Book Review: “War and Change in World Politics” by Gilpin

By: Ermira Babamust, Ph.D.

Book Review: “War and Change in World Politics” by Robert Gilpin

INTRODUCTION

War and Change in World Politics introduces the reader to an important new theory of international political change. Arguing that the fundamental nature of international relations has not changed over time, Gilpin uses history, sociology, and economic theory to identify the forces causing change in the world order.

The discussion focuses on the differential growth of power in the international system and the result of this unevenness. A shift in the balance of power – economic or military – weakens the foundations of the existing system, because those gaining power see the increasing benefits and the decreasing cost of changing the system.

THESIS: The fundamental nature of international politics has not changed over the millennia. International relations continue to be recurring struggle for wealth and power among independent actors in a state of anarchy.

Gilpin’s economy theory suggests that international politics must sonsider how political, economic and technologic development affect the powers of the political decision making including the outcome of their objectives. Gilpin argues that the state will attempt to change the political system in response to developments and happenings that increase or decrease the balance of powers. Gilpin does so by using both a sociological approach and economical approach.

The result, as Gilpin concludes, is that actors seek to alter the system through territorial, political, or economic expansion until the marginal costs of continuing change are greater than the marginal benefits. When states develop the power to change the system according to their interests they will strive to do so- either by increasing economic efficiency and maximizing mutual gain, or by redistributing wealth and power in their own favor.

1. An international system is established by actors in order to advance particular sets of political, economic, or other interests. The interests that are favored by this arrangement reflect the relative powers of actors involved. Over time, the interests and the balance of power change as a result of economic, technological, or other developments. Actors who benefit most from a change will seek to alter the system to favor their interests (p.9).

How do you limit one’s interest?

Gilpin explains is as follows:

            Social systems impose restrains on the behavior of all actors

            The  behavior will be punished by the system and as a result it

            Will agree with interest of the most power members of the social system.

Thus political change lies between the social system and redistributing of powers towards the actors who benefit most from the change.

2. Framework for understanding change:

In every international system there are continual occurrences of political, economic and technological changes that promise gains or threaten looses for actors in the political field.

 In figure 1, the international system is a state of equilibrium condition:

    – where every state could benefit from particular changes

    – the costs involved discourage attempts to seek a change in system

    – under these conditions no one has the intention to change the system

    – the status of the system is stable

    – the status  quo is legitimate( in the means that it is accepted by all major powers)

A framework for understanding International Political change.

• An international system is stable if no state believes it is profitable to attempt to change it.
• A state will attempt to change the system is the expected benefits exceed the expected costs.
• A state will seek to change the system through territorial, political, and economic expansion until the marginal costs of further change are equal to or greater than the marginal benefits.
• Once an equilibrium is reached, the tendency is for economic costs of maintaining the status quo to rise faster than the economic capacity to support it.
• If the disequilibrium is not resolved, the system will be changed and a new equilibrium reflecting the redistribution of power will be established (p.11).

How does Gilpin define power?

Power refers simply to the military, economic and technological capabilities of the state.  However this definition leaves out important elements that influence the outcomes of political actions, such as public morality, qualities of leadership and situational factors.

A country will fight when it believes that its prestige in diplomacy is not equivalent to its real strength. By prestige, Gilpin means economic and military capabilities.

3. States do not seek to maximize power or welfare, but will endeavor to find some optimum combination of both objectives, and the amount sought will depend on income and cost (p.20). They pursue three general objectives:

• conquest of territory
• increase their influence over the behavior of others
• control or at least exercise influence over the world economy (p.24).

 

4. Types of structure:

• hegemonic or imperial
1. as single powerful state controls or dominates the lesser states in the system
• bipolar
1. two powerful states control and regulate interactions
• multipolar
1. Gilpin calls it the balance of power, which it isn’t according to Waltz), (p.29).
2. balance of power between three of more states

5. Type of change:

• systems – change in the nature of the actors that compose a system (empire, nation states)
• systemic – change in the form of control or governance of a system
• interaction – change in the regular interactions or processes among the entities in a system (p.40).

Change can be either incremental or revolutionary (p.45).

6. Stability and change – the material environment and the international balance of power create incentives or disincentives for states to attempt to change the system:

• environmental factors – transportation and communication (p.56), military technology (p.59), and economic (especially the law on diminishing returns, p.78)
• structure of the system – differential growth of power (p.95) and Waltz’s theory; and
• domestic – structuring property rights so that private rate of return is close to the social rate, like North and Thomas (p.103).

7. Growth and expansion – three developments replaced the cycle of empires with a succession of hegemonies:

• the triumph of the nation-state (p.116)
• the advent of sustained economic growth (p.123); and
• the creation of a world market economy (p.127).

Among the countervailing forces that limit expansion are:

-          loss-of-strength gradient

-          generation of opposing power

-          economic, technical and other factors determine the optimal size for political entities

-          tendency toward political disintegration and fragmentation of society (p.149).

8. Equilibrium and decline

Leibenstein divided the growth of typical economy into three phases:

In phase I:           an underdeveloped economy is characterized by private techniques of production and low rate of investment. Rate of economy growth may be 0, or very low or negative.

In phase II:         growth takes place very rapidly because of using the new production techniques in the economy. In the phase the rate of economy growth is influenced by the choice of whatever techniques are adopted.

In phase III:        the economy has become mainly urban and industrial. Like phase I, it has a slow growth because the rate of innovation is limited.

However, in today’s society, the mature ones use the rapid development, as

demonstrated in phase II.

I. internal factors:

• structural changes in the economy
• tendency for most efficient military techniques to rise in cost
• tendency for public and private consumption to grow faster than GNP as society becomes more affluent
• stagnation and cessation of innovation
• corrupting influence of affluence (p.159)

            II.  external factors -

• increase in the costs of political dominance, and
• loss of economic and technological leadership (p.168).

9. War and change –

Although resolution of a crisis through peaceful adjustment of the systemic disequilibrium is possible, the principal mechanism of change throughout history has been war, as Gilpin refers to it: hegemonic war- a war that determines which state wil be dominant and will govern the system.

There are three types of response to declining fortunes:

• eliminate the reason for increasing costs
• expand to a more secure and less costly defensive perimeter
• reduce international commitments (p.191).

The most direct method of retrenchment is unilateral abandonment of commitments, the second is to enter into alliances or seek rapprochement with less threatening powers, and the third is to make concessions to a rising power and seek to appease its ambitions (p.193).

Throughout history the primary means of resolving the disequilibrium between the structure of the international system and the distribution of power has been war, hegemonic war.

-                             It involves a direct contest between the dominant power and the rising challenger,

-                              is an unlimited conflict because it challenges the legitimacy of the system,

-                             is characterized by unlimited means employed and by the general scope of warfare (p.200).

Preconditions:

-                             the intensification of conflicts among states is a consequence of the “closing in” of space and opportunities

-                             perception that a fundamental historical change is taking place and the fear of great powers that time is beginning to work against it and it should settle matters through preemptive war

-                             the course of events begins to escape human control (p.202)

1. Continuity – even though the world has profoundly changed, there is little evidence that the human race has solved the problems associated with international political change, especially the problem of war (p.213).

Nuclear weapons:

-          primary purpose is deterrence of another great war

-          provide the nuclear state with a guarantee of its independence and physical integrity; and

-          their possession largely determines the rank in the international hierarchy of prestige (are these really true?), (p.212). The thesis that nuclear weapons have made hegemonic war an impossibility remains inconclusive (p.218).

Interdependence: its growth and the prospect for mutual gain have not eliminated competition and mutual distrust among nations (p.221).

Global society: transnational and international actors have broken the monopoly of the state in the management of the international system. Eras of arrested growth, diminishing returns, and market constriction have been associated with conflict, not to transcendence of narrow loyalties (p.224).

1. The bipolar system – five types of developments tend to destabilize bipolar systems and trigger hegemonic conflict:

• danger that one of the pair will fail to play its balancing role
• danger that a rise of a third party will upset the balance
• danger of polarization of the international system as a whole into two hostile camps
• danger of entanglement of the major powers in the ambitions and difficulties of minor allies; and
• danger of loss of control over economic, political, and social developments (p.237).

CONCLUSION

From Dynamic Realism we understand the following:
- It accepts realism & its assumptions
-  the distribution of power among states constitutes the primary form of control in the international system
- regards history as the birth, rise, and demise of the hegemon.
Hegemonic powers always decline:
1) increasingly marginal returns of empire (state-level)
2) tendency to consume more & invest less over time (state-level)
3)diffusion of technology (system-level)
Hegemonic Realism is a school of thought which views International Relations as organized hierarchically, with each state vying for the top position in order to gain the benefits of being the number
one state.
In Gilpins words “Throughout history a principal objective of states has been the conquest of territory in order to advance economic, security, and other interests”. War occurs when a rising state
challenges the current hegemon, and seeks to overtake the privileged position. On the other hand, when one state is firmly in control, they institute a stable economic system, which tends to keep
the peace.

“War and Change” is really worth reading and it shows a different position in the “neorealist” debate inaugurated by Kenneth Waltz in his “Theory of International Politics”. This is a fundamental book in understanding the changes occurring now and that will be in the future.

I think that Gilpin sounds a bit cynical when he suggests that in modern history there is a recurring cycle of war and peace. When he talks about peace, it seems though as he already has a bias. “Although men desire peace it is not their highest value.” But I agree with Gilpin when he says that men either destroy themselves or learn to develop an effective mechanism of peaceful change.

His key questions such as weather or not the nuclear age hegemonic war will continue to be the fundamental mechanism of regulations relations among states, is key to understanding how the political actors gain control during political change.

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