Political Leadership and Power Redistribution

Abstract

The theoretical puzzle that moral realism must crack is that of why a rising state is able to displace a dominating hegemon even though it is inferior to the latter in terms of economic base, technical invention, education system, military strength, and political system. Moral realism attributes political leadership to the rise or decline of great powers and categorizes political leadership, according to morality, as inactive, conservative, proactive, or aggressive types at national level, and as tyranny, hegemony, and humane authority at international level. Moral realism is a binary theory which suggests that a state’s strength determine strategic interests while types of political leadership determine strategies for achieving those interests. According to moral realist theory it will be possible for China to change the international system in the 21 century if it practices the moral principles of fairness, justice, and civility both at home and abroad. The shift of world power has been a durable topic in the theoretical study of international relations (IR). The most popular research on this issue is arguably that by Paul Kennedy who attribute imperial overstretch to the decline of a hegemon by arguing that the global obligations defined by policymakers are far greater than their country’s strength to defend. Unlike most research on why a hegemon declines, moral realist theory focuses on why and how a rising state is able to displace a dominating hegemon. Its answer is that the rising 1 Paul Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers: Economic Change and Military Conflict from 1500 to 2000 (New York: Random House, 1987), p. 515. 2 In 2012, Zhang Feng, Research Fellow at Australian National University, coined the term ‘moral realism’ for an approach that combines the political determinism of Chinese traditional philosophy with modern realist theory of international relations. See Zhang Feng, ‘The Tsinghua Approach and the Inception of Chinese Theories of International Relations’, Chinese Journal of International Politics, Vol. 5, No. 1 (2012), pp. 95–96. VC The Author 2016. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Institute of International Relations, Tsinghua University. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com. The Chinese Journal of International Politics, 2016, 1–26 doi: 10.1093/cjip/pow002