Abstract
In the last decade, policy-makers, the media and academic research have been increasingly discussing the new role of emerging powers in the world economy and in global governance. Countries such as Brazil, China, India and South Africa as well as Germany, Japan and Russia have been assigned a greater influence in economic as well as political matters in their regions and in world politics. Often labelled as ‘regional powers’, ‘middle powers’ or ‘would-be great powers’ (Hurrell 2006; Nolte 2006), ‘uncertain powers’ (Maull 2006: 281), and ‘new titans’ (The Economist 2006), these countries are today widely perceived as pivotal states in international relations. The reasons for the assignment of a new role and often of increased power to these states are their demographic and geographic size, their economic and military capacities and their political aspirations. The countries defined here under the rubric of ‘emerging powers’ dominate their neighbours in terms of power over resources, that is, population, territory, military capacity and gross domestic product. In addition, they articulate a wish to change the distribution of power in the international system and to assume leadership roles in global governance.
This chapter first appeared in: European Journal of International Relations: Vol. 16, No. 2.
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Acknowledgements
An earlier version of this article was presented at the ECPR Joint Session Workshop on ‘The Rise of (New) Regional Powers in Global and Regional Politics’, European Consortium for Political Research, Helsinki, 7–12 May 2007. I am grateful to Hanns Maull, Alfredo Valladão, Laura Carsten, the participants of the ECPR workshop and to the anonymous reviewers for valuable comments.
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Schirm, S.A. (2012). Leaders in Need of Followers: Emerging Powers in Global Governance. In: Fels, E., Kremer, JF., Kronenberg, K. (eds) Power in the 21st Century. Global Power Shift. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-25082-8_12
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