The stability of unipolarity in the international system
Introduction
In the modern world, states have long been recognized by their power and their positions in the international system. International actors compete for power in the system to pursue their national interests. Whoever has the most ability to influence other states to act in a certain way, is considered the most powerful and so there has been the distribution of power namely polarity. The international system according to realists is anarchic and every state is sovereign meaning therefore there is no authority above them and the change in the number of powerful actors or the power relationship may result into wars leading to the change of the system.
Unipolarity, 1989-present,
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The bipolarity system was throughout the cold war where allies had been created and too much competition especially in the economic sphere was going on. The communist superpower fell apart due to economic failures and other smaller states attaining independence from them. The United States in the other hand which was and still is a democracy was spreading democracy and making more allies which made them stand strong. In 1991 when the president of the communist state resigned, the bipolar system ended and it marked the start of a new era of power, the unipolar …show more content…
Most states’ problems start with the governance which is why they mostly end up being powerful in either one or two spheres.
The U.S influence on other states
America has greatly influenced other states. It has helped make countries like the Philippines, Panama, Cuba etc. independent. president Truman changed the whole constitution of japan from authoritarian to democratic, Invading Iraq to look for weapons of mass destruction although it is said that the U.S simply used that as an excuse to get oil, having the USAID in many different parts of the world, veto actor in the United Nations participating in many different diplomatic affairs.
Impacts of unipolarity on global stability
Neo- liberals and realists have argued that a hegemon is necessary to create stability and order within a liberal market economy, thereby bringing benefit to all the states within such an economy. It does this by enforcing the rules of the economic platform. The United States can be said to do this through the role of the dollar as an international currency and by its influence over the institutions of global economic governance. This is referred to as hegemonic stability
With the fall of the Soviet Union after the Cold War the United States came out of the conflict as the supreme superpower in world politics. This caused the system to change from bipolar to unipolar. It is theorized
According to realist view ordering principle of the international system is based on anarchy. There is no higher authority other than the states themselves to check and balance their actions. Consequently, nation-states are the main players in this system. In other words, sovereignty inheres in states, because there is not a higher ruling body in the international system. This is known as state centrism. Survival is an obligation continuing to be sovereign. On the other hand, sovereignty is the characteristic feature of states and its meaning is strongly tied to use of force. According to the most of the realist variants, states are “black boxes”; the determinative factor is states’ observable behavior, not their leaders’ characteristics, their decision making processes or their government systems.
This criticism has two main elements: that the external actors’ interests do not directly align with those of the weak state and that exogenous conceptions of the state fail to see value in sub-state indigenous governing bodies. External influence on the statebuilding process is not inherently bad. In fact, some states are so weak in capacity that monopoly of violence and provision of goods does not make it past the capital city. Without external forces and training, these states with low funds would be incapable of fulfilling their
Last few decades have seen dramatic changes in the structure of international relations and the balance of power. One of the most significant factors underlying these alterations was an intensification of globalisation processes. Growing interconnectedness and interdependence became determinant in policy-making. That factor assured relative world stability: there was no "big" war since World War II.
In Morgenthau’s “Politics among Nation’s”, his main point is that survival is a national interest, and survival comes from power; therefore, the national interest is power. Morgenthau further mentions the balance of power which means that if states were to strive for more and more power, then they will get further away from their goal of survival. Morgenthau has even said, “…that the balance of power and policies aiming at its preservation are not only inevitable but are an essential stabilizing factor ill a society of sovereign nations..”. Morgenthau is saying that the balance of power is crucial for the survival of these nation states. Morgenthau also mentions an equilibrium in order to talk about the balancing of powers. Morgenthau said “that without a state of equilibrium among them one element will gain ascendancy over the others, encroach upon their interests and rights, and may ultimately destroy them.” This is exactly what defensive realists are all about, that if a state receives too much power, the system is ultimately going to try and balance themselves out and will most likely lead to conflict or war. Morgenthau also mentions how power and social life are connected, he almost has a constructivist approach (conflict or cooperation based on one’s social/historical norms) to it. Morgenthau thought that social norms about order and power will either result in conflict if the norms are weak or cooperation if the norms are strong. For example, we can relate this to the game stag hunt as an analogy, Morgenthau would agree that if there is a way for two states to cooperate, they will ultimately get the best outcome. He would say a close community will want to help others and cooperating is in everybody’s interest. Morgenthau argues that if the international system has a strong sense of community then the balance of power will keep peace. Without a strong knit community, the
...dence, there is a need for further study perhaps in some larger countries and their relationship with superpower. In this study, I choose the case of a very small nations opposing a large nations not only to show the potential of conflict due to the lack of interdependence and equal legal status but also show the leveraging power of a small nations under the new world system and how that very leveraging power without interdependence can lead to conflict. Base on the evidences presented in the case study that show the two conditions required for a conflict between states to happens, I conclude that as long as the three conditions in which, states are equal legally, are not interdependence upon one another and a states see the other as an obstacle that prevent it from achieving its interest, conflict between two states can happens even when the power is asymmetrical.
The first paradigm of international relations is the theory of Realism. Realism is focused on ideas of self-interest and the balance of power. Realism is also divided into two categories, classical realism and neo-realism. Famous political theorist, Hans Morgenthau was a classical realist who believed that national interest was based on three elements, balance of power, military force, and self interest (Kleinberg 2010, 32). He uses four levels of analysis to evaluate the power of a state. The first is that power and influence are not always the same thing. Influence means the ability to affect the decision of those who have the power to control outcomes and power is the ability to determine outcomes. An example of influence and power would be the UN’s ability to influence the actions of states within the UN but the state itself has the power to determine how they act. Morgenthau goes on to his next level of analysis in which he explains the difference in force and power in the international realm. Force is physical violence, the use of military power but power is so much more than that. A powerful state can control the actions of another state with the threat of force but not actually need to physical force. He believed that the ability to have power over another state simply with the threat of force was likely to be the most important element in analysis the power of as state (Kleinberg 2010, 33-34).
Hegemon is a represents a system of leadership where power is based on domination as much as co-optation”, whilst Evans and Newnham (1990:153) argued that hegemony means “primacy or leadership. In an international system this leadership would be exercised by a ‘hegemon’, a state possessing sufficient capability to fulfil this role.” More than just leadership, Myers (1991:5) posits that hegemonic states are those “states which possess power sufficient to dominate subordinate state systems”. Similarly writing in terms of power, Adebajo and Landsberg (2003:173) termed it “the holding by one state of a preponderance of power in the international system or regional subsystem, so that it can single-handedly dominate the rules and arrangements by which international and regional political and economic relation
In the world of international political economy, three dominant perspectives have emerged over time. The differences and similarities between the realist/mercantilist, liberalism, and historical structuralism perspectives are significant. In this essay, I will compare and contrast these dominant perspectives. First, I will give a historical account of how each perspective originated. Then I will outline the actors involved in each perspective, explore those actors’ interests, and outline which of those actors set economic and political policy. Lastly, I will explore how those political and economic actors relate to each other.
Conclusion: World influences of America show its high degree of responsibility. The USA as the engine for world economy, it is the main reason of changes of world economy. Some countries can lose much if the United States gets to recession. This essay showed all positive and negative influence of economy of the USA on world economy. Positive effects more the best in many respects and in the truth the world economy improves.
The Soviet Union’s collapse at the end of the Cold War left the United States without its major global rival. Now alone at the top, the United States’ strategic imperatives have shifted remarkably. The shift has been significant enough to prompt fundamental questions about the international order and whether this new “unipolar moment” will last. Indeed, since 1989, political scientists have clamored to define the United States’ status relative to the rest of the world. Indispensable nation? Sole super...
States cooperate to create international institutions with the goal of avoiding market failures and creating trust. The peaceful drive by self-interested economic behavior permeates international relations. The International Political Economy, stems from the neoliberal alternative of International Relations theory which emerged in the 1980’s through the writings of Keohane (1984) who emphasised the economic sphere and fused politics and economics in order to go beyond the limiting security obsession.
Realist perspective explains globalization in terms of the relative distribution of power (Nau 2007, 278). In their opinion, trade and economic activities thrives “only under favorable security conditions,” and those conditions rely on the relative distribution of power (Nau 2007, 279). They believe that alliances and hegemony are the two most affirmative security conditions. “’Free trade is more likely within than across political-military alliances; and …alliances have had a much stronger effect on trade in a bipolar than in to a multipolar world.’” (Nau 2007, 279) In other words, the fewer dominating states with power there are in the system, the stronger is the alliance and its effect on trade. In a multipolar world, countries cannot trust each other in trade because alliances are rarely permanent and therefore, countries might use the gains from trade to increase its military power and threaten to cause damage to the other country. Thus, realists argue that,
The balance of power is closer with first great debate. The realists also diverge on some issues. So-called offensive Realists maintain that, in order to ensure survival, States will seek to maximize their power relative to others (Mearsheimer 2001). If rival countries possess enough power to threaten a State, it can never be safe. The hegemony is thus the best strategy for a country to pursue, if it can. Defensive Realists, in contrast, believe that domination is an unwise strategy for State survival. They note that seeking hegemony may bring a State into dangerous conflicts with its peers. Instead, defensive Realists emphasize the stabi...
Powers is very substantial in international relations because this has changed throughout human kind and many great power countries had some time of greatness in history. However, international relations can also define power in many aspects. For example, one way of power in international relations is defined one actor employing influence over another, which this brought so many conflicts in today’s international politics. International relations also can describe this category of power is, hard for soft power. In hard power, there are many ways that can be mentioned. For instance, US has a massive hand of military size and technology over the other great powers. In addition to that, the concept of power in international relations is mostly used by realist thinkers whom they believe more extreme while they say other nations as thereat and they can attack anyone in any time. In other words, every nation must have a strong military and economy to defend themselves in