Polarity in International Relations: past, present, future

Abstract

Polarity in International Relations brings together a stellar line-up of scholars to present their analysis of polarity, a popular concept during the later stages of the Cold War. At the time, International Relations (IR) scholars had lengthy debates about the stability of the post-1945 international system and the bipolar stand-off between the United States and the Soviet Union (USSR). In the book, William C. Wohlforth helpfully defines a ‘pole’ as a state that ‘(a) commands an especially large share of the resources or capabilities actors can use to achieve their ends; and (b) excels in all the component elements of state capability’ (p. 415). Since the end of the Cold War, IR scholars have continued to rely on polarity in order to make sense of the US's unipolarity following the dissolution of the USSR in 1991. The contributors do not write from a neo-realist standpoint. Rather, they are more interested in understanding two phenomena related to the concept: how ‘polarity effects travel from the systemic level to the regional level and to domestic audiences’ and how ‘the feedback from domestic and regional politics affects both what polarity is and what polarity does to international relations’ (p. 14).