Structural power: the limits of neorealist power analysis

Abstract

Realism explains the ruling of the international system through the underlying distribution of power among states. Increasingly, analysts have found this power analysis inadequate, and they have developed new concepts, most prominently structural power. The usage of structural power actually entails three different meanings, namely indirect institutional power, nonintentional power, and impersonal power. Only the first, however, is compatible with the current neorealist choice-theoretical mode of explanation. This is the basic paradox of recent power approaches: by wanting to retain the central role of power, some international relations and international political economy theory is compelled to expand that concept and to move away from the very theory that claims to be based on power. Neorealism does not take power seriously enough. At the same time, these extensions of the concept are themselves partly fallacious. To account simultaneously for the different meanings of structural power and to avoid a conceptual overload, this article proposes that any power analysis should necessarily include a pair or dyad of concepts of power, linking agent power and impersonal governance. Finally, it sketches some consequences of those concepts for international theory.

Power in International Politics

“…of resources informs much of realist thought+ For many scholars-both realists and their critics-to study power in international relations is to consider how one state is able to use material resources to advance its interests in direct opposition to the interests of another state+ This approach steers attention to the great powers+ Yet major powers are not alone in the ability to deploy resources to overcome the objections of actors+ Multinational corporations can use their control over capital to shape the foreign economic policies of developing states, as well as global economic policies+ Nonstate networks and groups sometimes conduct campaigns of unconventional warfare that terrorize entire populations+ Compulsory power is not limited to material resources; it also entails symbolic and normative resources+ 37 Nongovernmental organizations have deployed normative resources to compel targeted states to alter their policies through a strategy of shaming+ 38 Drawing from the work of Goffman and Bourdieu, Barnett argued that Arab states have used symbolic sanctions to alter the behavior of other Arab states on a range of issues+ 39 Less powerful members of the Security Council are able to use legal norms to constrain the actions of the powerful+ 40 International organizations are able to use their expert, moral, delegated, and rational-legal authority as a resource to compel state and nonstate actors to change their behavior+ 41 In general, scholars should be attentive to a range of technologies and mechanisms as they consider how one actor is able to directly control the conditions of behavior of another actor+ In fact, there is a long pedigree for doing just that+ Carr began this tradition when he distinguished between military, economic, and propa-34+ On this point we agree with Baldwin 2002, and disagree with Guzzini 1993+ 35+ Bachrach and Baratz 1962, 952+ 36+ See Claude 1962Knorr 1973;andBaldwin 1989 and For a discussion and critique of power-centered analysis, see Vasquez 1998;and Guzzini 1993and 1998+ 37+ Baldwin 2002 42 These distinctions do usefully refine one's understanding of how compulsory power works, but from the perspective of our taxonomy these are refinements of a specific concept of power, compulsory power, and not distinct concepts, per se+…”

Arctic governance

“…Rather than trying to theorise what power is in today's global political landscape (or who has power), I draw upon IR scholarship suggesting that we need to look at the performance of power and what power does in practice (Guzzini, 1993;Adler and Pouliot, 2011;Cooley and Nexon, 2013). More recent work in political geography and critical geopolitics points us in the same direction with calls for attention to how geopolitical framings mould the world they represent.…”

Uncertainty, power, institutions, and crisis: implications for economic analysis and the future of capitalism

“…Other approaches that do not start from the individual optimizing agent provide a richer perspective, for instance by invoking the notion of structural power, which is distinguished from relational power that is exercised in the interaction between two or more individuals or groups, and which, while taking into account intentional actions by people and groups to influence the structures within which society operates, recognizes that these structural outcomes may be unintended or unconscious (see, for instance, Strange 1988 andGuzzini 1993, in the context of international relations). Moreover, such an approach can examine different spheres of power, such as in production activity, control over finance, control through violence, and control over knowledge and culture (see Strange 1988).…”