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4 On Power (2017)

Abstract

An invitation to speak on soft power afforded the author another opportunity to revisit an early interest—in this case power, a concept central to politics—and link it to causation as one of this volume’s central concerns. That the term soft lends power metaphorical power helps to explain the enormous success of Joseph Nye’s compelling formula; Nye himself joined many other scholars in discussing power in causal terms. Weight and balance as correlative metaphors point to the Scientific Revolution as the moment in which a proximate sense of cause suffuses social thought and dominates relations of ‘the great powers’ after the Westphalian settlement in 1648. Lost is an Aristotelian sensibility linking cause to purpose. So is an appreciation of human powers, only now subject to revival, and finally an adequate accounting of agency and its metaphorical cognates.

Abstract

An invitation to speak on soft power afforded the author another opportunity to revisit an early interest—in this case power, a concept central to politics—and link it to causation as one of this volume’s central concerns. That the term soft lends power metaphorical power helps to explain the enormous success of Joseph Nye’s compelling formula; Nye himself joined many other scholars in discussing power in causal terms. Weight and balance as correlative metaphors point to the Scientific Revolution as the moment in which a proximate sense of cause suffuses social thought and dominates relations of ‘the great powers’ after the Westphalian settlement in 1648. Lost is an Aristotelian sensibility linking cause to purpose. So is an appreciation of human powers, only now subject to revival, and finally an adequate accounting of agency and its metaphorical cognates.

Chapters in this book

  1. Front Matter i
  2. Contents vii
  3. Acknowledgements viii
  4. Introduction 1
  5. Politics: Deciding What Matters
  6. Comparative International Politics (1982) 27
  7. Prometheus Prostrate (1984) 43
  8. Centre–Periphery Relations (2017) 58
  9. On Power (2017) 73
  10. Ethics: Doing What We Should
  11. Rules for Torture? (2009) 93
  12. The Ambiguous Modernism of Seyla Benhabib (2009) 109
  13. Relative Strangers (2013) 122
  14. Ethical Systems (2016) 147
  15. Semantics: Saying What We See
  16. Writing Large (2000) 167
  17. Intertextual Relations (2009) 183
  18. World-making, State-building (2014) 193
  19. What We Do (2018) 213
  20. The Dinosaur Speaks! (2018) 230
  21. Afterword 236
  22. References 243
  23. Index of Names 263
  24. Index of Concepts 266
International Theory at the Margins
This chapter is in the book International Theory at the Margins
https://doi.org/10.56687/9781529229844-006

Chapters in this book

  1. Front Matter i
  2. Contents vii
  3. Acknowledgements viii
  4. Introduction 1
  5. Politics: Deciding What Matters
  6. Comparative International Politics (1982) 27
  7. Prometheus Prostrate (1984) 43
  8. Centre–Periphery Relations (2017) 58
  9. On Power (2017) 73
  10. Ethics: Doing What We Should
  11. Rules for Torture? (2009) 93
  12. The Ambiguous Modernism of Seyla Benhabib (2009) 109
  13. Relative Strangers (2013) 122
  14. Ethical Systems (2016) 147
  15. Semantics: Saying What We See
  16. Writing Large (2000) 167
  17. Intertextual Relations (2009) 183
  18. World-making, State-building (2014) 193
  19. What We Do (2018) 213
  20. The Dinosaur Speaks! (2018) 230
  21. Afterword 236
  22. References 243
  23. Index of Names 263
  24. Index of Concepts 266
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