Author's Response:The Process of Rising—Ideas and Power in Power Transitions Manjari Chatterjee Miller (bio) A decade ago, Charles Glaser argued in the journal Foreign Affairs that China's rise was pitting two kinds of international relations experts against each other—the liberal optimists versus the realist pessimists.1 By the latter, he was referring to those who held the view, which some would say is predominant today in the U.S. foreign policy establishment, that China's growing material power would lead the country to become more assertive on the world stage and in turn prompt the United States and its allies to balance this growing power. The former, he argued, were those who believed instead that China would join the existing international order because the United States and its allies would see the benefits of welcoming China into the fold. What Glaser was implying, although he did not put it in these terms, was essentially a material-ideational divide between international relations scholars and how they perceive rising powers. In one perception, rising powers rise and behave the way they do because of their growing material strength; in the other, rising powers rise and their behavior may be socialized through existing and attractive norms. My goal in Why Nations Rise: Narratives and the Path to Great Power was to theoretically and empirically reconcile these two perceptions, which, contrary to many existing treatments of rising powers, are not oppositional. I am, therefore, honored and excited to respond to the comments of the distinguished reviewers who make up this roundtable. They come from rich and varied specializations and engage with the book through distinct theoretical paradigms. Why Nations Rise argues that we need to understand that there are different kinds of rising powers. Some rising powers behave as we would expect and become great powers, while others seem stymied on this path. Rising to become a great power is dependent not simply on material power but also on the stories that these countries tell or fail to tell about their rise. Active rising powers acquire military and economic power, globalize their [End Page 157] authority, and court internal and external recognition of their changing status because they develop idea advocacy or narratives about becoming a great power. Reticent rising powers acquire military and economic power but fail to develop such narratives as well as to globalize their authority or court recognition of their rise. Consequently, active rising powers are initially accommodational because they need to adapt existing global norms in order to be recognized as a great power-to-be. One of my most important findings in Why Nations Rise is that becoming a rising power is in fact a process, one that involves both material power and narratives about becoming a great power. The reviewers agree that by emphasizing the importance of capabilities and narratives in power transitions, the book successfully brings together the material and ideational elements of great-power politics (Harsh Pant), gives weight to a more "concrete and measurable" variable than "identity" (Michael Green), and makes a "critical case" for the role of norms in global politics (Prasenjit Duara). They also point out that in tackling cases across geography and history (Chris Ogden) the book plugs a gap in the risingpower literature, which tends to focus on material power "while paying little attention" to specific countries and how they see their own rise (Jennifer Lind). But they also raise interesting and incisive questions. In my reading of their comments, I located the following important big-picture questions: • To what extent do ideas matter in foreign policy, and how can we isolate the effects of ideas versus material power in the behavior of rising powers? Particularly, how can we contend with geopolitical or capability disparities? • To what extent can external ideational variables matter for rising powers? • Does domestic politics, particularly regime type, play a role in narratives and subsequent behavior? With respect to the first set of questions, Green, Lind, and Pant raise the issue of geopolitics and material power and their impact on behavior. Green points out that China is limiting its attention to the region. That is, it is pursuing a sphere of...
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Jun 2, 2024
Wiwik Afridah + 2
Open Access