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Three approaches to the measurement of power in international relations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 May 2009

Jeffrey Hart
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Abstract

There are three main approaches to the observation and measurement of power: 1) control over resources, 2) control over actors, and 3) control over events and outcomes. The control over events and outcomes approach emerges as the best approach to the measurement of power in contemporary international politics because: 1) it is the only approach which takes into account the possibility of interdependence and collective action, 2) it is more general than the other two approaches, and 3) it produces a type of analysis which has both descriptive and normative advantages. I will discuss each of these approaches at length and criticize them. I will argue that the third approach is superior to the other two for the measurement of power in contemporary international politics because it is better suited to situations in which interdependence and collective action can be derived from the third.

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Articles
Information
International Organization , Volume 30 , Issue 2 , Spring 1976 , pp. 289 - 305
Copyright
Copyright © The IO Foundation 1976

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References

1 See, for example, Singer, J. David and Small, Melvin, “The Composition and Status Ordering of the International System: 1815–1940,” World Politics 18 (01 1966): 236–82CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Modelski, George, World Power Concentrations: Typology, Data, Explanatory Framework (Morristown, N.J.: General Learning Press, 1974Google Scholar).

2 Rummel, Rudolph J., The Dimensions of Nations (Beverly Hills: Sage, 1972Google Scholar).

3 Galtung, Johan, “East-West Interaction Patterns,” Journal of Peace Research, No. 2 (1966): 146–77CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Rummel, Rudolph J., “A Status-Field Theory of International Relations,” Research Report No. 50, Dimensionality of Nations Project, University of Hawaii, 08, 1971Google Scholar.

4 Knorr, Klaus, The Power of Nations: The Political Economy of International Relations (New York: Basic Books, 1975), pp. 9–10Google Scholar. See also Alker, Hayward Jr, “On Political Capabilities in a Schedule Sense: Measuring Power, Integration and Development,” in Alker, Hayward, Deutsch, Karl and Stoetzel, Antoine (eds.), Mathematical Approaches to Politics (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1973), p. 325Google Scholar.

5 For the argument that nations lose flexibility when they join alliances see Singer, J. David and Small, Melvin, “Alliance Aggregation and the Onset of War,” in Singer, J. David (ed.), Quantitative International Politics (New York: Free Press, 1968), p. 249Google Scholar. For the argument that power of an alliance equals the sum of the power of its members see Zinnes, Dina, “An Analytical Study of the Balance of Power Theories,” Journal of Peace Research, No. 3 (1967): 270–88CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

6 Dahl, Robert, “The Concept of Power,” Behavioral Science, 2 (07 1957): 202Google Scholar.

7 Mokken, R. J. and Stokman, F. N., “Power and Influence as Political Phenomena,” unpublished Research Paper, University of Amsterdam, 1974Google Scholar.

8 Knorr, Chapter 10.

9 Bachrach, Peter and Baratz, Morton, “Decisions and Non-decisions: An Analytical Framework,” American Political Science Review, 57 (09 1963): 633CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

10 Knorr, pp. 9–10 and personal communication.

11 Keohane, Robert O., “The Big Influence of Small Allies,” Foreign Policy, No. 1 (1971): 163–81Google Scholar.

12 John Harsanyi, “The Measurement of Social Power, Opportunity Costs and the Theory of Two-Person Bargaining Games,” Behavioral Science, 7 (01 1962): 67–75Google Scholar.

13 Brock, Horace, Social Choice, Distributive Justice and the Theory of Games with Nonlinearly Transferable Utility, unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Politics, Princeton University, 1975Google Scholar.

14 See, for example, Galtung, Johan, “A Structural Theory of Imperialism,” Journal of Peace Research, No. 2 (1971): 81–117CrossRefGoogle Scholar; West, Robert LeRoy, “Economic Dependence and Policy in Developing Countries,” in Bergsten, C. Fred and Tyler, William G. (eds.), Leading Issues in International Economic Policy (Lexington, Mass.: Lexington Books, 1973Google Scholar); and Kaufman, Robert R., Geller, Daniel S. and Chernotsky, Harry I., “A Preliminary Test of the Theory of Dependency,” Comparative Politics, 7 (04 1975): 303–30CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Not all dependency theorists, and especially not Latin American dependency theorists, make this assumption.

15 Examples of the substitution of new trading partners for old ones as a result of an attempt to apply economic sanctions are: 1) the diversion of trade from Britain to the Soviet Union by Iceland in 1953; 2) the diversion of trade from the United States to the Soviet Union by Cuba in 1959–60; and 3) the diversion of trade from the Soviet Union to China by Albania in 1961. An example of the absorption of a loss caused by sanctions is that of Rhodesia from 1966 to 1968. Despite a rapid decline in trade, Rhodesia resisted pressures to change its constitution to provide for equal treatment of blacks. See Knorr, , Chapter 6, and Wallensteen, Peter, “Characteristics of Economic Sanctions,” Journal of Peace Research, No. 3 (1968): 248–67Google Scholar.

16 Klaus Knorr, personal communication.

17 Knorr, p. 165.

18 Ibid., p. 83. See also Knorr, Klaus, Power and Wealth (New York: Basic Books, 1973), pp. 80–1CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

19 For the most sophisticated example of this sort of research, see Schofield, Norman and Alt, James, “On Clique Analysis of Trade Relations,” paper presented at the Fourth Colloquium on Mathematical Sociology, Hemsedal, Norway, 01 1974Google Scholar.

20 For example, no single member of OPEC can afford to raise crude oil prices without the collaboration of others. The cost of exerting bilateral power in that way is to lose a share of the world market as consumers shift to less expensive exporters. Similarly, permanent members of the Security Council can act on a unilateral or bilateral basis in intense conflicts, such as that in the Middle East, only at the expense of risking unilateral or bilateral intervention by another permanent member. Multilateral action, by reducing uncertainties connected with simultaneous unilateral or bilateral interventions in intense conflicts, is less “expensive” than bilateral action, even though the unilateral or bilateral option always exists.

21 Coleman, James C., The Mathematics of Collective Action (Chicago: Aldine, 1973)Google Scholar. See also Abell, Peter (ed.), Organizations as Bargaining Influence Systems (New York: Halsted Press, 1975Google Scholar), for a slightly modified version of Coleman's theory.

22 I think it is realistic to assume that actors will not value control over actors or resources independently of its usefulness in obtaining desired outcomes, because it is usually expensive to maintain this sort of purposeless control. Nevertheless, there may be some actors who hoard resources or collect dependencies for no apparent reason.

23 There are a variety of nuances to the concept of “interdependence” which may not be consistent with the notion of shared control over mutually consequential events. On this question, see Ruggie, John, “International Responses to Technology: Concepts and Trends,” International Organization, 29 (Summer 1975): 562–4CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

24 It is, nevertheless, a simplification also used by Bergsten, C. Fred in “The Response to the Third World,” Foreign Policy, No. 17 (Winter 1974–1975): 10Google Scholar, which I altered only by grouping the regionally powerful developing countries, such as Brazil and India, with the developing and nonaligned nations instead of with the OPEC nations.

25 Coleman, p. 79.

26 Ibid., p. 86.

27 Modelski.p. 5.

28 See Dalkey, Norman C., (ed.), Studies in the Quality of Life: Delphi and Decision Making (Lexington, Mass.: Lexington Books, 1972Google Scholar), for a discussion of how the use of multiple coders and error-correcting feedback can improve the accuracy and validity of estimates of this sort. The optimal measurement strategy would be to ask each coder or judge to estimate the control and interest of each actor, as perceived by the actors themselves. The possible consequences of differing perceptions may then be analyzed by computing the bilateral power matrix for each actor, based on its perceptions.

29 Modelski.p. 2.

30 Ibid., p. 2, and Joseph S. Nye, Jr., “Ocean Rule-Making from a World Perspective,” in Perspectives on Ocean Policy (Washington, D. C: United States Government Printing Office, 1975): p. 243f. For a general critique of this literature, see Nogee, Joseph L., “Polarity: An Ambiguous Concept,” 18 (Winter 1975): 1193–1225Google Scholar. Nye and Modelski have answered Nogee's main criticism by attempting to set explicit criteria for measuring polarity.