Power Analysis and World Politics: New Trends versus Old Tendencies

Abstract

Recent refinements in social science thinking about power could be used to revitalize this approach to understanding international relations. The relevance of scholarly work on the causal concept of power is explored with regard to the following topics: potential vs. actual power, interdependence, military power, positive sanctions, the zero-sum model of politics, and the distinction between deterrence and compellence. The tendency to exaggerate the fungibility of power resources, the propensity to treat military power resources as the1 “ultimate” power base, and the emphasis on conflict and negative sanctions at the expense of cooperation and positive sanctions, are still common in international relations scholarship. The most important need is for recognition that the absence of a common denominator of political value in terms of which different scopes of power can be compared is not so much a methodological problem to be solved as it is a real-world constraint to be lived with.