Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Table of contents
- Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction: power, order, and change in world politics
- Part I Varieties of international order and strategies of rule
- 1 Unpacking hegemony: the social foundations of hierarchical order
- 2 Dominance and subordination in world politics: authority, liberalism, and stability in the modern international order
- 3 The logic of order: Westphalia, liberalism, and the evolution of international order in the modern era
- Part II Power transition and the rise and decline of international order
- Part III Systems change and global order
- Index
- References
2 - Dominance and subordination in world politics: authority, liberalism, and stability in the modern international order
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 September 2014
- Frontmatter
- Table of contents
- Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction: power, order, and change in world politics
- Part I Varieties of international order and strategies of rule
- 1 Unpacking hegemony: the social foundations of hierarchical order
- 2 Dominance and subordination in world politics: authority, liberalism, and stability in the modern international order
- 3 The logic of order: Westphalia, liberalism, and the evolution of international order in the modern era
- Part II Power transition and the rise and decline of international order
- Part III Systems change and global order
- Index
- References
Summary
Introduction
Order is a fundamental feature of world politics, but it is not a constant. It waxes and wanes with corresponding ebbs and flows, yet not in any predictable lunar cycle. Where order exists, as in the so-called developed or first world since 1945, peace and prosperity are possible. In this “Western” system, states have escaped the Hobbesian state-of-nature for an international society. Where order is absent, as in present-day Africa, war and suffering often abound. In the absence of an international civil society, as Hobbes wrote, “life is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.”
Order arises in many forms and from many sources. In Chapter 1, Charles Kupchan emphasizes the normative orientations of leading states. In Chapter 3, John Ikenberry highlights the confluence of American power and liberal ideals. I do not disagree with their perspectives or their core interpretations of modern international orders. In this chapter, however, I examine the role of authority and international hierarchy in the creation and maintenance of international order. In this focus, norms and ideals follow from and facilitate transfers of authority from subordinate to dominant states, but are not primary drivers of international order.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Power, Order, and Change in World Politics , pp. 61 - 82Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2014
References
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