Balancing the World Order

This module’s reading by Daniel Nexon titled:  “The Balance of Power in the Balance” hit on many of the questions I wrote in the margins after reading Waltz for an earlier module.  Essentially, I wondered if Waltz’s assertion is correct about the tendency of states to balance against states that aim to acquire excessive power, how then did they allow the United States to emerge in its modern form?  I was happy to see this question addressed by Nexon in his piece.

Nexon introduced the idea (which is growing in popularity), that states may, in fact, bandwagon with the stronger states against the weaker states, which appears to be the case post-Cold War.  States like Ukraine, previously in the Soviet Union’s orbit, were attracted to the Western way of doing business and jumped on board with the United States and its sphere of influence.

Waltz suggests that there are structural elements at play which will drive states to balance, but as Nexon points out, there is a flaw with this line of thinking.  For starters, it “almost always begin[s] with realist assumptions” (p. 339).  When we deconstruct these assumptions and instead adopt a more liberal take, we might understand why states would allow a single hegemon like the U.S. to emerge.

One example would be the idea of the “status quo power”, which chooses not to challenge an emerging power because its emergence is beneficial to them.  This is likely the case for the European powers who watched the U.S. emerge and chose not to balance against it as the Marshall plan was helping them to rebuild.

The question I take away, however, and look forward to discussing further in class, is what exactly will drive a state to bandwagon?  While there are certainly realist (interest-based causes) that might drive states to support the emerging hegemon, there also appear to be soft-power, ideological reasons, which drive states to support the status quo due to alignments with the rules and norms put in place within the current international order.  This likely explains the emergence of the U.S. as a hegemon and its ability to remain there for so long without any real effort to balance against it by the majority of the world.

Daniel H. Nexon, “The Balance of Power In the Balance,” World Politics 61:2 (2009).