Bras. Political Sci. Rev.2013;7(2):175-8.
Back to Basics
DOI: 10.1590/1981-382172201300175
The increasing cross-border use of drones, the transnational and elusive phenomenon of cyber espionage and warfare and the ineffectiveness of conventional states’ responses to non-traditional security threats such as international terrorism high-light some of the complexities involved in understanding state power in the 21st century. In the straightforward realist narrative, states are the main players in world politics and power is a reflection of states’ material capabilities. Military capacity, in particular, is the ultimate source of states’ power. Yet, notwithstanding the still solid appeal of the hard power-based realist definition, it does not seem to fit with contemporary international phenomena. The growing number, diversity and relevance of non-state actors, such as international organisations, networked global communities of activists, failed states, multinational corporations and private individuals with a global reach, have fundamentally challenged the state-centric ontology of realism. Likewise, the inability of the United States, still the mightiest state in the world, to translate its economic and military capabilities into desired foreign/defence policy outcomes suggests that conceiving power simply in terms of tangible resources is limiting of a complete understanding of the concept.
Back to Basics evaluates the multiple dimensions of state power in the contemporary world. It pays due homage to Stephen Krasner’s groundbreaking and wide-ranging scholarship on the sources and effects of state power in international politics. The volume’s editors specifically ask some of the most renowned scholars in the field of International Relations theory “to reflect on the role of state power plays in contemporary politics and how a power politics approach is still relevant to theoretical issues in political science today” (pp. ix). The volume sets out to advance three major areas which underlie Krasner’s work: (i) it engages with the question of what state power actually is and how it impacts on contemporary world politics; (ii) it conceptually broadens the analytical scope of the international (structural) environment wherein state power is applied and creates effects and, finally; (iii) it discusses the contemporary malleability of sovereignty which makes the exercise of state power extremely complex to understand.
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