Comparing Measures of National Power

Abstract

This article proposes a new national power concept, using the social network perspective, called ‘structural network power,’ which is defined as the power of an individual state arising from its location within the networks of international relations. This article primarily aims to compare and contrast the new measure of national power (structural network power index [SNPI]) to the previous measures of national power (focusing on the correlates of war composite index of national capabilities [CINC]), which is the most widely used measure of national power in international relations. A comparison of the two measures is performed using two sets of analyses: confirmatory factor analyses and correlation analyses (Pearson and Spearman). The results clearly show that the two power measures tap into two different aspects of national power — one measured by the attribute-based power concept and the other measured by the relations-based power concept — and that the measurement model of the new national power measure performs far better than that of previous national power measures. Based on these results, scholars are advised to consider different aspects and measures of national power when they study national power and its application to the phenomena in the fields of comparative politics and international relations.