Abstract
Contemporary rising powers have often pursued a hesitant and ambiguous foreign-policy and have belied the expectations of potential followers and established powers who would want them to engage more actively in global and regional governance. The existing analytical toolbox of International Relations does not offer suitable concepts to make sense of the widespread phenomenon of states that pursue hesitant, inconsistent courses of action and do not bring to bear their power resources to coherently manage international crises that potentially affect them. A notion that is frequently employed to describe this peculiar type of foreign policy is that of ‘reluctance’, but this concept has not been systematically defined, discussed or theorized. This article aims to introduce the concept of reluctance into the field of International Relations. It develops a conceptualization of reluctance by identifying the concept’s semantic field and discussing how reluctance relates to the similar but distinct notions of exceptionalism, isolationism, under-aggression and under-balancing (concept reconstruction); on that basis, the article outlines the constitutive dimensions of reluctance — hesitation and recalcitrance — and their operationalization (concept building). Several illustrative cases of (non-)reluctant rising powers are used to exemplify the concept structure and to show the analytical usefulness of the concept of reluctance, which refers to a distinct set of phenomena that are not addressed by other concepts in International Relations. An application of the concept allows us to identify policy shifts and differences across issue areas, as well as open up avenues for further research.
Highlights
While the world seems to have become increasingly conflict-ridden and unpredictable, both established and rising powers frequently do not live up to the expectations of those who want them to provide leadership, order, governance and the management of international crises (Schweller, 2014)
If we focus on the reluctance displayed by rising powers in their own regions and if we take the foreign policy of these countries as an independent variable to explain, for example, variations in regional cooperation, recalcitrance matters
This article has aimed to develop a conceptualization of reluctance in international politics
Summary
While the world seems to have become increasingly conflict-ridden and unpredictable, both established and rising powers frequently do not live up to the expectations of those who want them to provide leadership, order, governance and the management of international crises (Schweller, 2014). While the US has been increasingly preoccupied with domestic problems over the past years, rising powers like India, Brazil, China or South Africa have not displayed a readiness to step into the fray and contribute to the provision of order beyond a certain point. In 2011, rising powers did not veto United Nations Security Council (UNSC) Resolution 1973 on the protection of civilians in Libya, but they did not engage in stabilization efforts in the Middle East and North Africa either. Even in their own regions, where they have a long history of engagement and where their predominance is unequivocal, rising powers have pursued ambivalent and indecisive foreign policies. Even China, which has been rather assertive in its own region, has been described as a ‘conflicted’ state (Shambaugh, 2011) lacking a clear grand strategy (Schweller, 2014: 69)
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