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Polarity after 1990, a Historical Comparison

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Polarity, Balance of Power and International Relations Theory

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Abstract

Our historical comparison shows that both the nineteenth century and the period after 1990 are difficult to describe in a polarity framework. Yet, many neorealists call the post-Cold War unipolar. This is due to the focus on material capabilities and military power, and excluding cluster polarity from the analysis. They also do not realize that during the nineteenth century there were substantial shifts in power distributions, without fixed cluster polarity. Neorealists claim that balancing became impossible after 1990, but forget that this did not happen against Britain during the nineteenth century. There definitely exists an American military unipolarity on the global level but this does not lead to a political or military dominance in regional systems.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Political Science, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium

    Goedele De Keersmaeker

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De Keersmaeker, G. (2017). Polarity after 1990, a Historical Comparison. In: Polarity, Balance of Power and International Relations Theory. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-42652-5_5

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