Relative Power Essay ⋆ Political Science Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

Power is normally thought of in terms of the absolute capacity of an individual, institution, or state. But power is also the capacity of A to get B to do what B would otherwise not do of its own choosing. In power relations, the capacity of one entity must be considered relative to the capacity of another entity or entities vis-à-vis that outcome. Such a concept of relative power has relevance regarding the capability of a state to ensure its security and carry out its foreign policy objectives.

The term relative denotes a comparison that can be either a signed difference or a ratio of the things compared. The measures are far from congruent in meaning, and both are essential for understanding power. A signed difference indicates the gap between two levels, as in balance of power calculations. A dyadic ratio of the two levels is sometimes used as a measure of relative power. But these dyadic measures do not capture the complexity of power relationships involving three or more actors, a complexity that international relations theorists have encapsulated in the notion of systems structure. At any given time, a state’s relative power is its percent share of systemic power—that is, the ratio of its absolute power over the absolute power of all the states in the system under consideration.

How is power to be measured? Relative power is sometimes used to describe a situation in which not all but some capacities of actors can be brought to bear on a specific situation to elicit a desired outcome. Do we focus on capabilities or on outcomes? Do we use perceptions of power or empirical indexes of power? We would like the capabilities to correspond to expected outcomes, and perceptions of power to correspond to the empirical measures.

The power of the state is in large part drawn from the underlying material indicators of national capability such as armed forces size, population size, GDP, military spending, and per-capita wealth, with issues of national unity, national will, and ideology added as qualifications. Also, the long-term foundation of power, its latent resource base that changes only incrementally, must be kept analytically distinct from short-term actualized power that may accelerate during war time.

Factor analysis reveals that state power has two dimensions—size and wealth—measured across the entire spectrum of military and economic indicators. Natural experiments reveal that experts can rank states according to perceptions of power with a very high level of agreement. These subjective perceptions of power are stable across cultures and are highly correlated with national capability.

Over long time periods, state relative power follows a cycle of rise and decline, of varying amplitude and periodicity, which traces the state’s evolution as a major power. Germany passed through an entire cycle, from rise to peak to decline, in less than a century. The United States rose gradually, during an interval of more than 150 years, to its peak in relative power. China is on the rising side of its relative power cycle.

Because governments respond to utilities of foreign policy objective using only a fraction of the power at their disposal in any circumstance (such as a foreign intervention), the analyst should not expect a close correlation between underlying indicators of relative power and foreign policy outcomes. No easy and direct relationship exists between relative power and the foreign policy purposes to which that power may be put.

Bibliography:

Doran, Charles F. Systems in Crisis: New Imperatives of High Politics at Century’s End. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991.
Knoor, Klaus. The War Potential of Nations. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1956.
Organski, A. F. K., and Jacek Kugler. The War Ledger. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980.
Russett, Bruce. “Probabilism and the Number of Units Affected: Measuring Influence Concentrations.” American Political Science Review 62 (1968): 476–480.
Singer, J. David, Stuart Bremer, and J. Stuckey. “Capability Distribution, Uncertainty, and Major Power War, 1820–1965.” In Peace,War, and Numbers, edited by Bruce Russett, 19–48. Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage, 1972.

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