Table Of ContentGOEDELE DE KEERSMAEKER
Polarity, Balance Of Power and
International Relations Theory
Post-Cold War and the 19th Century Compared
Polarity, Balance of Power and International
Relations Theory
Goedele De Keersmaeker
Polarity, Balance of
Power and
International
Relations Theory
Post-Cold War and the 19th Century Compared
Goedele De Keersmaeker
Department of Political Science
Ghent University
Ghent , Belgium
ISBN 978-3-319-42651-8 ISBN 978-3-319-42652-5 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-42652-5
Library of Congress Control Number: 2016956579
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C
ONTENTS
Part I Polarity, Neorealism and its Problems 1
1 Introduction: Multipolarity and Unipolarity
after the Cold War 3
2 Polarity: The Emergence and Development of a Concept 11
Part II Polarity in the Cold War, the 19th Century and Today 47
3 The Bipolar Cold War and Polarity Theory 49
4 The Nineteenth Century: Multipolar, Bipolar or Unipolar? 67
5 Polarity after 1990, a Historical Comparison 1 11
vii
viii CONTENTS
Part III N ineteenth-Century Balance of Power
and Twenty-First-Century Multipolarity 151
6 The French Multipolarity Discourse 153
7 American Hegemony, Empire and Unipolarity 1 87
8 Multipolarity, Balance of Power and Universal Monarchy 2 09
Part IV Conclusions 229
9 Conclusions, the Relevance of Polarity Theory? 231
Index 243
A 1
BBREVIATIONS
ANZUS A ustralia, New Zealand, United States Security Treaty
ARF ASEAN Regional Forum
ASEAN Association of Southeast Asian Nations
BRIC B razil, Russia, India and China
BRICS B razil, Russia, India, China and South Africa
CIS C ommonwealth of Independent States
CSDP C ommon Security and Defence Policy
CENTO C entral Treaty Organization
COW C orrelates of War Project
CSTO Collective Security Treaty Organization
EU European Union
FRG F ederal Republic of Germany
G7/G8 U SA, UK, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Canada (G7) and
Russia (G8) plus EU
G20 G 8 plus China, India, Mexico, Brazil, South Africa, Argentina,
Australia, Indonesia, Saudi-Arabia, Turkey, South-Korea and EU
GDP G ross domestic product
GDP-PPP Gross domestic product in purchasing power parity
GNP G ross national product
IMF International Monetary Fund
LM Le Monde
MERCOSUR M ercado Común del Sur
NAFTA N orth American Free Trade Association
NATO North Atlantic Treaty Organization
NIC National Intelligence Council
NSS National Security Strategy (website see note 1)
NYT N ew York Times
ix
x ABBREVIATIONS
OECD Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development
PR American Presidency Project (website)
SCO Shanghai Cooperation Organization
SD D epartment of State under Obama (website)
SDA D epartment of State Archives 2001–2009 (website)
SEATO Southeast Asia Treaty Organization
SIPRI S tockholm International Peace Research Institute
UK U nited Kingdom
UN U nited Nations
USA U nited States of America
USSR Union of Socialist Soviet Republics
VP L a Vie Publique (website)
WH White House under Obama (website)
NOTES
1. In some chapters a substantial amount of materials, more particularly news-
paper articles, offi cial documents and speeches by policy-makers are drawn
from the same internet sources. We have limited the references for these
sources to ‘in text citations’ consisting of the name of the author or person
who delivered the speech, followed by an abbreviation indicating the source
and the date (Author Source DD-MM-YYYY). The following abbreviations
are used:
LM: Le Monde, h ttp://abonnes.lemonde.fr/
NSS: National Security Strategy followed by the year, h ttp://nssarchive.us/
NYT: New York Times, w ww.nytimes.com
SD: Website of the Department of State for the Obama-administration, http://
www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/speeches/
SDA: Website of the Department of State Archives of the G.W. Bush admin-
istration, http://2001-2009.state.gov/r/pa/ei/speeches/
VP: La Vie Publique, h ttp://www.vie-publique.fr/discours/ (Vie-publique.
fr; © Dila)
PR: Website of the American Presidency Project, h ttp://www.presidency.
ucsb.edu/
WH: Website of the White House under Obama, h ttps://www.whitehouse.
gov/briefi ng-room/statements-and-releases
L T
IST OF ABLES
Table 3.1 Share of global military expenditures and personnel
1946–1990 (%) 52
Table 3.2 Share of population of independent states 1950–1990 (%) 53
Table 3.3 Share (%) of global GDP-PPP 1950–1990 (intern. $ 1990) 54
Table 4.1 Share (%) of European and global population of independent
states (1816–1914) 72
Table 4.2 Share (%) of European and global iron and steel production
(1816–1914) 73
Table 4.3 Share (%) in the European gross national product 1830–1913
(US$ 1960) 74
Table 4.4 Share (%) of European and global military personnel
1816–1914 75
Table 4.5 Share (%) of European and global military expenditures
1816–1914 76
Table 4.6 Share (%) of the global population and GDP-PPP of the
British Empire, Russia and the USA in 1870 and 1913 90
Table 5.1 GDP-PPP as % of Great Britain and the British Empire in
1870, compared with the GDP as % of the US in 1997 116
Table 5.2 Share of the global gross domestic product 1992–2014 126
Table 5.3 Share (%) of global military expenditures and personnel 127
Table 8.1 Different meanings of the balance of power 210
xi
