Power vacuums in international politics: a conceptual framework

Abstract

Policymakers and academics alike frequently invoke power vacuums as important phenomena in international politics, referring to them in a diverse array of contexts ranging from civil war to the decline and retrenchment of great powers. However, students of international relations (IR) have largely neglected to seriously engage ‘power vacuum’ as a social scientific concept. This renders it virtually impossible to undergird current policy debates on power vacuums with social scientific analysis, and more generally raises doubts about the concept’s analytic utility. In this piece, I argue that ‘power vacuum’ is not merely a popular buzzword but a concept with considerable theoretical promise. I develop a conceptualisation of power vacuums as spaces that experience authority collapse. Since, in the context of international politics, organisations can claim authority on several political levels, I posit the existence of several types of power vacuums of which two appear particularly relevant to the study of IR: national and international vacuums. My conceptualisation is able to reflect the diverse ways in which the term is currently utilised, paves the way for novel research on a subject of great concern to policymakers, and uncovers the potential for closer collaboration across traditionally rigid thematic boundaries within IR.