order to rising powers depends on what these states are contesting and demanding
- Question
– How are rising power challenging international order?
—> Normative contestation: content of international rules, kind of order they support
—> Representational contestation: who gets to set and oversee international rules
- Method
– Study language used in summits of BRICS leaders
- Finding
– China and Russia often accept basic international norms while contesting representation, they are more focused on great power status and multipolar decision-making than on normative change

Question 4

Rising powers favor a hybrid international order (power shifts and international order)

Answer 4

Matthew D. Stephen (2014)
- Rising powers’ dilemma
– Increased dependence on world economy -> support for status quo
– Statist forms of development -> tension with liberal principles of free market and individual rights
- Result
– Rising powers pursue a hybrid order: more transnational integration but based on less liberal principles

Question 5

China pursues a hybrid strategy on international order (power shifts and international order)

Answer 5

Nana de Graaff, Tobias ten Brink, and Inderjeet Parmar (2020)
- Factors shaping China’s strategy on international order:
– National development via global market integration
– State-directed capitalism around the nexus of business and the Communist party-state
- Result
– China is pursuing a hybrid regime, combining adaptation, confrontation, and building alternative institutions
– Strategy varies across issue areas
- China is challenging some aspects of liberal international order

Question 6

China favors a new international order consistent with its ruling ideology

Answer 6

Jessica Chen Weiss and Jeremy L. Wallace (2021)
- China’s approach to international order depends on CCP ideology:
– State over markets
– State interests over individual rights
– Rule by law, not rule of law
– Ethnic nationalism, not civic nationalism
- So China favors an international order that
– Prioritizes state sovereignty, territorial integrity, non-interference
– Enables states to protect citizens from market forces
– Limits the priority of individual rights

Question 7

China is not committed to the liberal international order (power shifts and international order)

Answer 7

Xinyuan Dai and Duu Renn (2016)
- A statistical study of commitment to the international institutional order (IIO)
– China accepts treaties that create broad multilateral principles but resists additional protocols that create more concrete or demanding obligations
– China is less embedded in IIO than other P5 states, BRICS, Japan, Korea
– China and Russia are less embedded in human rights institutions than other P5 or other BRICS

Question 8

US approach to liberal international order reflects its strategic calculations (the US challenge to international order)

Answer 8

Xinyuan Dai (2020)
- Focuses on US challenge to liberal international order, especially under Trump
– US accepted the costs of collective security, economic openness, and democracy promotion when necessary for Cold War goals
– After Cold War, costs were harder to justify
– US approach to international order is now more conditional
—> Support where US retains dominant power (IMF, NATO)
—> Challenge where US has lost power (WTO, democracy promotion)

Question 9

Crisis of liberal internationalism is due to the loss of legitimacy and social purpose within Western states, not to redistributions of power between states (the US challenge to international order)

Answer 9

G. John Ikenberry (2018)
- Growth of “liberal international order” created by US and based on economic openness, multilateral institutions, security cooperation, and democratic solidarity
– After WW2, included US, Western Europe, Japan
– After Cold War, states in East Asia, Eastern Europe, Latin America, and Africa adopted democracy and capitalism
- In recent decades:
– Neoliberalism -> economic inequality -> far-right populism and nationalism in EU and US -> rejection of liberal international order

Question 10

Classic study of power transition (power shifts and the risk of war)

Answer 10

Thucydides (c. 400 bce)
- On war between Athens and Sparta
- Argument
– Dominant state (Sparta) used force against a rising state (Athens) to stop it from gaining more power
- “What made war inevitable was the growth of Athenian power and the fear this caused in Sparta”
- “The Athenians made their Empire more and more strong until Athenian strength attained a peak plain for all to see and the Athenians began to encroach upon Sparta’s allies. It was at this point that Sparta felt the position to be no longer tolerable and decided by starting the present war to employ all her energies in attacking and if possible destroying the power of Athens”

Question 11

China’s Selective Approach to the Liberal International Order (LIO)

Answer 11

Chinese scholars and govt officials are selective about the LIO,which they see as a tool of US hegemony.
Aims: to promote sovereign equality under int’l law; to become a rule-maker, not just a rule-taker; to build institutions beyond the lLO architecture
-Sovereign equality: UN charter, but there are arguments that states that respect individual HR is better than those that don’t, making a hierarchy of states
-Obstacles: shortage of power resources; shortage of allies; internal problems; lack of universal values.
—Shortage of allies: not that much of an extent of allies
—Internal problems: growth rate gone down
—Universal Values: have not found a set of values that are for all corners of the world

Question 12

China’s Contestation of the UN’s Liberal Agenda (Foot)

Answer 12

• Focus: Shift from human security (R2P, protection of civilians) to state security (preventing war).
• Methods: UNSC vetoes, increased funding, more
• Chinese officials in UN, new development-security discourse.
• Impact: Uneven so far due to embedded liberal norms and geopolitical rivalries, but long-term effects could grow.

Question 13

Power transition theory (power shifts and the risk of war)

Answer 13

A.F.K Organski (1958)
- Uneven rates of economic growth -> “power transitions” in world politics
- During power transition, two factors determine a state’s preference for war vs peace:
– Position in the international distribution of power
– Satisfaction with current international order
- Hypotheses
– Satisfied state’s don’t challenge the dominant state
– Weak, unsatisfied states don’t challenge the dominant state
– Strong, unsatisfied states challenge the dominant state -> war

Question 14

Power transitions are always conflictual (power shifts and the risk of war)

Answer 14

John Mearsheimer (2001)
- Assumptions
– The threat of war is always present in international politics
– Anarchy -> insecurity -> all states prefer to dominate their neighbors
– Only some states (“great powers”) achieve a dominant position
- Expectations
– As rising states approach “great power” status, they become more aggressive
– Dominant states use force to resist rising states

Question 15

Rising state’s choice of strategy depends on its calculation of power and threats (power shifts and the risk of war)

Answer 15

Joshua R. Itzkowitz Shifrinson (2020)
- Rising states may choose to cooperate with or challenge a declining great power
- This choice depends on rising state’s calculation of power and threats, not on interdependence or ideology
– Cooperate
—> When rising powers can use cooperation with declining great power to offset threats from other great powers
– Challenge
—> When rising power doesn’t face threats from other great powers, or cooperation with declining great power won’t help it overcome these threats
- Example
– After WW2, rising US cooperated with declining UK to offset rising USSR

Question 16

Power transitions depend on regime type (power shifts and the risk of war)

Answer 16

Douglas Lemke and William Reed (1996)
- Tests the “democratic peace” thesis (regime type matters, democracies don’t fight each other) in the context of power transitions
- Finding
– Power transitions involving two democracies are more likely to be settled peacefully than power transitions involving other types of regimes
- Illustration
– 1890-1910, dominant power UK (democracy) faced two rising powers
—> USA (democracy) -> peaceful transition
—> Germany (non-democracy) -> war

Question 17

Bipolarity and nuclear weapons both reduce the risk of war during power transitions (power shifts and the risk of war)

Answer 17

Kenneth Waltz (1979)
- Multipolar distribution of power tend to be unstable, with high risk of war
– Uncertainty about alliances and war outcomes -> willingness to take risks
- Bipolar distribution of power tends to be stable, with low risk of war
– Clear balance of power -> low expectation of gain -> low risk of war
– Small states seek security by allying with a great power, but have little impact on the overall balance
- Nuclear weapons -> consequences of war are predictable -> low risk of war

Question 18

Is the peaceful transition from British hegemony to US hegemony a special case, or likely to be repeated? (implications for China-US relations)

Answer 18

Kori Schake (2017)
- Studied 9 crisis in UK-US relations between 1820s and 1940s
- Finding
– Converging identities of UK and US enabled peaceful transition
– UK became more democratic
– US became more imperial
- Result
– UK and US focused more on their cumulative power compared to other states than on their relative power compared to each other
- Prediction
– Deep ideological differences between US and China will make power transition very conflictual, focused on relative gains

Question 19

US-China conflict is inevitable

Answer 19

John Mearsheimer (2021)
- In 1990s, US had a choice, resist or assist the growing relative power of China
– US leadership believed that economic growth and interdependence would produce domestic reform and cooperative international behavior
– US integrated China into world economy (WTO), facilitated its growth
- Power trends
– Population: China 3x greater than US
– Economy: China will be 1.5-2x greater than US
– Military: China is investing massively, soon more powerful than US in East Asia region
- Expectation
– China aims to dominate its region (East Asia, Western Pacific)
– US will not tolerate China as peer competitor
– Conflict is “inevitable”

Question 20

“Thucydides trap” (implications for China-US relations)

Answer 20

Graham Allison (2017)
- The Thucydides trap
– Great power’s fears + Rising power’s ambitions -> high likelihood of war
- Historical record
– War in 12 of 16 cases when rising state had enough power to challenge the hegemon
- Conclusion
– Avoiding war requires great political and psychological flexibility

Question 21

Power Transitions: Dominant Powers’ Role

Answer 21

Conflict level depends on how the dominant power responds to a rising power:
Confront & repress → Rising power dissatisfied, conflict likely (e.g., US repressing China).
Contain & accommodate → Rising power satisfied, cooperation likely.
US Strategy: Could revise the international order to enhance its legitimacy, attract allies, and reduce China’s incentive to challenge the system—but has not done so.

Question 22

“Thucydides fallacy”: Small and middle powers shape the dynamics of hegemonic change (implications for China-US relations)

Answer 22

Danny Quah (2017)
- Don’t focus just on great powers
- The world order consequences of hegemonic change depend on
– Supply: What declining and rising powers are offering the rest of the world
– Demand: What the rest of the world wants
- As Southeast Asia and rest of Global South become richer and more powerful, their expectations will shape the outcome of the US-China rivalry

Question 23

China-US relations and the future of alliances (implications for China-US relations)

Answer 23

Richard Higgott and Simon Reich (2022)
- Trends
– Globalization + China’s rise + US decline -> geopolitics and geoeconomics are no longer aligned
– Many US security allies (EU, Aus, etc.) are linked economically with US rivals (China and Russia)
- Consequences
– Cooperation and competition vary across issue-areas
– Small and medium-sized states will pursue mixed strategies: bandwagon with US on some issue but balance, hedge, and even pursue strategic autonomy on other issues
– China and US will struggle with the inconsistency of allies and alliances