1. Globalization and Power Politics: A Synthesis (1998)

One World--Two Explanations Testing the hypothesis that power depends on freedom requ ires an explanation of the general pattern of contemporary international politics. At the moment, we can pick between two such explanations: the relentless spread of free-market democracy (globalization) and the ever-shifting concentration and interaction of geopolitical power (power politics). (1) In the first view, a wave of economic and political openness travels eastward and southward from the West, moving world politics inexorably toward a peaceable commonwealth of responsible democracies, joined by commerce and liberal ideals, occupying most of the planet. In the second, the world's superpower maintains balance and manages security in the world's vital regions, grapples with two other economic giants, Japan and the European Union (EU), keeps a wary eye on the largest remnant of the Soviet Union, and anticipates the rise of a Chinese peer challenger. The two explanations emphasize such different phenomena as to seem contradictory. Globalization---economic integration and political convergence--is all about progress, porosity, norms, rules, networks of interest, devolution, transnational power, smaller and accountable government. It erodes centralized authority of all sorts. It favors international collaboration, inspired by common interests and principles--shared equity in the free market and in the ideals of free societies. Its prevailing values, especially the rule of law and the rights of the weak, not only enhance domestic tranquility but also temper international behavior. Along this line of world development, the diffusion of technology uplifts and draws one after another emerging nation into a core political economy, based on the appreciation of human capital, economic efficiency, and political harmony. The diffusion of technology does not sap but instead strengthens the enterprises and nations that invent and export it. World affairs are shaped more by market forces than by government policies. State power is undercut by market power and bypassed by multinational enterprises, worldwide communications, and sundry nongovernmental actors. As globalization proceeds and the information age unfolds, economic value becomes less tangible, more fluid, accessible, and portable across political boundaries. Technology and money spill into vast and ungovernable global pools. The world economy's markets, resources, capital, and human talent are readily available to those states that join it. Traditional objects of conquest, e.g., land and raw materials, become less important. Territorial dominion and international coercion, if not passe, are out of sync with globalization's promise. Power jealousies and plots seem anachronistic. What matters to societies, including elites, is not relative national standing but success, as measured by absolute progress in the quality of life. Even the lone superpower is not wedded to the status quo. The last two decades reveal that American interests are not harmed but instead helped by change because, for the most part, change enriches Americans and Americanizes the world. Power politics, in contrast, is determined by the comparative strengths of the largest nations and the equilibrium or rivalries among them. If globalization distributes, power politics concentrates. At present, the all-around might of the United States and the weights of Japan, the European Union, China and India (increasingly), and Russia (in decline), give structure to international politics. Notwithstanding the diffusion of economic power and the erosion of the nation-state, it remains the Newtonian interactions among the great political-economic-military singularities that determine international conditions, calculations, strategies, war and peace. One power's rise marks another's decline. Being a superior power still has its rewards, especially as viewed by inferior ones, thus assuring unending cycles of hegemonic challenge and defense. …