Power, structural power, and American decline

Kitchen, Nicholas; Cox, Michael

doi:10.1080/09557571.2019.1606158

Cited by 19 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 77 publications

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“…This means that any assertion of global strategic intent by China must be weighed against the hegemonic position of the U.S., 5 whose reach extends in geographic terms on a truly global scale and, however contested, continues to wield enormous international structural power. 6 While some argue that, barring the onset of a "system-making moment", U.S. structural power is likely to endure for the foreseeable future, 7 others demur that the country's decline is manifesting to different and possibly accelerating degrees across dimensions of structural power in the international system. 8 From this power politics perspective, geoeconomics 9 and geopolitics 10 are two appropriate disciplines to consider when examining China's policies in the Arctic and Africa from an interest and structural power politics perspective.…”

Section: Geoeconomics and Geopoliticsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Arctic and Africa in China’s Foreign Policy: How Different Are They and What Does This Tell Us?

2021

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The article discusses China’s policies in and towards the Arctic and Africa within a comparative perspective. To what extent is China’s policy adaptable to different conditions? What does this adaptability tell us about China’s ascendant great-power role in the world in general? What is the message to the Arctic and Africa respectively? The article concludes that China’s regional strategies aptly reflect the overall grand strategy of a country that is slowly but surely aiming at taking on the role of leading global superpower. In doing so, Chinese foreign policy has demonstrated flexibility and adaptive tactics, through a careful tailoring of its so-called core interests and foreign policy principles, and even identity politics, to regional conditions. This implies that regions seeking autonomy in the context of great power activism and contestation should develop their own strategies not only for benefiting from Chinese investment but also in terms of managing dependency on China and in relation to China and great power competition.

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Section: Geoeconomics and Geopoliticsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Arctic and Africa in China’s Foreign Policy: How Different Are They and What Does This Tell Us?

2021

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“…The United States has structural advantages and makes the task of the rising challenger harder than simple relational parity. And, like Kitchen and Cox (2019) observe, when thinking about issues surrounding changes in the balance of power between states, we need to look beyond headline indicators; beyond Trump, the transformation of the world has China as the contender. This will not change with another president in the White House.…”

Section: America In and Outmentioning

confidence: 99%

Forum: Did “America First” Construct America Irrelevant?

Boyer

Thies

Pauly

et al. 2021

International Studies Perspectives

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Did “America First” construct America irrelevant? Answering this question has been the subject of much debate in the popular press, the policy community, and scholarly circles. That asked, it is worth remembering that scholars and policymakers have long argued that one of the most enduring and important aspects of the US role in the world is American structural power. Perhaps nowhere has the Trump administration's approach to world affairs been more notable in perhaps diminishing US structural power than in withdrawing from multilateral forums. On an individual level of analysis, however, Trump's ever-changing, whiplash style of leadership made allies and adversaries less certain about American actions, intentions, and the direction of future policy trajectories. These issues point to the possibility that such impacts were more about Trump being Trump and less about a decline in American structural power. Only time will tell whether President Biden is able to rebuild from that structural wreckage. With these ideas in mind, the forum editors asked scholars representing diverse voices and perspectives to provide varying analyses of America First, specifically in light of the emergence of multiple global challenges from the COVID-19 pandemic to racial reckoning through the climate crisis and more. As you will see, each author brings a decidedly different lens to the questions we pose below and also generates divergent analyses of the present and the future.

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“…But the ‘rise of China’ thesis itself is highly questionable. Similar to the power‐shift debate in which ‘prominent contributions rarely engage the question of what power is and how it might be measured’ (Kitchen & Cox, 2019), protagonists of the ‘rise of China’ thesis, more often than not, overlook the more nuanced perspective of development – a concept in the field of international political economy (IPE) that is closely correlated with that of power. There is no denying that continuing rapid economic growth has characterized China's ‘rise’.…”

Section: Growth or Development?mentioning

confidence: 99%

The Limits to China's Peaceful Rise – Deep Integration and a New Cold War

Yue

2021

Global Policy

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This article challenges the dominant view that China has risen, and that its economic ascent has created a restless empire poised to overturn the liberal international order. This author argues that China's deep integration into the global economy from the early 1990s onward, as necessitated by both Chinese domestic politics and America's grand strategy of drawing China out, has eventually set the country on a path of dependent development and has made China not a solid superpower candidate, but rather a fragile great power. It is ironic that it is the empire‐sized country's entrapment in semi‐peripheral development, rather than its economic‐technological ‘rise’, that has inevitably led to the return of great power rivalry and the coming of the new Cold War.

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Power, structural power, and American decline

Cited by 19 publications

References 77 publications

The Arctic and Africa in China’s Foreign Policy: How Different Are They and What Does This Tell Us?

The Arctic and Africa in China’s Foreign Policy: How Different Are They and What Does This Tell Us?

Forum: Did “America First” Construct America Irrelevant?

The Limits to China's Peaceful Rise – Deep Integration and a New Cold War

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