Great Power Conduct and Credibility in World Politics

Sergey Smolnikov

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9783319718842
• eBook ISBN: 9783319718859
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: American Government
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This book seeks to answer one main question: what is the core concern of great powers that streamlines their behavior in the contemporary system of international relations? Building on the examples of the United States, China, Russia, France, and Britain, it tracks both consistency and fluctuations in global power dynamics and great power behavior. The author examines the genesis, causality, and policy implications of decision makers' fixation with retaining a credible image of power in world politics, while exploring how the dynamics of power distribution in international systems modify perceptions of primacy. Drawing on findings from disciplines such as history, economics, social and political psychology, communication theory, philosophy, political science, strategic studies, and above all, from International Relations theory and practice, the volume proposes a novel theory of power credibility, which offers an original explanation of great powers' behavior at the stage of their relative decline.

© The Author(s) 2018

Sergey SmolnikovGreat Power Conduct and Credibility in World Politicshttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-71885-9_1

Begin Abstract

1. Introduction

Sergey Smolnikov¹

(1)

Department of Politics, York University, Toronto, ON, Canada

End Abstract

This study investigates one of the most perplexing phenomena in world politics, a riddle of erratic and at times seemingly irrational behavior of the contemporary great powers whose policies and actions have tended to divert from the cost-benefit principle—for example, in the form of burdensome military budgets (e.g., those in the United States and Russia ) and obsolete structures of the armed forces poorly tuned to the levels and the changing nature of threats to their security; engaging in wars with inconsequential states or entities that do not constitute existential hazards to their safety and well-being (United States’, Russia’s , France’s , and Britain’s post-World War II (WWII) resorts to the use of force in the periphery); violating the international law by annexation of foreign territory (e.g., Russia’s annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea) or undermining the freedom of open sea passages (China’s defying conduct in the South China Sea) , and thereby needlessly deteriorating relations with their neighbors and the principal economic partners; and so on. By the end of the second decade of the twenty-first century, the list of puzzling abnormalities, inconsistencies, and irrationality in the conduct of the principal polities was supplemented by an avalanche of globally resonating developments, as much unexpected as alarming, and in every instance poorly explained by the epistemic communities: the examples range from the United Kingdom leaving the European Union (EU) to the United States pulling out of the multilateral agreements and partnerships (e.g., the Paris agreement on climate change and the Trans-Pacific Partnership) while putting on hold the negotiations on EU-US Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) to Russia’s squabble with the West aggravated by Moscow’s annexation of Crimea , hybrid war with Ukraine , and its reputed interference in the American presidential election in 2016.

Indeed, why do the modern great powers, which, at least according to realists , should demonstrate rational and common patterns of behavior, frequently appear to behave erratically, and, above all, so strikingly different? In the aftermath of the Cold War , this phenomenon looks quite baffling: the United States appears to be stuck in efforts to find a proper balance between interventionism and disengagement with respect to other nations’ imbroglios, while Europe , despite her lasting drive for a strong role in world politics, still doesn’t look ready to share the burdens of global leadership with America , whereas China’s peculiar mix of restraint and intimidation in foreign policy contrasts with Russia ’s blatant adventurism—both in an amazing discord with their respective hard power capabilities. The task of this study is, therefore, to understand and provide an explanation of the aforementioned puzzle in international politics that cannot be discerned and explicated from the standpoints of the existing theories of international relations.

To be sure, different facets of great power conduct have long attracted attention of scholars in the field of International Relations (IR).¹ The analyticist thread of IR literature, for example, abounds in attempts to explain each case by emphasizing its uniqueness.² Committed to what Patrick Thaddeus Jackson calls “singular causal analysis,”³ analyticists typically do not seek to make generalizations to account for common patterns in the conduct of individual states.

Contrary to the foregoing methodological approach, this research finds its roots in the positivist tradition in IR scholarship that seeks to create predictability value and advance knowledge about generalized patterns in world politics. In particular, I hypothesize that at different stages of their power cycles powerful states are bound to exhibit stage-specific and group-common patterns of behavior. In terms of its methodology, this study prioritizes the system level of analysis over others. This is not to say that this volume refutes sub-systemic—state, group, and individual—levels of research when analyzing the complex set of factors underpinning great power conduct. This is because in working out a concept of international politics applicable for predicting behavior of states, one cannot ignore that to grasp the motives behind the latter, “actor orientation,” as J. David Singer has found, “is considerably more fruitful, permitting as it does a more thorough investigation of the processes by which foreign policies are made.”⁴

To qualify for a theory, a concept, while meeting the standards of parsimoniousness, should possess a comprehensive explanatory power. Since the task of scientific research is, as formulated by Jackson , to “produce worldly knowledge systematically,”⁵ or, in the words of Singer , “achieve a cumulative growth of empirical generalizations,” one needs to define their analytical framework comparative to the existing ones first by pointing out to some “common frames of reference.”⁶

Among various IR perspectives, two streams of realist theory—the classical and structural realism —have noticeably stood out. Indeed, both of them should be commended for suggesting, perhaps, the most thrift and accurate narratives in explaining causality of the better part of the prior developments in international relations, and this alone may explicate their lasting popularity. However, while a lot of scholarship, in fact, continues to perpetuate the claims purported by both teachings, in the case of the ensuing international system none of them is determinate. At best, they can serve as prescriptions of foreign policy approaches rather than conclusive explanatory mechanisms allowing to construe and predict behavior of the contemporary states in general, and the major powers in particular. Both offensive realism and its defensive cousin, for example, hold survival as the overarching objective of, respectively, power and security maximization; yet, they fail to explain why the present-day great powers wage small wars that are essentially irrelevant to their existence and safety.

While noting that nowadays the realist perspective fails to explicate causality of the dynamic and erratic behavior of the modern-day world’s leading powers, this study contests the invariably static existentialist determinism of realism and puts forward a new theoretical approach to understanding the aforementioned phenomenon. In the absence of visible existential threats to their homeland security, the book holds, they strive for a different kind of survival—endurance of their exceptional international ranks has emerged as the primary aim of their grand strategies. Today, retaining persuasive images of international primacy rather than securing physical existence of their nations constitutes the overriding concern of policymakers in Washington, Moscow, Beijing, London, and Paris. However, great powers cannot satisfactorily perform their law and order–sustaining functions in the absence of endorsement by others; they need a universal legitimation of their yearning to lead. To reduce anarchy and promote order in the world system, the claimants for the status of legitimate and credible international authority should be able to secure particular trustworthiness of their expertise and intentions—something they have begun to conceive as their overarching policy objective in the ensuing era of strategic uncertainty.

This volume suggests a new concept of international politics that may be applicable for explicating and predicting behavior of the major world powers—the United States , China , Russia , Britain , and France —in the age of the unfolding structural shifts in the international system, the Theory of Power Credibility (TPC). In so doing, one of its major arguments goes against the well-established classical and structural realist notions of the primary motives behind great power policy that confine those to power and security enhancement. I argue that as the current generation of the world’s leading nations has entered the stage of decline in relative capability, re-enforcing credibility of their primacy has emerged as the major common determinant of their comportment.

The TPC synthesizes two approaches to power identified by David Baldwin and referred to by Brian Schmidt: power as resources and power as a relational category. Indeed, realization of one’s relative power capability is a process of cognition, inference, and comparison which derives from self’s trusting or doubting information about both material resources of the others and their ability to convert them into influence.⁷ It assumes that with the decline of relative material capabilities, competition among nations shifts to the realm of communicating their abilities. While this does not, of course, eliminate their rivalry in tangibles, its importance relative to the salience of successes in a race among their national capacities in spreading information, shaping ideas, and creating images is bound to deflate.

Noteworthy, a declining great power’s resort to adroit non-lethal means of intimidation and persuasion to manifest and communicate veracity of its power and endure its image of primacy is not a recent phenomenon, and can be traced at least as far as the first millennia. Unparalleled in the craft of astounding and mesmerizing foreigners as well as in converting enemies into friends, the Eastern Roman Empire , Byzantine , presents, perhaps, the most illustrative example in this regard. Surrounded by the hordes of Turks and Arabs, Persians and Avars, Huns and Bulghars, Pechenegs, and Cumans as well as other hostile and expansionist nations along its vast borders, yet lacking the legendary hard power of Rome to contain them by force, it continuously sought to excel in elaborating and practicing ingenious diplomacy in relation to neighbors—an invaluable faculty that eventually enabled it to secure an amazing longevity against all odds. “The strategical success of the Byzantine empire,” observes Edward Luttwak, “was of a different order than any number of tactical victories or defeats: it was a sustained ability, century after century, to generate disproportionate power from whatever military strength could be mustered, by combining it with all the arts of persuasion, guided by superior information.” Noting that Byzantine rulers were above all keen to uphold the imperial prestige, Luttwak emphasizes the role of cost-saving tools in sustaining the empire’s symbolic power: “as compared to the united Romans of the past, the Byzantine empire relied less on military strength and more on all forms of persuasion—to recruit allies, dissuade enemies, and induce potential enemies to attack one another.”⁸ Thus, although gradually wading in its relative might and faced with deficiency in military strength vis-à-vis her numerous rivals, Byzantine nevertheless managed to last much longer than its Western alter ego, the Roman Empire, by skillfully re-assuring others in the credibility of its power.

The narrative of credibility attracts substantial attention in social and behavioral sciences including economics, political and social psychology, communication theory, philosophy, and political science. Although the notion of being “credible” is commonly understood across and within various scholarly disciplines as having qualities of reliability and believability, its specific interpretations within the pertinent cognitive perspectives differ. In the domain of international relations, the notion of credibility has been studied rather ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Front Matter
• 1. Introduction
• Part I
• Part II
• Back Matter