Power politics

Further information: Power (international relations)

For other uses, see Power politics (disambiguation).

Power politics (or, in German, Machtpolitik) is a theory in international relations, which contains the idea that distributions of power and interests, or changes to those distributions, are fundamental causes or war and of system stability.

The concept of power politics provides a way of understanding systems of international relations: in this view, nations compete for the world's limited resources and it is to an individual nation's advantage to be manifestly able to harm others. Power politics prioritizes national self-interest over the interests of other nations or the international community, and thus may include threatening one another with military, economic or political aggression to protect one nation's own interest.

Techniques of power politics include:

• deterrence theory
• conspicuous weapons-development (including nuclear development)
• pre-emptive strike
• blackmail
• the massing of military units on a border, whether for stationing or for exercises
• the imposition of tariffs or economic sanctions
• proxy warfare
• bait and bleed and "bloodletting"
• hard and soft balancing
• buck passing
• covert operations
• shock and awe
• asymmetric warfare

Literature

• Hans J. Morgenthau, Scientific Man vs. Power Politics. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1946.
•  —, Politics Among Nations: The Struggle for Power and Peace. New York NY: Alfred A. Knopf, 1948.
• Hans Köchler, "The United Nations Organization and Global Power Politics: The Antagonism between Power and Law and the Future of World Order," in: Chinese Journal of International Law, Vol. 5, No. 2 (2006), pp. 323–340. ABSTRACT
• John Mearsheimer, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2001.
• Michael Mann, The Sources of Social Power, voll. 1-4, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge-New York, 1986-2012.
• Geoff Mulgan, Good and Bad Power, Penguin, 2005.
• Martin Wight, Power Politics, 2nd ed., Pelican Books, 1979.

See also

• Colonialism
• Expansionism
• Global policeman
• Ideocracy
• Imperialism
• Political midlife crisis
• Political realism
• Power (social and political)
• Power harassment
• Realpolitik
• Resource curse
• State collapse

References

Notes