Lake for Gilpin Vol. V3
Chapter 7 Dominance and Subordination in World Politics: Authority, Liberalism, and Stability in the Modern International Order David A. Lake Prepared for G. John Ikenberry, Editor, Power, Order, and Change in World Politics. April 2012 Order is a fundamental feature of world politics, but it is not a constant. It waxes and wanes with corresponding ebbs and flows, yet not in any predictable lunar cycle. Where order exists, as in the so-called developed or first world since 1945, peace and prosperity are possible. In this “Western” system, states have escaped the Hobbesian state-of-nature for an international society. Where order is absent, as in present day Africa, war and suffering often abound. In the absence of an international civil society, as Hobbes wrote, “life is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short” (in Brown et al. 2002, 337). Order arises in many forms and from many sources. In Chapter 7, Charles Kupchan emphasizes the normative orientations of leading states. In Chapter 9, John Ikenberry highlights the confluence of American power and liberal ideals. I do not disagree with their perspectives or their core interpretations of modern international orders. In this chapter, however, I examine the role of authority and international hierarchy in the creation and maintenance of international order. In this focus, norms and ideals follow from and facilitate transfers of authority from subordinate to dominant states, but are not primary drivers of international order. The discipline of international relations has largely ignored international authority. Blinkered by the assumption that the international system is anarchic, scholars of international relations and even contemporary policy makers have failed to see or understand the importance of authority by states over other states in international history Lake, Dominance and Subordination, Draft 3.0 (July 15, 2013) 1 (Lake 2009a).
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