Power, Order, and Change in World Politics

This volume brings together leading scholars to analyse the central issues of power, order, and change in world politics.

G. John Ikenberry (Edited by)

9781107072749, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 21 August 2014

308 pages, 2 b/w illus. 1 table
22.9 x 15.2 x 2.1 cm, 0.62 kg

'This collection of essays by leading IR scholars aims to honor and engage with Robert Gilpin's seminal book, War and Change in World Politics (1983). The essays show why Gilpin's treatise is so highly regarded and they offer interesting arguments of their own in the process.' John J. Mearsheimer, R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science, University of Chicago

Are there recurring historical dynamics and patterns that can help us understand today's power transitions and struggles over international order? What can we learn from the past? Are the cycles of rise and decline of power and international order set to continue? Robert Gilpin's classic work, War and Change in World Politics offers a sweeping and influential account of the rise and decline of leading states and the international orders they create. Now, some thirty years on, this volume brings together an outstanding collection of scholars to reflect on Gilpin's grand themes of power and change in world politics. The chapters engage with theoretical ideas that shape the way we think about great powers, with the latest literature on the changing US position in the global system, and with the challenges to the existing order that are being generated by China and other rising non-Western states.

Introduction. Power, order, and change in world politics G. John Ikenberry
Part I. Varieties of International Order and Strategies of Rule: 1. Unpacking hegemony: the social foundations of hierarchical order Charles A. Kupchan
2. Dominance and subordination in world politics: authority, liberalism, and stability in the modern international order David A. Lake
3. The logic of order: Westphalia, liberalism, and the evolution of international order in the modern era G. John Ikenberry
Part II. Power Transition and the Rise and Decline of International Order: 4. Hegemonic decline and hegemonic war revisited William C. Wohlforth
5. Gilpin approaches War and Change: a classical realist in structural drag Jonathan Kirshner
6. Order and change in world politics: the financial crisis and the breakdown of the US-China grand bargain Michael Mastanduno
Part III. Systems Change and Global Order: 7. Hegemony, nuclear weapons, and liberal hegemony Daniel Deudney
8. Brilliant but now wrong: a sociological and historical sociological assessment of Gilpin's War and Change in World Politics Barry Buzan
9. Nations, states, and empires John A. Hall.

Subject Areas: International relations [JPS]