Preponderant Power Research Articles

Uncooperative leadership: US public opinion and limited commitments to region building

ABSTRACT Some research indicates that regional integration is more likely when power asymmetry exists among neighbouring states. Theoretically, preponderant powers can act as regional leaders because they can promote the development of collective goods that will entice others into partnerships. Other scholars argue that power asymmetry is a necessary, but not sufficient condition for integration. The preponderant power is to be willing to lead efforts. We argue that the US cannot lead North American regional integration when the voting public consumes negative messages concerning its least developed partner, Mexico. Negative portrayals of Mexico, whether justified or not, lower US public support and contribute to limiting the US political capacity to foster region building. The data analysis of a national representative sample (N = 1,133) using an online survey experiment confirms our hypotheses while controlling for various demographic factors and candidate support during the 2016 party election primaries.

THE RETURN OF UNITED STATES (US) POLICY OF CONTAINMENT ANDEVOLVING SINO-US CONTEST FOR MARITIME SUPREMACY

Maritime affairs, strategy, gunboat diplomacy, naval policy, and maritime policy can be found in the lexicon and available literature on naval affairs. Contrary to the abovementioned terminologies used by notable experts in the field including Admiral Alfred Thayer Mahan authors have used the term “maritime/naval foreign policy.” Deliberate use of the term is aimed to compel people to pay attention and widely use it in the literature. The qualitative research method is deemed appropriate for the completion of this study. The hypothesis formulated in this paper is that naval might cannot be viewed alone as a means to achieve political, military, territorial, and economic objectives. This academic study emphasizes major powers' navies are intrinsically superior to indigenous organs commanding seas and have foreign policies. The paper emphasizes that navies of hegemonic powers enjoy autonomy and influence decision-making processes and outcomes at home and abroad. The primary purpose of navies is to grow parasitically on state resources, build maritime empires outside the sphere of influence of political leadership, civilian bureaucracy, and rival armed forces, and often avoid providing information or if necessary, provide information on a need-to-know basis to the ruling political elite based in the center. This study emphasizes the United States (US) desire to remain a preponderant power, preserve status-quo and prevent threats to liberal international order by containing the People's Republic of China (PRC) through the formation of mini-alliances resulting in PRC’s naval foreign policy. Beijing’s naval foreign policy core objective is to enter distant areas and secure the supply of energy shipments to the mainland by securing sea lanes of communications (SLCs). The enthusiastic policy is backed by deployments of aircraft carriers, amphibious naval forces, and the Air Defence Identification Zone (ADIZ).

DECLINING US STATUS AS A SUPERPOWER: IMPLICATIONS FOR THE WORLD ORDER

Since 1945, the US has been relishing the status of a superpower by following its interests through a no of means, including international order, global and regional security arrangements, and international organizations. Recently, emerging global powers have challenged the existing international order, whereas the US is on a declining trajectory. The US hegemonic obligations to use its preponderant power in global issues with the intent to cast events in its favour have brought an inevitable overstretch beyond its capacity. Furthermore. a visible shift in power centres, the backlash of political decisions, and economic recession are other factors that need to be studied. This paper, therefore, explores the highly debated and contested reasons for the US decline. While employing deductive reasoning through qualitative analysis, it evaluates the efficacy of existing international order, emerging multilateralism, and difficulties in obviating the attendant risks to US security and prosperity. Implications of a declining superpower and suggested course of action for Pakistan have also been discussed in this paper.
 
 Bibliography Entry
 Abbas, Muhammad, and Hassan Jalil Shah. 2021. “Declining US Status as a Superpower: Implications for the World Order.” Magalla Papers 25 (1): 131-142.

India–Japan maritime security cooperation: Secondary states’ soft balancing in the Indo-Pacific

ABSTRACTIndia–Japan security cooperation is a critical component in the evolving security mechanism of the Indo-Pacific region. Both states are secondary states in the international system that opposes one country's emergence as a regional hegemon. China's rise and her ambition to dominate the Indo-Pacific would affect the security interests of India and Japan. The U.S., the current preponderant power in the region, seems unable to contain China by itself. So it is looking for strategic partnerships with regional countries who are militarily capable of challenging China, and persuading them to balance China. In this regard, the two powerful states in China's own backyard – Japan in the western Pacific and India in the Indian Ocean – have come together to counter the Chinese hegemony in the Indo-Pacific. In this effort, they have gradually built up naval cooperation sans a formal military alliance. They follow soft balancing strategies over hard balancing ones because neither wants to antagonise China. Similarly both countries seek to expand their presence through mutual cooperation beyond South-east Asia. This article explains the nature and context of soft power balancing strategies and the manner in which the India–Japan maritime security cooperation has evolved over the last two decades.

Islamo-nationalism, domestic politics, and Bangladesh’s policy of balancing against India since the 1990s

This article examines the connection between politics of Islamo-nationalism in Bangladesh and Bangladesh’s policy of balancing against India. In response to India’s regional supremacy in South Asia, especially India’s dominance over Bangladesh, policy makers in Bangladesh have constantly faced two options: either ‘bandwagoning’ with India, or ‘balancing’ against the regional hegemon. Interestingly, since the 1990s until 2013, Bangladesh’s response has always swung from one side to another – from bandwagoning to balancing – in connection with the rotation of Bangladesh regime between two major political parties: the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and the Bangladesh Awami League (AL). Bangladesh – with the BNP’s hold on power – preferred a policy of balancing against India’s dominance. During the regime of the AL, such policy dramatically shifted towards bandwagoning with India. The BNP’s preference for a balancing policy constitutes a puzzle. Weak states – which are not capable of changing unequal outcomes in the face of a preponderant power – generally pursue a policy of bandwagoning. Thus, the puzzle is as to why Bangladesh – despite being a weak actor vis-a-vis India’s overwhelming regional supremacy – pursued a policy of balancing against India during the BNP’s hold on power. This article asserts that the BNP’s politics of Islamo-nationalism is a key variable that can answer the above puzzle. The ‘self–other’ notion of Islamo-nationalism defines the national ‘selfness’ of Bangladesh in terms of the Islamic identity for its overwhelming Muslim masses, and constructs India, henceforth in this article, ‘Hindu India’, as the ‘enemy–other’ to ‘Muslim Bangladesh’.

How Oil Twists the Hegemon's Arm: The Case of the United States and Saudi Arabia and Their Ambivalent Partnership

AbstractThe U.S.–Saudi relationship is often seen as an oxymoron. These allies have differed in their foreign policy interests — varied in the need, one for the other — but never severed ties. When the 9/11 attacks are added to the mix, questions are raised about why these ambivalent allies continue to tolerate each other. This study argues that although the United States is the preponderant power, Saudi Arabia has primacy in the energy market. This has caused both countries to remain allies through the different oil crises, the 9/11 attacks, and in spite of the Arab‐Israeli conflict. This contravenes the hegemonic stability theory about alliance formation and duration.Saudi Arabia's roles in the 1973, 1979, 2008, and 2012–2015 oil crises all demonstrate its ability and willingness to act independently of the United States. The fact that it can do this and still maintain its strategic partnership with the United States is incredulous. This invites a revision of the hegemonic stability theory since strong and persistent defection from the hegemon's wishes should catalyze some comparable form of punishment or a severance of the relationship.

Handcuffing the hegemon: The paradox of state power under unipolarity

The exercise of state power in global politics often involves a vexing paradox: strategies intended to create or project power may end up reducing it. Under unipolarity, the lack of structural constraints in the international system do as much to undermine hegemonic power as to magnify it. Through an examination of the structure and process of unipolar politics, the three works reviewed in this article investigate the unintended consequences of preponderant power, especially as it relates to American grand strategy. As such, the paradox of state power has direct implications for the durability and relative peacefulness of the unipolar politics.

The Art of Domination: How Qing China Became a Regional Hegemon

This paper examines a period of East Asian history when the region was dominated by a regional hegemon: the Qing dynasty (1644-1911), and discusses the implications for understanding China’s broad international behavior today. The central question is two-fold: How does a political actor become a hegemon in its region of the world? And once it becomes dominant, how does the hegemon maintain its supremacy in the international system and minimize resistance by lesser political actors? I argue that a political actor becomes a regional hegemon through expansion and accumulation of relative power and manages its dominance through establishing rules of the game for the system. The Manchus of the Qing dynasty expanded from a small area in present northeastern China to become the preponderant state in East Asia, its hegemony lasting more than 150 years. The Qing conquered Ming China, Mongolia, and Xinjiang, and incorporated Tibet into the empire. Qing rulers skillfully adopted a strategy of domination that combined both force and diplomacy and used its preponderant power to establish tributary rules of the game to govern interactions between political actors in the system. Through the use of military force and institutional innovation, the Manchus were able to achieve regional hegemony in East Asia and eliminate security challenges to its dominance. The present boundary of China is a legacy of Qing territorial reach. Like its imperial predecessor, China’s current rise cannot be divorced from a consideration of relative power. The international distribution of power holds the key to understanding Chinese foreign policy today.

A expansão do Brasil e a formação dos estados na Bacia do Prata: Argentina, Uruguai e Paraguai (da colonização à Guerra da Tríplice Aliança)

A expansão do Brasil e a formação dos estados na Bacia do Prata: Argentina, Uruguai e Paraguai (da colonização à Guerra da Tríplice Aliança)

Situating the ‘Balanced Foreign Policy’: The Role of System Structure in Azerbaijan's Multi-Vector Diplomacy

The foreign policy of Azerbaijan is often regarded as a product of East–West competition or geopolitical pressures exerted by regional powers. The present study instead examines how Azerbaijani decision-makers evaluate their situation within the structure of the international system. It applies the theory of power preponderance to analyse the record of bilateral diplomatic instruments concluded with the USA, Russian Federation, Turkey, Iran and European Union from 1991 to 2011. The results indicate that while Baku has interacted with Russia more than any other major power, this has produced the fewest agreements on high-salience issues. At the same time, its intimate relationship with Turkey has been based more upon military aid than political cooperation and institution-building. Further, it maintains a roughly equal level of security and economic cooperation with the USA and Iran, thus remaining neutral between the global preponderant power and its primary rival. Finally, Azerbaijan's interaction with the European Union remains in its early stages, as it continues a traditional strategy of engagement with major powers over institutions.

Managing Regional Hegemony in Historical Asia: The Case of Early Ming China

Much has been written about China’s rise, yet from a historical perspective, China’s rise is nothing new. Historian Wang Gungwu points out three past instances: the Qin–Han unification, the Sui–Tang reunification, and the Ming–Qing dynasties. The present, fourth rise of China ‘needs to be seen in a longer perspective’. What can we learn from China’s rich historical experience? The polity that we now know as China was the most powerful state and a regional hegemon during certain periods of East Asian history. How did China behave in the region when it had preponderant power? Did China expand when strong? And how did China manage its hegemony to stay on top? As the Ming dynasty (1368–1644) is the only period from the fall of the Tang dynasty in 907 until the end of the Qing dynasty in 1912 when a native or non-alien Chinese dynasty dominated East Asia, this feature alone makes the Ming dynasty a good vehicle for examining Chinese strategic behaviour. By examining a past regional hegemon, this article offers a first-cut at the longer historical perspective on the rise of China. International relations (IR) theory in the past two decades tends to focus on states’ resistance to a concentration of power. Scholars debate over whether or not balances of power recurrently form or whether or not a balancing coalition against the United States, the current unipolar leader, will emerge. This focus on power balancing, albeit important, overlooks a

Principles and Partnership: Merchant, Heeney, and the Craft of Canada–US Relations

Entitled “Canada and the United States: Principles for Partnership” and prepared at the behest of American President Lyndon Johnson and Canadian Prime Minister Lester Pearson, the so-called Merchant–Heeney report set out a series of guiding principles for the smooth conduct of bilateral relations. Drawing on their vast experience at managing this relationship, Arnold Heeney and Livingston Merchant, two former ambassadors, devised their guidebook by tracing the nature of Canada–US relations, examining areas where problems commonly arose, and offering suggestions towards building a more successful partnership. “Principles for Partnership” may have been their swansong but it was not Merchant and Heeney's sole statement on the Canadian–American relationship. Drawing on speeches, memoranda, and diplomatic cables, this article shows how Merchant and Heeney each conceived of the partnership between their two countries and how they viewed the influence of factors such as Canadian nationalism and the United States' preponderant power.

Singapore’s Ethnic Relations’ Scorecard

This is an assessment and analysis about the Singapore government’s management of its multiethnic, plural society; particularly its ethnic minority, the Malays. It appears that, in spite of its relative success in pursuing the national integration quest, the State (read: Government) is still grappling with some pertinent socioeconomic and religious identity issues besetting its Malay citizens. Not only has the latter’s malaise lagged behind their Chinese and Indian counterparts but have also persisted since Independence. Arguably, the State, given its dominant and preponderant power, could mitigate the Malay dilemma if it acknowledges the reality that in Singapore’s globalizing culture, the Malay minority, if left without greater State intervention, has little chance to progress and keep pace with other citizens – thereby impeding, if not impairing the Republic’s hard-won stability and prosperity.

The Gathering Storm: China's Challenge to US Power in Asia

The United States has been the most powerful state on the planet for many decades and has deployed robust military forces in the Asia-Pacific region since the early years of the Second World War. The American presence has had significant consequences for Australia and for the wider region. This is how the Australian government sees it, at least according to the 2009 Defence White Paper: ‘Australia has been a very secure country for many decades, in large measure because the wider Asia-Pacific region has enjoyed an unprecedented era of peace and stability underwritten by US strategic primacy’. The United States, in other words, has acted as a pacifier in this part of the world. However, according to the very next sentence in the White Paper, ‘That order is being transformed as economic changes start to bring about changes in the distribution of strategic power’. The argument here, of course, is that the rise of China is having a significant effect on the global balance of power. In particular, the power gap between China and the United States is shrinking and in all likelihood ‘US strategic primacy’ in this region will be no more. This is not to say that the United States will disappear; in fact, its presence is likely to grow in response to China’s rise. But the United States will no longer be the preponderant power in the Asia-Pacific region, as it has been since 1945. The most important question that flows from this discussion is whether China can rise peacefully. It is clear from the Defence White Paper—which is tasked with assessing Australia’s strategic situation out to the year 2030— that policymakers in Canberra are worried about the changing balance

Politics of Formalized River Cooperation

While much of the extant literature has focused on the potential of international rivers to generate militarized conflict, this study builds on more recent works that examine the politics of river cooperation. The article focuses on the efforts to regulate the use of international rivers formally by the means of treaties. The theoretical framework incorporates prominent variables from the (neo)realist and neo-liberal schools of thought as well as the need for potable water and river-related geographic factors. The framework is used to generate expectations about whether riparian countries will enter into the treaties dealing in particular with the issues of water quantity and quality. Systematic empirical evaluations covering the entire world in the 1948—2000 time period confirm some while challenging much of the conventional wisdom on the topic. Specifically, preponderant power distribution, economic interdependence, democratic governance, and water scarcity all increase the chances for formalized river cooperation between contiguous riparian states. In contrast, the findings suggest that the roles of allegedly important and problematic factors such as the upstream/downstream relationship and recent militarized conflict have been exaggerated in earlier research. Cumulatively, the findings sound a cautiously optimistic note for the prospects of the spread of formal river cooperation in the less developed parts of the world.

System Maker and Privilege Taker

There is striking consistency in the international economic behavior of the United States across the bipolar and unipolar eras. The United States has been simultaneously a system maker and privilege taker, and its ability to play that dual role has required the willing collaboration of foreign partners. U.S. influence over those partners, however, has changed in important ways. During the cold war the United States dominated international economic adjustment struggles. Its ability to prevail in those struggles after the cold war has been significantly compromised. The United States, notwithstanding its preponderant power, no longer enjoys the same type of security leverage it once possessed, and the very success of the U.S.-centered world economy has opened a greater range of international and domestic economic options for America's supporters. In the unipolar era the United States may continue to act its own way, but it can no longer count on getting its own way.

Legitimacy, Hypocrisy, and the Social Structure of Unipolarity

Despite preponderant power, unipoles often do not get their way. Why? Scholars interested in polarity and the systemic structures determined by the distribution of power have largely focused on material power alone, but the structure of world politics is as much social as it is material. In this article the author explores three social mechanisms that limit unipolar power and shape its possible uses. The first involves legitimation. To exercise power effectively, unipoles must legitimate it and in the act of legitimating their power, it must be diffused since legitimation lies in the hands of others. The second involves institutionalization. A common way to legitimate power is to institutionalize it. Institutionalizing power in rational-legal authorities fundamentally transforms it, however. Once in place, institutions, laws, and rules have powers and internal logics of their own that unipoles find difficult to control. The third relates to hypocrisy. The social structures of legitimation and insti tutionalization do more than simply diffuse power away from the unipole; they create incentives for hypocrisy. Hypocrisy is a double-edged sword for unipoles. On the one hand, unrestrained hypocrisy by unipoles undermines the legitimacy of their power. On the other hand, judicious hypocrisy can provide crucial strategies for melding ideals and interests. Indeed, honoring social ideals or principles in the breach can have long-lasting political effects, as decades of U.S. hypocrisy about democratization and human rights suggest.

Double trouble: Iran and North Korea as challenges to international security

North Korea possesses nuclear weapons, while Iran is poised to acquire them in the next decade. How the United States and other nations seek to roll back these burgeoning nuclear powers is among the most urgent issues of the day. At stake is regional security in the Persian Gulf and Northeast Asia, America's standing abroad, and prospects for nuclear non-proliferation. This book offers complementary international perspectives on these threats and the peaceful responses to grapple with the Iranian and North Korean nuclear programs. Leading authorities provide balanced analyses-together with new chronologies and maps-that make the volume an invaluable reference for all those interested in understanding options available in dealing with Iran and North Korea. The contributors to this volume offer complementary international perspectives on the critical security issues that stem from the challenges posed by Iran and North Korea. No other work combines the analysis of the two countries and explores the threat posed by each to regional stability and world order. The book examines how and why attempts to curb the nuclear programs and broader political ambitions of each nation have failed. It also examines how each nation, in its own way, has managed to defy the world's preponderant power, the United States, as well as other major powers and the United Nations. And it offers analysis on where the fractured and oscillating relations with these two nettlesome actors are heading and the long-term implications of their current trajectories for nuclear proliferation, deterrence, alliance management, regional security, and world order.

Brazilian Regional Power in the Development of Mercosul

President Fernando Henrique Cardoso's government presided over three critical junctures in the development of the Common Market of the South (Mercosul): the attempted military coup in Paraguay in 1996, the devaluation of the Brazilian real in 1999, and the Argentine economic crisis in 2002. Its responses to these events were critical to the development of Mercosul because of Brazil's unique position as the largest country in the bloc. Many theories of free trade and regional integration hold that economic integration requires a regionally preponderant power that acts as a core provider of collective goods for member states. When such a power provides benefits, satisfaction among the member states increases and the likelihood of integration is increased. An examination of the Cardoso government's policies during the three critical junctures suggests that regional integration declined when Argentina incurred costs during the Brazilian currency crisis and increased when Cardoso's government provided aid during the Argentine economic crisis and helped defeat the attempted coup in Paraguay.

The Effects of Unequal Size

We argue that successful economic integration requires a regionally preponderant country that acts as a provider of goods. However, when a large member acts in a costly unilateral manner, regional integration suffers because of the asymmetric effects on smaller members. In contrast, when smaller members act in a costly unilateral manner, the preponderant power is likely to absorb costs. We propose to test these hypotheses by using the case of the Common Market of the South (MERCOSUR) during three crises: the attempted military coup in Paraguay in 1996, the 1999 devaluation of the Brazilian real, and the 2002 devaluation of the Argentine peso. Evidence shows that economic integration declined with costly Brazilian unilateral actions but improved when Brazil provided goods.