1979/01/01 by David A. Baldwin · 337 citations
Engineering · Social Sciences · #Constraint (computer-aided design) #Economic sanctions #Economic system #Economics #Engineering #Fungibility #International Relations and Foreign Policy #International relations #Law #Law and economics #Political Conflict and Governance #Political economy #Political science #Politics #Positive economics #Power (physics) #Relevance (law) #Sanctions #Scholarship #Sociology #Status quo #World Systems and Global Transformations
paper · doi:10.2307/2009941
published in World Politics 31(2), 161-194 (Cambridge University Press)
openalex publication_date 1979/01/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
Recent refinements in social science thinking about power could be used to revitalize this approach to understanding international relations. The relevance of scholarly work on the causal concept of power is explored with regard to the following topics: potential vs. actual power, interdependence, military power, positive sanctions, the zero-sum model of politics, and the distinction between deterrence and compellence. The tendency to exaggerate the fungibility of power resources, the propensity to treat military power resources as the1 “ultimate” power base, and the emphasis on conflict and negative sanctions at the expense of cooperation and positive sanctions, are still common in international relations scholarship. The most important need is for recognition that the absence of a common denominator of political value in terms of which different scopes of power can be compared is not so much a methodological problem to be solved as it is a real-world constraint to be lived with.