POLI 243 Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: Stephen Walt, Complex Interdependence, Economic Globalization
4 Sep 2016
School
Department
Course
Professor
Recent System-level Arguments from Realists
• Stephen Walt: balancing vs threat, not power
• bandwagoning
• Mearsheimer: NATO after the Cold War; the instability of unipolarity
• Wohlforth and Brooks: Unipolarity will last
o US unipolar power will last due to richness/diversity of economy
o investment in military/potential to grow
o impossible for single state to overtake US hegemony (ex: China, Russia)
▪ do not have similar capacities/ economic prowess
Economics
• how do international economic ties shape the distribution of power
o US has the largest world economy
▪ China is growing
▪ Brazil- ups and downs of growth
▪ Russia (now more stagnant than when the BRICS were formed)
o G7: western Europe and US
o more futuristic projections on economic capacity includes BRICS
▪ security/military power = (somewhat) economy
• Albert O. Hirschman: National power and the structure of foreign trade
o trade connections/ content of goods in trade observed internationally
o economic blocs created out of the great depression
▪ Japanese and Nazi Germany: recover from depression and create political
connections
• bartered with E. European, LA countries who lacked resources, to create
an unequal political relationship (singular economic ties the other
countries have)
▪ political strategists create trade agreements for political ends
• Prebisch: Argentinian economist analyzes dependence in development
o look back to goods produced for exports (same as Canada) -- 40 years later Canada is
industrialized and Argentinian trade relationships have not changed. Caused by trade
relationships with European powers.
▪ politically weak
▪ position of dependence
o Marxists use this argument to create the 'dependency theory'
• Wallerstein (sociologist expert in Africa): world systems theory
o analyzed economic penetration into Africa from the outside
o how do local societies integrate themselves into society?
▪ marxist notions about hierarchy
• capitalists: provide investments, dominant position
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