Unit 7: States and Global Governance

The Concepts of ‘Power’ and ‘Great Power’ In International Relations

Anarchy means the lack of an overarching authority above states in the international system. Scholars also refer to anarchy as one of the significant characteristics underlying international relations (Griffiths, O’Callaghan, and Roach, 2008:7). However, the history of international relations, no matter how complex it is, does not consist of disorder or chaos but rather of an “evolved order.” Political actors, especially states, have managed to survive in this “anarchic order.” The power configuration of the actors seems to have made both change and stability possible within the system. In short, ‘power’ and the power configuration of actors have immensely affected the consequences in the field of International Relations.

Can we mention various types of power in international politics? Joseph Nye, for example, has classified power as “soft power,” “hard power,” and “smart power.” Hard power is the use of coercion and payment; soft power is the ability to obtain preferred outcomes through attraction; smart power is the combination of the tools of both hard power and soft power (2009: 160). Accordingly, for Joseph Nye, there are three ways for an actor to affect the behavior of others to get what it wants: coercion, payment, and attraction.

Before discussing what makes a state a great power, it may be helpful to reflect on whether the concept of ‘great power’ can be used interchangebly with concepts such as ‘superpower’ and ‘hegemon’. The concept of great power may refer to superpower, as was the case during the Cold War.

According to Jack Levy, a great power assumes to “possess both relative self-sufficiency with respect to security, including invulnerability against secondary states, and the ability to project military power beyond its borders in pursuit of its interests” (Levy, 1983: 14). In addition, Heywood notes that a great power is “deemed to rank amongst the most powerful in a hierarchical statesystem” and identifies four criteria for being a member of this so-called “great power club”:

• “Great powers arein thefirstrank ofmilitary prowess, having the capacity to maintain their own security and, potentially, to influence other powers.
• They are economically powerful states; although (as Japan shows) this is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for great power status.
• They have global, and not merely regional, spheres of interests.
• They adopt a ‘forward’ foreign policy and have actual, and not merely potential, impact on international affairs” (Heywood, 2011: 7)

Great Power Management

English School Theory of International relations or the international society Approach, mentions different functions of great powers that may be referred to as the means of great power management. According to Hedley Bull, great powers “manage their relations with one another in the interest of international order” through:

“(i) preserving the general balance of power, (ii) seeking to avoid or control crises in their relations with one another, and (iii) seeking to limit or contain wars among one another. They exploit their preponderance in relation to the rest of international society by (iv) unilaterally exploiting their local preponderance, (v) agreeing to respect one another’s spheres of influence, and (vi) joint action, as is implied by the idea of a great power concert or condominium” (Bull, 2012: 200).

The Concert of Europe is often provided as a prominent example of great power management. The Congress of Vienna consolidated the great-power status of some states. Following the Congress, the powers of the time, namely Britain, Russia, Austria, Prussia and France, were remembered as great powers for the next hundred years, and the concert of these powers ruled the world. These great powers restored the European state system, in which many independent and sovereign states acted without any fear of conquest. This concert has been appreciated because it also prevented a general war in Europe from 1815 to 1914 (Wight, 1978: 41-43, Palmer, Colton, and Kramer, 2007: 430-431).

Another obvious example for ‘great power management’ is the relation between the United States and the Soviet Union after World War II. Throughout the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union acted as great powers and referred to themselves as “superpowers in keeping with the enormous destructive capacity of their nuclear weapons and the global scope of their national interests” (Griffiths, O’Callaghan, and Roach, 2008:134). During this period, “politics in almost every region of the world were deeply influenced by the competition between the Soviet Union and the United States” (Mearsheimer, 2001:5).

Hegemony and the Hegemonıc Stabılıty Theory

Upon the fall of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, the United States emerged as the only superpower. Therefore, the postCold War international system is referred to as a unipolar system (Krahman, 2005: 538; Brooks and Wohlforth, 2008: 13). Non-hegemonic unipolarity is theoretically possible in a system, however, the current power configuration of the international system is known as hegemony, and the United States is believed to be the “hegemon in today’s unipolar world order” (Jervis, 2006: 7).

The Concept of Hegemony

Hegemony, which has been a central concept in IR, helps us to understand power relations among states. The concept derives from the Greek term “hegemonia,” which may be translated as “leadership” or “preponderance.” In fact, the ancient Greeks used this concept to describe the dominance of one city over others through  employing persuasion or coercion (Russett, 2011: 1).

Moreover, there is no consensus among scholars on what constitutes a hegemon. In an attempt to answer this question, Williams, Lobell, and Jesse bring to discussion three interrelated questions and three separate approaches: “what a hegemon has, what a hegemon wants, and what a hegemon does” (2012: 3). The first approach is about the hegemon’s material power capabilities that it must possess to enforce its preferred rules in the system, whereas the second is about the willingness of the hegemon to exercise power. The third approach is about the relationship between the hegemon and other states (Williams, Lobell, and Jesse, 2012: 3-4).

The Hegemonic Stability Theory

According to most scholars, a system with a clearly preponderant state (a hegemon) would be both politically and economically stable. Because such a hegemonic state, also with an interest in cooperating with other actors, can solve collective action problems through providing public goods and facilitating international cooperation (Kindleberger, 1981: 243-244; Krasner, 1976: 321; Gilpin, 1987: 74-75). This theory, in fact, is known as the hegemonic stability theory (HST). It establishes a theoretical link between hegemony and systemic stability and attracts a great deal of attention from IR scholars.

Public goods: Paul Samuelson defines a public good as one “which all enjoy in common in the sense that each individual’s consumption of such a good leads to no subtraction from any other individual’s consumption of that good” (1954: 387).

The Benevolent Hegemony and the Coercive Hegemony

Scholars have long debated how the hegemonic state can exercise its power to influence the behavior of other states and manage its hierarchical relations once its hegemony has been clearly established. As Yarbrough and Yarbrough argue, “the main source of disagreement among analysts in the hegemonic stability tradition concerns the extent of benevolence or exploitation by the hegemon” (cited in Lake, 1993: 467). In assessing power relations, HST theorists, mainly Kindleberger and Krasner, regard the hegemony as benevolent, because providing public goods and creating a stable regime are necessary conditions for a state’s hegemony. However, other theorists, including Duncan Snidal and David Lake, suggest that relations between the hegemon and other states may degenerate into a coercive form.

The Distinction between the Anarchical and Hierarchical International Structures

The hegemonic stability theory associates the hegemonic global order with the systemic stability. This brings us to the anarchy-hierarchy distinction, which rests on the relationship between the distribution of power capabilities across states and the stability of the international system. The theory describes the state system as hierarchical rather than anarchical.

The anarchical international system refers to an international order without a centralized political authority that is capable of imposing international rules and restraining the use of force by states (Waltz, 1979; Wendt, 1992). As such, wars occur in the system “because there is nothing to prevent them” (Waltz, 1959: 232). The anarchical international system is, in fact, a self-help system that consists of states who seek to maximize their relative power and secure their sovereignty through either increasing their own material capabilities (internal balancing) or aligning with other states (external balancing). In the absence of a central authority and of collective security, each state is responsible for its own survival in the system. According to Waltz, under anarchy, states need to ensure that there does not exist a single state (a hegemon), which would dominate the international system and determine the rules of the system. In such an anarchical system, t is difficult to achieve cooperation among states and severe power differentials among them may lead to a major war.

Self-help system: It is a system in which “states’ foremost concern must be with survival. In an anarchic system, states must provide for their own security and they face many real or apparent threats. International politics is thus a competitive realm” (Layne, 1993: 11)

The Role and the Impact of States In Global Governance

Global governance is a certain method of political cooperation toward managing international issues that affect more than one state or region such as climate change, poverty, economic crisis, and terrorism. The United Nations notes that:

“Global governance encompasses the totality of institutions, policies, norms, procedures and initiatives through which states and their citizens try to bring more predictability, stability and order to their responses to transnational challenges. Effective global governance can only be achieved with effective international cooperation” (UN Committee for Development Policy, 2014: vi).

The pieces of global governance consist of the interacting rules, norms, international law, international regimes, ad hoc arrangements, global conferences and structures such as intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations.

Great powers are much more active in international politics, and they are in a better position to determine the  rules of global governance. One question still remains though: ‘who are the great powers? Today, the US seems to be the leading great power that is the most influential actor in determining the rules of global governance. The US, as a hegemonic state, has clearly benefited from its dominant position in the system since the end of World War II. It has been instrumental in defining the norms of global governance.

A middle-range state in the international system may be defined as “one that is neither great nor small in terms of its power, capacity, and influence; and exhibits the capability to create cohesion and obstruction toward global order and governance” (Karim, 2018: 3). The middle-range states have an important role especially within international organizations. Although such states do not individually have a leadership role in international organizations, they are able to follow an effective policy when they act collectively. In addition, the middle-range states have some individual roles in the international system in foreign-policy issues such as coalition-builder, mediator, public diplomacy promoter, perception manager, and bridge-builder.

“BRICS has grown into an important platform for cooperation among emerging markets and developing countries. The BRICS countries come from Asia, Africa, Europe, and America and are all members of the G20. Together, they account for 26.46% of world’s land area, 42.58% of world population, 13.24% of World Bank voting power and 14.91% of IMF quota shares. According to IMF’s estimates, BRICS countries generated 22.53% of the world GDP in 2015 and has contributed more than 50% of world economic growth during the last 10 years” ( www.brics2017.org ).

The members of the V-20 group in Paris Climate Agreement negotiations: “Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Barbados, Bhutan, Burkina Faso, Cambodia, Colombia, Comoros, Costa Rica, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Dominican Republic, Ethiopia, Fiji, The Gambia, Ghana, Grenada, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Kenya, Kiribati, Lebanon, Madagascar, Malawi, Maldives, Marshall Islands, Mongolia, Morocco, Nepal, Niger, Palau, Palestine, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Rwanda, Saint Lucia, Samoa, Senegal, South Sudan, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Tanzania, Timor-Leste, Tunisia, Tuvalu, Vanuatu, Viet Nam and Yemen” ( www.v-20.org ).

The third category of nation-states in the international system, in terms of the capacity and effectiveness, involves small powers. The only way they can be effective in international organizations and global governance is to act as a coordinated group (Karns and Mingst, 2004: 16). They need the support of a big power that has the capacity to steer international affairs. The V-20 group (Vulnerable20 group) in the international climate change negotiations within the framework of the UN can be cited as an example.

We can conclude that great powers, middle powers, and small powers have various different roles in world politics. While great powers or hegemonic states have the capacity to steer global issues and perform critical roles in global governance, middle powers have a limited but a considerable impact in this process. As the case of V-20 reveals, small powers may affect certain issues if they can act collectively as a group.