Power Shifts: Strategies, Responses, and Consequences for International Politics

Session Submission Type: Full Paper Panel

Session Description

Reexamining puzzles that emerge against the backdrop of major shifts in the balance of power is a task of enormous potential reward for International Relations scholars in the 21st century, particularly as the rapid growth of Chinese power and the resurgence of Russia’s military assertiveness continue to transform the strategic landscape of key global regions. How does the domestic governance of rising powers shape their international ambitions and influence? How might such rising powers try to maximize economic, military, and political power in the face of widespread suspicion and hostility? And what kinds of strategies do established great powers and their smaller allies adopt in response to the rising state’s growing capabilities and influence?

This panel brings together papers that illuminate these and other puzzles, representing a rich array of theoretical, methodological, and regional orientations. The first two papers investigate understudied factors that condition the strategic behaviors of rising powers and their outcomes. In the first paper, Jessica Chen Weiss develops a framework that explains how China’s domestic politics have informed its approach to foreign policy, ranging from homeland issues such as Taiwan and Hong Kong to broader questions of global governance and the spread of authoritarian practices. The paper suggests important insights on the ways in which China might attempt to use its growing power as the future of the U.S.-led “liberal international order” is increasingly called into question. In the second paper, Brandon Yoder presents a formal model demonstrating how rising states can credibly communicate their benign intentions in the context of multiple international audiences. The model is illustrated with the case of the United States’ “Open Door Notes” at the turn of the 20th century and contemporary China’s efforts to reassure its Russian neighbor.

The next two papers focus on examining how a rising state’s peer competitors and smaller neighbors attempt to cope with their shifting strategic environment. Joshua Shifrinson argues that established great powers often try to suppress potential peer competitors far in advance of their emergence as a rising state. Evidence that great power strategies of suppression can block power shifts from occurring for extended periods is found in the European powers’ efforts to forestall the unification of “the Germanies” prior to the late 19th century, as well as American moves to obstruct the consolidation of European security policies in the post-Cold War era. Finally, Joshua Byun introduces a theoretically-informed typology of the military strategies that weaker but nonetheless highly influential regional powers have adopted in response to emergent great powers in their neighborhood. He argues that these strategies vary in much more interesting ways than recognized by existing theoretical frameworks, with each type carrying distinct consequences for the prospects of regional security competition and conflict.

Few events in international politics have been as recurrent or as consequential as major power shifts driven by the rise of new great powers, but much remains to be learned about the manner in which such power shifts take place, the responses they evoke, and the broader outcomes they portend for international politics. Taken together, the papers in this panel promise to significantly enhance our understanding of power shifts in the modern era.

Sub Unit

• Division 19: International Security

Cosponsor

• Division 20: Foreign Policy

Individual Presentations

• A World Safe for Autocracy? China’s Rise and The Future of Global Politics - Jessica Chen Weiss, Cornell University

• Power Shifts, Multiple Audiences, and Credible Reassurance - Brandon Yoder, Australian National University

• Strategies of Suppression: Great Powers and Attempts to Forestall Power Shifts - Joshua Itzkowitz Shifrinson, Boston University

• Strategies of the Rimland: Power Shifts and Military Postures in Europe and Asia - Joshua Byun, The University of Chicago

Chair

• Stacie E. Goddard Wellesley College

Discussants

• Dale Copeland University of Virginia

• Eliza Gheorghe Bilkent University