ADJUSTING POWER TRANSITION THEORY – SATISFACTION WITH THE STATUS QUO, INTERNATIONAL POWER CONSTELLATIONS, AND THE CASE OF THE WEIMAR REPUBLIC

Abstract

1. Introduction1At a time in which enormous shifts in global power are taking place and the question is already beginning to change from whether to when China will overtake the United States as the most powerful country (at least as far as economic power is concer ned), power transition theory (PTT) once again rises into pr ominence. Indeed scholars in the US, in China a nd in other countries use PTT as a template to analyze future US-China relations (Wolf 2014; Cheng Gao 2011; Tammen and Kugler 2006).PTT is most commonly associated with great power war, but as a matter of fact peaceful power transitions are also consistent with the theory (Rauch 2014). While PTT recognizes that situations of power parity and power transition have a high conflict potential as they open up windows of opportunities, it also stipulates that this conflict potential will only be realized if the rising power2 is dissatisfied with the status quo of the international order (Lemke and Kugler 1996: 12).3 Thus concerning the rise of China, the questions when the People's Republic will reach parity with the United States and whether China is satisfied wit h t he international order (or not) are of paramount importance. I argue in this article that standard PTT is in need of adjustments regarding both topics. If standard PTT is flawed, however, then so ar e its predictions and policy prescriptions. Indeed the alterations I propose do not only lead to a more sophisticated and internally coherent power transition theory but also to a quit e differ ent interpretation of China's rise in world politics and the prospects of an imminent power transition conflict.In order to do so I engage the case of Weimarian Germany in this article. Ger many is an appropriate case, as is used by an influential PTT study to exemplify how the theory works (Tammen et al. 2000: 51-54). In the first part of this article I briefly introduce standard power transition theory and then propose my adjustments of PTT that concern a) the need to regard satisfaction as continual (instead of a dichotomous) variable and b) a refocus of PTT's power analysis from the bilateral duel between dominant and prime rising power t o a mor e multilateral setting that includes other important players as well. In the second part I illustrate my arguments utilizing the empir ica l ca se of W ei ma r ia n Germany. First I ar gue, in cont ra st t o t he standard account, that the Weimar Republic is incompatible with standard PTT. In two phases during the 1920s in which Germany had reached parity with the dominant power Great Britain, it was indeed not satisfied with the status quo of the international order. Weimarian Germany thus contradicts and potentially falsifies standard PTT. The adjusted PTT, however, fares much better, as I show in the second part of the empirical analysis: Not only does Germany appear less dissatisfied when one applies a satisfaction scale instead of a binary satisfaction rating but also the alleged situation of parity disappears into thin air as soon as other great powers are entered into the equation. In the conclusion I argue that the theoretical adjustments proposed here are not only of consequence for the interpretation of the Weimar case or PTT in general but also alter the way we should look at the rise of China from a PTT informed perspective.2. Introducing and Adjusting Power Transition TheoryPower transition theory, as originally established by A.F.K Organski and Organski and Jacek Kugler, in ess ence claims that international politics resembles a hierarchy rather than an anarchy of realistic creed (Organski 1968; Organski and Kugler 1980). Atop the international power pyramid thrones a dominant power (often the winner of the last great power war) who once created and now safeguards the international order (Siverson and Miller 1996: 59).4 Beneath the dominant power are different categories of smaller powers (great power, middle powers, lesser powers). …