The Concept of Power in the Study of International Relations

Abstract

Students of international politics have for years argued that the concept of power can be used as fruitful approach in studying processes in inter? national systems. Unfortunately, there has been little systematic examination of the concept so that, like the balance of power, its meaning has remained ambiguous. Some have claimed that the concept can be used to analyze every major phenomenon in international politics. Others have defined power roughly as means to an end. Some use the term to denote country's military forces, but when used in this way they are really discussing only country's military capability and not the amount of influence the country wields in the system. Hans Morgenthau (1960) is the foremost advocate of the concept of power as the theoretical core of international politics. In his view, all politics is struggle for power. He derives this dictum from the assumption that the desire to dominate is a constitutive element of all human associations. Thus, regardless of the goals and objectives of government, the immediate aim of all state action is to obtain and to increase power. Since by definition all states seek to maximize their power, international politics can be conceived of and analyzed as struggle between independent units seeking to dominate others.