Rethinking National Power? From IR Theory to Foreign Policy Practice

Abstract

Cosmopolitan Power in International Relations: A Synthesis of Realism, Neoliberalism and Constructivism. By Guilio M. Gallarotti . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010. 315 pp., $29.99 paperback (ISBN-13: 978-0521138123). In this book, Giulio Gallarotti ambitiously advances a “project on power” (p. ix) that he began in The Power Curse: Influence and Illusion in World Politics (2010). In that first work Gallarotti sought to specify a well-known phenomenon. In Cosmopolitan Power he builds on that project. He seeks to develop an account of how states can avoid the power curse; that is, how they can increase their power without undermining it through the very process of its augmentation. The key, Gallarotti argues, is for states to pursue the right kind of power: cosmopolitan power, a combination of hard and soft power that does not rely too heavily on either one. Whereas hard power compels through threat, soft power persuades weak states to “emulate” strong ones as the strong “endear” themselves to the weak (pp. 21–22). Since, as Gallarotti argues, hard power is a feature of Realist thought and soft power of Neoliberal and Constructivist thought, making sense of cosmopolitan power requires a theoretical blending of the major traditions in International Relations (IR). In this way, Cosmopolitan Power takes up an intellectual position alongside other synthetic theories of IR like Alexander Wendt's Social Theory of International Politics (1999) or G. John Ikenberry's After Victory (2000). It also takes up intellectual company with more policy-oriented works, like Joseph Nye's The Powers to Lead (2008). The bulk of the book is absorbed with developing and historically illustrating the specific processes and strategies entailed in cosmopolitan power toward the end of generating …