powers and power in IR

different distributions of power

unipolar → one dominant power (eg post-Cold War US hegemony)

bipolar → 2 superpowers (Cold War, US and Soviet Union)

multipolar → multiple great powers

hard power

• Power through coercion or payment

• Military and economic

soft power

• Power through attraction and persuasion

• Cultural and diplomatic

smart power

combination of hard and soft power → coined by Hilary Clinton during her period as secretary of state

different ways of measuring power

• Resources

• Behaviour

• Success or effectiveness

realism view on power

• Focus on the first face of power -> decision making power

• Focus on international anarchy creates a 'crisis' mindset

• Fear of power decaying and desire for power/security maximisation leads to hegemons overexerting their power

• Focus on power as an entity -> military and wealth -> hard power

neoliberal institutionalism view on power

• Focus on a long term view of power (second face -> agenda setting and third face -> preference shaping power)

• Have a more positive outlook on power

• Tries to mitigate the role of great power politics in IR through developing institutions

constructivism view on power

normative power

• Focus on power through norms, rules and ideas

• Long-term view of power

• Focus on social relations of power -> 4th face?

• Idea of productive power

critical theory view on power

• Protest power and disrupt power dynamics

• Possibility of change through power

post-structuralism view on power

• Power shapes all social and moral relations

• Power is circulatory and does not 'belong' to anyone

• Relationship between power and knowledge

critical privileges studies view on power

• Lens to analyse social relations, inequalities and the patterns the re/produce them

• Power is given to people without earning it through privilege

feminist critiques of power in IR

based on masculine assumption about power and security

• Tickner

circulatory power (as a problem with power)

• Power always deemed as the reason for doing something -> reduces its impact

lump-power fallacy (as a problem with power)

• certain types of power can’t be quantified

• when different types of power a grouped together it’s even harder to quantify them

• power is infungible → meaning it cannot be exchange for other goods or money → hard to measure it’s value

Foucault and power

post-structuralism

• We can never escape power and everything is a prison 

• Discursive power

Hilary Clinton and power

Focus on smart power during period as Obama's Secretary of State

Baldwin and power

• Influenced by Robert Dahls definition of power

• Sees power not as a property but as an ability

Robert Dahl’s definition of power

'A has power over B to the extent that he can get B to do something that B would not otherwise do'

Barnett and Duvall

• Different conceptions of power are just different forms of power

• 4 faces of power -> compulsory, institutional, structural and productive

Robert Keohane

Power can come through economic interdependence

Joseph Nye

argued for the importance of soft power

Edward Said

• Orientalism

• Western knowledge constructs power over the 'east' -> postcolonial thinker

example of US abusing it’s great power

• Implementation of SAPs -> liberal regimes through the IMF

• War on Terror in Iraq 2003

examples of US soft power

• Hollywood

• Institutions -> Harvard

example of productive power

• Notion of working class identity

• Notion of indigenous identity