Abstract
This chapter explores the phenomenon of periodicity in the lifespans of the major world powers, to conceive its impact on their comportment. It draws on Kondratieff’s theory of long economic cycles, but differs from the latter in that it considers relative rather than absolute parameters of periodic development. Smolnikov examines what he dubs The Paradigm of Shrinking Pendulums, the phenomenon of relative power fading of the European great powers—France, Britain, and Russia . He shows how and expounds why each time after passing their full cycle, these nations enter their subsequent lifespans at lower relative power levels. As the current generation of great powers continues to decline, their hopes of sharing the burden of global securitization with the rising powers can prove illusory as the latter’s growing appetite for a more prestigious rank and status risks creating new spheres of tension and conflict in the cross-cutting areas of the descending and ascending powers’ influence.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
See John T. Burns, Cycles in Humans and Nature: An Annotated Bibliography (Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1994).
- 2.
Edward R. Dewey, Cycles: The Mysterious Forces That Trigger Events (New York: Hawthorn Books, 1971), 1–2.
- 3.
For a bibliography on the subject, see Kenneth Barr, “Long Waves: A Selective, Annotated Bibliography,” Review 2, no.4 (Spring 1979):675–718.
- 4.
See J.J. Van Duijn, The Long Wave in Economic Life (Boston: George Allen and Unwin, 1983).
- 5.
See Nikolai Kondratieff, “The Long Waves in Economic Life,” Review 2, no.4 (Spring 1979):519–562; Joseph A. Schumpeter, Business Cycles: A Theoretical, Historical and Statistical Analysis of the Capitalist Process, 2 vols. (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1939).
- 6.
An excellent summary and analysis of the core studies addressing the long cycles-war nexus is given in Joshua S. Goldstein, Long Cycles: Prosperity and War in the Modern Age (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1988).
- 7.
Oswald Spengler, The Decline of the West, Authorized translation with notes by Charles Francis Atkinson (New York: Alfred Knopf, 1926), 106.
- 8.
See Arnold J. Toynbee, A Study of History, 12 vols. (London and New York: Oxford University Press, 1934–1961).
- 9.
See, for example, Arnold J. Toynbee and D. C. Somervell, A Study of History (New York: Oxford University Press, 1947), 535, 578.
- 10.
Ibid., 574.
- 11.
George Modelski, “The Long Cycle of Global Politics and the Nation-State,” 214.
- 12.
Long cycles in the world system are different from power cycles of the major political units; the former denote periods of supremacy by a dominant power, and, according to Modelski, on average last 100 years (see ibid., 217). The latter refer to the timeframes within which a political agency can exercise leadership functions in the international structure (see Charles F. Doran, “Confronting the Principles of the Power Cycle: Changing Systems Structure, Expectations, and War,” in Handbook of War Studies II, ed. Manus I. Midlarsky (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2000), 332), and can last substantially longer: the Western Roman Empire, for example, existed for almost 500 years, its successor, the Eastern Roman Empire, the Byzantine, managed to survive for about a millennium, and the Ottoman Empire subsisted 600 years. The lifespans of France, Britain, and Russia as great powers have exceeded several centuries, and they continue to qualify for the title.
- 13.
In addition to George Modelski, “The Long Cycle of Global Politics and the Nation-State,” also see George Modelski, ed., Exploring Long Cycles (Boulder, Colo.: L. Rienner Publishers, 1987); George Modelski, Long Cycles in World Politics (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1987). On the critique of LCT of world politics see, for example, Henk W. Houweling and Jan G. Siccama, “Long Cycle Theory: A Further Discussion,” International Interactions 20, no.3 (November 1994):223–226.
- 14.
See George Modelski, William R. Thompson, Seapower in Global Politics, 1494–1993 (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1988).
- 15.
See George Modelski, William R. Thompson, Leading Sectors and World Powers: The Coevolution of Global Politics and Economics (Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 1996). Also see William R. Thompson, On Global War: Historical-Structural Approaches to World Politics (Columbia, S.C.: University of South Carolina Press, 1988); Paul M. Johnson and William R. Thompson (eds.) Rhythms in Politics and Economics (New York: Praeger, 1985); William R. Thompson, ed., Great Power Rivalries (Columbia, S.C.: University of South Carolina Press, 1999); Karen A. Rasler & William R. Thompson, The Great Powers and Global Struggle, 1490–1990 (Lexington, Ky.: University Press of Kentucky, 1994); William R. Thompson, ed., Contending Approaches to World System Analysis (Beverly Hills: Sage Publications, 1983); Jack S. Levy and William R. Thompson The Arc of War: Origins, Escalation, and Transformation (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2011).
- 16.
See George Modelski and William R. Thompson, Seapower and Global Politics, 1494–1993, 16.
- 17.
See Nathaniel Beck, “The Illusion of Cycles in International Relations,” International Studies Quarterly 35, no.4 (December 1991):455–476.
- 18.
See Gerald Silverberg, “Long Waves in Global Warfare and Maritime Hegemony? A Complex Systems Perspective,” in Kondratieff Waves, Warfare and World Security, ed. Tessalano C. Devezas (Amsterdam: IOS Press (2006), 154–164).
- 19.
George Modelski and William R. Thompson, Seapower and Global Politics, 1494–1993, 97.
- 20.
A. F. K. Organski, World Politics (New York: Knopf, 1958).
- 21.
A. F. K. Organski and Jacek Kugler, The War Ledger (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980). Also see Jacek Kugler and Douglas Lemke (eds.), Parity and War: Evaluations and Extensions of the War Ledger (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1996); Ronald Tammen, Jacek Kugler, and Douglas Lemke [et al.], Power Transitions: Strategies for the 21st Century (New York: Chatham House, 2000). On the critique of PTT, see, for instance, Peter Harris, “Problems with Power-Transition Theory: Beyond the Vanishing Disparities Thesis,” Asian Security 10, no.3 (September 2014):241–259; also Richard Ned Lebow and Benjamin Valentino, “Lost in Transition: A Critical Analysis of Power Transition Theory,” International Relations 23, no.3 (September 2009):389–410.
- 22.
John Bagot Glubb, The Fate of Empires and Search for Survival (Edinburgh: Blackwood, 1978), 22.
- 23.
William R. Thompson, The Emergence of the Global Political Economy (London: Routledge, 2000), 3–19.
- 24.
The term “Cardwell’s law” was dubbed by Joel Mokyr in Joel Mokyr, The Lever of Riches: Technological Creativity and Economic Progress (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990), 207, and refers to the phenomenon of periodicity in the technological development of nations as outlined by Donald Cardwell in Donald S. L. Cardwell, Turning Points in Western Technology: A Study of Technology, Science, and History (New York: Science History Publications, 1972).
- 25.
Charles P. Kindleberger, World Economic Primacy, 1500 to 1990 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), 25.
- 26.
See Charles F. Doran, Politics of Assimilation: Hegemony and Its Aftermath (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1971); Charles F. Doran, Systems in Crisis: New Imperatives of High Politics at Century’s End (Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991). Also, see Charles F. Doran and Wes Parsons, “War and the Cycle of Relative Power,” American Political Science Review 74, no.4 (December 1980):947–965; Charles F. Doran, “War and Power Dynamics: Economic Underpinnings,” International Studies Quarterly 27, no.4 (December 1983):419–441; Charles F. Doran, “Economics, Philosophy of History, and the “Single Dynamic” of Power Cycle Theory: Expectations, Competition, and Statecraft,” in “Power Cycle Theory and Global Politics,” special issue, International Political Science Review 24, no.1 (January 2003):13–49; Charles F. Doran, “Power Cycle Theory and the Contemporary State System.” In Contending Approaches to World System Analysis, ed. William R. Thompson (Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Publications, 1983).
- 27.
Charles F. Doran, “Confronting the Principles of the Power Cycle: Changing Systems Structure, Expectations, and War,” In Handbook of War Studies II, ed. Manus I. Midlarsky (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2000), 332.
- 28.
See Ibid., 365.
- 29.
On the prospects of Russia ’s economic development see John P. Hardt and Robert F. Bennett, Russia’s Uncertain Economic Future (New York: M.E. Sharpe, 2003); Olga Oliker and Tanya Charlick-Paley, Assessing Russia’s Decline. Trends and Implications for the United States and the U.S. Air Force (Santa Monica: RAND, 2002).
- 30.
Jim Penman, Biohistory: The Decline and Fall of the West (Newcastle upon Tyne (UK): Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2015), 14. For a traditional account of British decline in power, see Peter Clarke and Clive Trebilcock, Understanding Decline: Perceptions and Realities of British Economic Performance (Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997).
- 31.
Paul Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of Great Powers (New York: Vintage Books, 1987), 153–154.
- 32.
On the subject of French power decline see, for example, Alain Chaffel, Le déclin français: mythe ou réalité ? (Paris: Bréal, 2013); Nicolas Baverez, La France qui tombe: Un constat clinique du déclin français (Paris: Perrin, 2003); Maurice Vaïsse. La puissance ou l’influence? la France dans le monde depuis 1958 (Paris: Fayard, 2009).
- 33.
François Crouzet, “French Economic Growth in the Nineteenth Century Reconsidered,” History 59, no.196 (February 1974):167–179. Also, see François Crouzet, A History of the European Economy, 1000–2000 (Charlottesville, VA: University Press of Virginia, 2001).
- 34.
See, for example, Noah Smith, “China’s Economy Is Worse Than You Think,” Bloomberg, November 3, 2015. Available at: https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2015-11-03/china-s-slump-might-be-much-worse-than-we-thought.
- 35.
Reuters, December 6, 2010. Available at: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-economy-wikileaks-idUSTRE6B527D20101206.
- 36.
Stefano Guzzini, Power, Realism and Constructivism (New York: Routledge, 2013), 8.
- 37.
Samuel P. Huntington, “Why International Primacy Matters,” International Security 17, no.4 (Spring 1993):68.
- 38.
On an interesting discussion of the distinctions among primacy, hegemony, and empire see, for instance, Hall Gardner, “World Hegemony and Its Aftermath,” Sens Public, 28 février 2005. Available at: http://www.sens-public.org/article119.html?lang=fr.
- 39.
Max Weber, Economy and Society, 946.
- 40.
Some analysts, like Mackubin Owens, contrarily, view the Bush Doctrine of interventionist unilateralism, purportedly “based on the intersection of hegemonic stability theory and the theory of the democratic peace,” as an embodiment of “benevolent primacy.” Mackubin Thomas Owens, “The Bush Doctrine: The Foreign Policy of Republican Empire,” Orbis (Winter 2009):26–27.
- 41.
Richard N. Haass, “Pondering Primacy,” Georgetown Journal of International Affairs 4, no.2 (Summer 2003):91.
- 42.
See H. Andrew Michener, Edward J. Lawler, and Samuel B. Bacharach, “Perception of Power in Conflict Situations,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 28, no.2 (November 1973):155–162.
- 43.
See, for example, A. F. K. Organski and Jacek Kugler, The War Ledger (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980), 211.
- 44.
Quoted in Geoffrey Jukes, The Russo-Japanese War 1904–1905 (Oxford: Osprey Publishing 2002), 21.
- 45.
Julian Stafford Corbett, Maritime Operations in the Russo-Japanese war: 1904–1905, v. 1 (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1994).
- 46.
Contrary to the initial Japanese demands the Treaty did not impose reparations on Russia , and allowed her to maintain sovereignty over the northern (and the largest) part of the island of Sakhalin. See: The Treaty of Portsmouth, 1905—September 5, 1905. Available at: http://wwi.lib.byu.edu/index.php/Treaty_of_Portsmouth.
- 47.
The Treaty of Nanjing (Nanking), signed on August 29, 1842, laid down the tenets of UK-China relations on British terms. In “putting an end to the misunderstandings and consequent hostilities which have arisen between the two countries,” the Chinese government, in accordance with the Treaty, agreed to pay the British Crown $21 million, ceded their sovereignty over the island of Hong Kong in favor of the United Kingdom, and permitted the British subjects “to carry on their mercantile transactions with whatever persons they please [in China].” “Text of the Treaty of Nanking,” in China Trade and Empire: Jardine, Matheson & Co. and the Origins of British Rule in Hong Kong, 1827–1843, ed. Alain Le Pichon (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 572–575. In China, this and similar agreements with the Western powers are known as “unequal treaties.” Note that China then failed to convert her numeric economic preponderance over the West into a superior bargaining leverage. On the “unequal treaties” in China’s perspective, see Dong Wang, China’s Unequal Treaties: Narrating National History (Oxford: Lexington Books, 2005). For an explanation of the causes behind Imperial China’s power inferiority in comparison with the West, in particular in the military realm, see C.J. Peers, Late Imperial Chinese Armies 1520–1840 (Oxford: Osprey Publishing, 1997).
- 48.
See, for instance, World Economic Forum, “The Inclusive Growth and Development Report 2017,” Geneva: World Economic Forum, January 2017, 8–10.
- 49.
European Commission, Global Europe 2050 (Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union), 14–15.
- 50.
Calculated on the basis of data presented in Jean Fouré, Agnès Bénassy-Quéré & Lionel Fontagné, “The Great Shift: Macroeconomic Projections for the World Economy at the 2050 Horizon,” CEPII Working Paper 2012 – 03, February 10, 2012, 63. Available at http://www.cepii.fr.
- 51.
Ibid.
- 52.
Ibid.
- 53.
Much would depend, of course, on how big a gap between an advanced but smaller A and a less developed but larger B is in terms of their relative levels of fighting power as at a certain point A’s advantages in qualitative superiority can be nullified by B’s inferior but larger numbers.
- 54.
See Asian Development Bank, Asia 2050: Realizing the Asian Century (Manila: Asian Development Bank, 2011).
- 55.
The term “Middle-Income Trap” was coined by a team of economists from the World Bank led by Indermit Gill and Homi Kharas. (See Indermit Gill and Homi Kharas; together with Deepak Bhattasali … [et al.], An East Asian Renaissance: Ideas for Economic Growth (Washington: The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/The World Bank, 2007), 17–18).
- 56.
See Ibid.
- 57.
Homi Kharas and Harinder Kohli, “What Is the Middle Income Trap, Why Do Countries Fall into It, and How Can It Be Avoided?” Global Journal of Emerging Market Economies 3, no.3 (September 2011):282. MIT is defined as an inability to “converge,” that is, overcome a threshold of $20,000 GDP PPP per capita. See Harpaul Alberto Kohli, Y. Aaron Szyf, and Drew Arnold, “Construction and Analysis of a Global GDP Growth Model for 185 Countries through 2050,” Global Journal of Emerging Market Economies 4, no.2 (May 2012):115. Also, see Huang Yiping, “Can China Escape the Middle-Income Trap?” China Economic Journal 9, no.1 (January 2016):17–33; Anders C. Johansson and Xiaobo Zhang, “Inequality, Growth and the Middle-Income Trap in China: Editorial,” China Economic Review 31 (2014):365–366; Huang Yiping, Gou Qin, and Wang Xun, “Financial Liberalization and the Middle-Income Trap: What Can China Learn from the Cross-Country Experience?” China Economic Review 31 (2014):426–440; Randall Peerenboom, “China and the Middle-Income Trap: Toward a Post Washington, Post Beijing Consensus,” The Pacific Review 27, no.5 (October 2014):651–673; Derong Zhang, “The Mechanism of the Middle Income Trap and the Potential Factors Influencing China’s Economic Growth,” Frontiers of Economics in China 9, no.3 (2014):499–528.
- 58.
Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson, Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity and Poverty (New York: Crown Business, 2012), 429–430.
- 59.
Jean Bodin, Six Books of the Commonwealth, translated by M. J. Tooley (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1955), Book V, Ch. V, 168 cited by Kenneth N. Waltz in Man, the State, and War: A Theoretical Analysis (New York: Columbia University Press, 2001), 81.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2018 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Smolnikov, S. (2018). Power Periodicity. In: Great Power Conduct and Credibility in World Politics. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-71885-9_4
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-71885-9_4
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-71884-2
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-71885-9
eBook Packages: Political Science and International StudiesPolitical Science and International Studies (R0)