Free Myths & Mysteries In World Politics Essay Sample

Power is the process of production, especially through social relations, of the effects that shape capacities of participants. This is normally in an attempt of determining their fate and circumstances. The concept of power forms the core of many international relations. Power entails two vital analytical dimensions. The first dimension is the kind of social relations under which power works; in either relation of interactions or social relations of social constitution. The second dimension is the social relations’ specificity through which effects are mitigated; diffuse/indirect or direct/specific. These distinctions bring about the taxonomy and four main concepts of power: institutional, compulsory, productive and structural. A lot of attention matters for the analysis of both American empire and the global governance. The scholars must, therefore, strive to be aware of the intra-conceptual competition and be able to establish the existing connections between them. This will help generate a more robust understanding of the how power is manifested in the international politics.
There is a widely embraced conceptualization that’s viewed as the only option to understand the power; how one state uses its resources to influence another state. The disciplinary tendency of associating power with realism partly owes to the fact realism’s rivals always distance themselves from the available power considerations. The above feature has been visible in the recent past years as liberals and neoliberal institutionalisms. The neoliberals argued that states with convergent views generate international institutions that effectively tame the state power. At the end of the day, these institutions outstand as the antidote to power. Scholars who are thinking in the liberalists’ perspective argue that many international outcomes can’t be explained while referring to the power, but can be approached using the presence of democracy.
The above theoretical insights have drawn distinct theoretic traditions that could offer vital approaches into the various available forms of power and their subsequent effects. Though the neoliberal institutionalists highlight how the institutions produce cooperation, at the same time they could be emphasizing how these institutions shape the privileges of the main actors. In the long run, this could establish the change-parameters that could benefit some parties at expense of others. However, the liberals limit their claims to the liberalism of progress so as to develop the liberalism of fear that is a bit concerned with power manifestation. The constructivists, on the other hand, emphasize the normative structures that constitute the interests and identities of the actors. However, the constructionists have failed to apply these structures as defined by power. Consequently, this has led to a failed conceptualization of power.
The definitions inform our insight that conceptual distinction of power represents two analytical dimensions that are at the centre of the whole idea. Additionally, the definition brings out the available social relations via which power is successfully manifested as well as the specificity of the social relations in which actors’ efforts are realized. In the first dimension, the main idea is the polarization of the positions of social interactions that are written in the constitution. The dimension expounds that the power is either a concept of specific actors and their relations or as a result of social processes whereby the actors are viewed in terms of their social beings or the underlying structures. Here, power can be manifested by gun-pointing and issuance of commands. While the power is being manifested to the advantage of oneself, it is disadvantaging others on the other hand. This dimension is quite applicable with the dictatorial system of governance.
The second dimension is the specificity dimension. The specificity dimension is more concern with the extent to which the social interactions which yield to the power. These interactions can be either indirect or socially diffuse or direct and socially specific. For instance, the gun used is integrated international institutions that are entitled with establishment of rules that dictates which to participate in decision-making and leadership roles. These two dimensions, therefore, leads us to four types of power; the compulsory power, the institutional power, structural power and productive power. The most effective type of power strives to “curve the nature at its joints” so as to derive a mutually exclusive, exhaustive and critical distinction.
There first type of power, the compulsory power, comes as a result of interactions and relations of one actor over the other. The second power- institutional power- is an exercise of control by the main actors over the other actors through interrelated interactions. Thirdly, the structural power is as a result of structural relations between one actor and the other, but with close observation of the constitutional requirements. This type is kinder democratic and the most fundamental and most globally adopted power type. The productive power is the one that incorporates the concept of socially diffuse subjectivity production and the systems of signification, meaning and importance. These types of powers can be used to provide numerous answers to the fundamental question of how the actors can determine their fate and the limitations of their ability. This taxonomy has a number of merits to the scholars; it is logically systematic and explicit; it provides a sound network for integration; it gives a decisive advantage and; it doesn’t map these types of power according to specific international relations theories.
In conclusion, as much as there are four type of powers- the compulsory power, the institutional power, structural power and productive power- which are governed by the two chief dimensions, the structural power is the most fundamental since it equally minds the democratic rights of the main actors.