Abstract
The question of national power remains a subject of controversy and debate in International Relations. At the theoretical level, the challenge lies in its definition, constitutive dimensions, and considered variables; at a technical level, the issue is its measurement. For us, a state’s national-international power is the result of a multidimensional, dynamic, and recursive combination of its capabilities, expressed at a specific historical moment within the development of the international system. These capabilities are categorized into three main groups: 1) material capabilities, 2) semimaterial capabilities, and 3) immaterial capabilities, forming the basis of three types of power: material, semimaterial, and immaterial. Drawing from the theoretical postulates of key paradigms in International Relations, this chapter presents a proposal for studying states’ national power.
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Notes
- 1.
Organski presents the determinants of national power in the following way: “Size of territory, topography, geographical location, climate, the possession of natural resources, population size, age structure of the population, rate of population growth, industrial development, urbanization, education, geographic and social mobility among the population, family structure, intellectual attitudes toward innovation, religious beliefs, political structure, skill in diplomacy and propaganda, military strength, military and civilian morale, and political ideology” (Organski, 1958, 184). To consider an element as a determinant of power, it must increase a nation’s ability to influence the behavior of others.
- 2.
Rosa Luxemburg, John Hobson, Jacques Valier, Vladimir Lenin, Richard Wolf, Paul Baran, and Paul Sweezy, among others.
- 3.
It had as main authors Raúl Prebisch, Theotonio Dos Santos, Fernando Henrique Cardoso, Enzo Faletto, Ruy Mauro Marini, Aldo Ferrer, Celso Furtado, Samir Amin, Helio Jaguaribe, Osvaldo Sunkel, Pedro Paz, Vania Bambirra, Octavio Rodríguez, and Aníbal Pinto.
- 4.
This approach was enriched with the ideas of Giovanni Arrighi, Jessica Drangel, Christopher Chase-Dunn, Arghiri Emmanuel, Peter Taylor, Colin Flint, Terence Hopkins, Kees Terlouw, Ben Deurdder, José Mauricio Domingues, Carlos Antonio Aguirre, and Peter Wilkin.
- 5.
Andre Gunder Frank, Barry Gills, Janet Abu-Lughod, David Wilkinson, and others share “the project to build an alternative to the world-system theory presented by Wallerstein” (Gills, 2013, 30) through what they have named as world systems theory (without a hyphen). Immanuel Wallerstein, for his part, has responded to his critics in “Système mondial contre système-monde: le dérapage conceptuel de Frank” (Wallerstein, 1990). Despite the differences, both theories share a Marxist epistemological base and a materialist view of history, while also revisiting the center-periphery model formulated by the dependentistas. Therefore, an open and flexible reading can elucidate more complementarities than divergences between the theory of the world-system and the theory of the worlds systems.
- 6.
Edgardo Lander, Walter Mignolo, Enrique Dussel, Ramón Grosfoguel, and Arturo Escobar, among others.
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Rocha Valencia, A., Morales Ruvalcaba, D. (2024). The National–International Power of the States: A Trans-Structural Proposal. In: Morales Ruvalcaba, D., Rocha Valencia, A. (eds) National Power and International Geostructure. Contributions to International Relations. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-97-1180-2_2
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