PHYSICS 102 Lecture Notes - Lecture 14: Soft Power, Hard Power, World Politics
Document Summary
Hegemon = dominant state - political, economic, military predominance or control of one state over others (wiki) Balance of power (theory) = suggests that national security is enhanced when military capability is distributed so that no one state is strong enough to dominate all others. Hard + soft power = hard power - the use of military and economic means to influence the behaviour or interests of other political bodies / soft power - comes from diplomacy, culture and history. Key actors in world politics are sovereign states that act rationally to advance their security, power + wealth in an anarchic international system. Anarchy induces insecurity, conflicts of interest and international rivalries (but this does not automatically lead to war) The security dilemma: actions that states take to increase their security often induce a response by adversaries and actually result in a decrease in their security (+spiral model)
