From Universalism to Managerial Coordination: Major Power Regulation of the Use of Force

Abstract

Cooperation among major powers in order to regulate an aspect of international relations has been central to questions of global governance. In peace science the focus has been on the efficacy of major power regulation of the use of force. However, fruitful study requires variables that can capture the quality of major power regulation of the use of force. To provide such an instrument I use Peter Wallensteen’s “universalism-particularism” variable-concept as the foundation. On it I built the concept of managerial coordination and the instrument that captures its quality, the scale of interstate managerial coordination (IMaC). Using IMaC, puzzling prior findings concerning major power regulation and minor power conflict are shown to be artifacts of operationalization.