Balance of power

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This article or section needs to be revised. Details should be given on the talk page. Please help to improve it , and then remove this flag.

As a balance of power or balance of power ( English Balance of Power ) is in the international politics of Europe since the 17th century a political order of sovereign ( national ) States which, although another in permanent conflict, but by the fact that the weaker any time against the can unite the strongest of them, not wage unlimited war against one another. In addition to the balance of power, the exercise of power by a hegemon and power control through international treaties and institutions exist as a model for securing peace .

In the theory of international relations , the distribution of power among states is a central theme of neorealist interpretations .

history

According to Jacob Burckhardt, there was the first model of a balance of power between the Italian city republics of the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance . At the pan-European level, it gained acceptance in the early modern period , when sovereign territorial states emerged after the confessional wars. The concept of the balance of power displaced universalist theories such as the claim to world domination of the Pope or the imperial idea . The period between the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 and the outbreak of the French Revolution is considered the high phase of classical equilibrium thinking . It prevailed permanently in 1713 after the War of the Spanish Succession , when an alliance led by England thwarted France's claim to hegemony. It is true that peacekeeping was poor, because in the years up to 1790 the great European powers fought each other in 16 wars. In the subsequent peace agreement, compensations were often carried out, which were carried out without regard to the interests of third parties or the affected population. Overall, the European state system remained stable until the outbreak of the French Revolution , partly because there were no ideological contradictions. From this period, the term "balance of power" comes ( Engl. Balance of power ): 1741, British Prime Minister featured Robert Walpole thus be political concept in relation to the European continent.

After the hegemony established by the French Empire under Napoleon I had been smashed, a new balance of power was installed at the Congress of Vienna in 1815/15, which fixed the borders in Europe for a period of several decades. The concept of equilibrium between the great powers Russia , the United Kingdom , Austria , Prussia and France is called a “European concert” . It represented an attempt to agree the principles of a community of states and a balance of power in order to maintain peace in Europe . The international community was based on the idea of independent and equal states, the status quo and its equilibrium should be maintained by coordinated actions of these five great powers. To this end, they cooperated in four monarchical congresses from 1818 to 1822 in combating revolutionary activities in Europe and in resolving or combating international conflicts. The scope of this congress diplomacy was limited, however, since joint action always found its limit in the willingness to act of the most cautious among them.

In the concert of the great powers Great Britain was the only world power through the possession of its colonies . On the continent, however, he faced four great powers, and each of them was superior to Great Britain on land. Britain therefore tried to keep the mainland powers in a state of equilibrium so that they would block each other and Britain would retain its freedom of action overseas. This policy was successful until, in the late 19th century, Germany became dominant on the continent and no longer allowed itself to be integrated into the island nation's equilibrium policy. Germany pushed the construction of battle fleets, Great Britain also rearmed itself and was forced to enter into alliances. It concluded the Entente cordiale with France in 1904 and settled with Russia in the Treaty of Saint Petersburg in 1907 . Great Britain had thus joined the Russian-French power bloc. This power bloc came into being in 1892 when France signed a military convention with Russia after Bismarck had opted for an alliance with Austria-Hungary in the Russian-Austrian conflict over the Balkans . This resulted in two solid blocs in which the major continental powers were connected in pairs (France with Russia; German Empire with Austria-Hungary). Smaller powers grouped around these blocks. In this way, a classic equilibrium situation was established on the continent. Britain had tried not to join either of the blocs. In view of Germany's world power politics, however, it joined the Russian-French alliance. The balance of power between the power blocs developed to the disadvantage of Germany and Austria-Hungary, with the Triple Entente facing him. When the First World War began, all five great powers were at war with one another within a few days. The mechanisms for crisis resolution that Congress diplomacy had developed over decades collapsed completely.

After the World War, the League of Nations founded at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919 replaced the concept of balance of power with a system of collective security .

Neorealistic perspectives

Kenneth Waltz , the founder of neorealism, presented international relations systemically, consisting of a structure and the individual states as "interacting units". His Balance-of-Power (BOP) theory states that states are actors in a structure in which anarchy rules due to the absence of central power (world government). This forces the states to act focused on security and power (help yourself principle). After all, the highest national goal is one's own survival. States are rational actors guided by interests with different powers. State security policy is supposed to guarantee its own power, and in this theory it is raised to the most urgent task of states. In this context, not only the military strength but also the economic power of a state play an important role. If there are power imbalances, states, according to Waltz, tend to balance them out. You can do this through your own armament or through the formation of alliances. Waltz believes that a bipolar structure, as it was clearly evident in the East-West conflict, is the best because it is most likely to keep peace.

Stephen M. Walt put the balance of power theory on a new basis and spoke of the “balance of threat ” because not all states enter into balancing activities, but only towards those who fear them. For example, during the Cold War , the Western European states tried to maintain a balance against the Warsaw Pact , but they did not perceive each other as threatening (and therefore not “worthy of compensation”).

John J. Mearsheimer tried to re-establish the balance of power theory after the end of the East-West conflict because (neo) realism could not predict or explain the end of the Cold War. Mearsheimer sees himself as an "offensive realist", i. that is, he believes that states not only pursue balancing activities, but often also have to be aggressive in order to ensure their survival. In contrast, he described Waltz as a "defensive realist" who sees the survival of states only ensured through balancing . Mearsheimer is considered a relatively aggressive theoretician who strongly criticizes other theories (neoliberalism, constructivism, etc.) and today v. a. warns of an emerging China .

See also

literature

  • Michael Sheehan: The Balance of Power. History and Theory . London / New York 1996, ISBN 0-415-11931-6 .
  • Arno Strohmeyer : balance of forces. In: Friedrich Jaeger (Ed.): Encyclopedia of Modern Times. Volume 4: Peace - Manor. Stuttgart / Weimar 2006, ISBN 3-476-01994-2 , pp. 925-931.
  • Kenneth N. Waltz: Theory of International Politics . Random House, New York 1979.
  • John J. Mearsheimer: The Tragedy of Great Power Politics . WW Norton, New York 2001.
  • Stephen M. Walt: The Origins of Alliances . Cornell University Press, Ithaca 1987.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Hans-Peter Nissen, Gerda Haufe, Rainer-Olaf Schultze: Balance. In: Dieter Nohlen (Ed.): Lexicon of Politics. Volume 1: Political Theories. Directmedia, Berlin 2004, p. 159.
  2. ^ Wichard Woyke : International Security. In: the same (Hrsg.): Hand Wortbuch Internationale Politik. 6th edition. Leske + Budrich, Opladen 1995, p. 196.
  3. ^ Bard Thompson: Humanists and Reformers. A History of the Renaissance and Reformation . William B. Eerdmans, Grand Rapids / Cambridge 1996, p. 293.
  4. ↑ Hans-Peter Nissen, Gerda Haufe, Rainer-Olaf Schultze: Balance. In: Dieter Nohlen (Ed.): Lexicon of Politics. Volume 1: Political Theories. Directmedia, Berlin 2004, p. 159.
  5. ^ Karl Otmar Freiherr von Aretin : Exchange, division and country chatters as consequences of the equilibrium system of the European great powers. The Polish partitions as a European fate. In: Yearbook for the history of Central and Eastern Germany. 30, 1981, pp. 53-68; Michael Hundt: Peace and International Order in the Age of the French Revolution and Napoleon I (1789–1815). In: Bernd Wegner : How wars end: Paths to peace from antiquity to the present (=  war in history . Volume 14). Schöningh, Paderborn 2002, p. 123 f.
  6. ↑ Günter Barudio : The Age of Absolutism and the Enlightenment 1648-1779 (=  Fischer world history . Volume 25). Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1981, p. 357.
  7. ↑ Hans-Peter Nissen, Gerda Haufe, Rainer-Olaf Schultze: Balance. In: Dieter Nohlen (Ed.): Lexicon of Politics. Volume 1: Political Theories. Directmedia, Berlin 2004, p. 159; Elisabeth Fehrenbach : From the Ancien Régime to the Congress of Vienna (=  Oldenbourg outline of history . Volume 12). 3rd edition, Oldenbourg, Munich 2014, ISBN 978-3-486-82068-3 , pp. 124-131 (accessed via De Gruyter Online).
  8. ^ Wichard Woyke: International Security. In: the same (Hrsg.): Hand Wortbuch Internationale Politik. 6th edition. Leske + Budrich, Opladen 1995, p. 196.
  9. ↑ Louis Bergeron , François Furet and Reinhart Koselleck : The Age of European Revolutions 1780–1848 (=  Fischer World History . Volume 26). Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1969, p. 220 ff .; Hans-Peter Nissen, Gerda Haufe, Rainer-Olaf Schultze: Balance. In: Dieter Nohlen (Ed.): Lexicon of Politics. Volume 1: Political Theories. Directmedia, Berlin 2004, p. 159.
  10. ^ Helmut Altrichter , Walther L. Bernecker : History of Europe in the 20th century . Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 2004, ISBN 3-17-013512-0 , p. 36 ff.
  11. ^ Wichard Woyke: International Security. In: the same (Hrsg.): Hand Wortbuch Internationale Politik. 6th edition. Leske + Budrich, Opladen 1995, p. 196.
  12. ↑ Niklas Schörnig: Neorealism. In: Siegfried Schieder, Manuela Spindler (ed.): Theories of International Relations. Leske + Budrich, Opladen 2003, pp. 61-88.
  13. ↑ Kenneth N. Waltz: Theory of International Politics. Random House, New York 1979. Chapters 1 and 4–6 are especially important for Waltz's understanding of theory.