The Inaugural Kenneth N. Waltz Annual Lecture A World Order Without Superpowers
Decentred Globalism
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 4444639 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Barry Buzan (0000-0002-7922-5194, London School of Economics and Political Science, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2011 |
| Volume | 25 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 3-25 |
| Publication date | 2011-03-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | International Relations (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0047-1178 • E-ISSN: 1741-2862 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1177/0047117810396999 |
| OpenAlex | W2104054173 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 35 |
The category of superpower, as distinct from great power, has become naturalized in the discourses about international relations. But 'superpower' has only become common usage since the end of the Second World War and in modern history cannot meaningfully be applied much further than the 19th century. This article argues that superpowers are a historically contingent phenomenon whose emergence rested on the huge inequality of power between the West and the rest of the world that developed during the 19th century. As this inequality diminishes, the most likely scenario for world politics is decentred globalism, in which there will be no superpowers, only great powers. The largest section of the article uses a framework of material and social factors to show why the US is unlikely to remain a superpower, and why China and the EU are unlikely to become superpowers. The following three sections use the same framework to look more briefly at why a world with only great powers is likely to take a more regionalized form; why this might produce a quite workable, decentralized, coexistence international society with some elements of cooperation; and what the possible downsides of a more regionalized international order might be, focusing particularly on the problem of regional hegemony. The conclusions offer five policy prescriptions for living in a decentred globalist world
China · Economic history · Economics · Globalism · Great power · Hegemony · International relations · Order (exchange) · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Power (physics) · Sociology · Superpower · Waltz · Global Peace and Security Dynamics · History · International Development and Aid · International Relations and Foreign Policy · Law
Power and paradox
Global Governance
Rising Powers in World Politics
Hierarchical regional orders
The Making of Global International Relations
Ontological insecurity in the Asia-Pacific
New world order
Ideology and Civilizational Discourse
Drivers of crisis in the Greek-Turkish protracted conflict
Putting the BRI in Perspective
Interpreting China’s Rise in a Decentered World Through the Lens of Peacekeeping and Antipiracy Missions
International Leadership After the Demise of the Last Superpower
The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank
Multipolarity and the future of economic regionalism
Contra Schelling
Constructing great powers
A silhouette of utopia
The English School
Power, structural power, and American decline
China and the Future International Order(s)
Northeast Asia in a Multinodal World
Power Shifts, Economic Change and the Decline of the West
Multipolarity in theory
The South Asian Security Complex in a Decentring World Order
Great power management and ambiguous order in nineteenth-century international society
Latin American Integration
The EU as a Normative Power and the Research on External Perceptions
Autocracies win the minds of the democratic public
Lessons through Reform
Modernization, neo-liberal globalization, or variegated development
From Globalization to Regionalization
Latin America's Decentred Economic Regionalism
BRICS in a world of regions
Major powers and the contested evolution of a responsibility to protect
The concept of emerging power in international politics and economy
| Unique citing works | 35 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 2.33 |
| Citation span | 2011 - 2026 (16) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 35 |