Afin d’expliquer comment la mondialisation reconstruit les politiques publiques et les comportements sociaux nous étudions les échanges et interactions entre les acteurs politiques, économiques et sociaux -publics et privés, individuels et collectifs- et la façon dont ils redessinent les relations internationales. Ce cours prend sa source dans les approches sociologique et historique françaises des relations internationales. This course is also available in english version: www.coursera.org/learn/global-studies
La faiblesse des indicateurs
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Espace mondial, une vision française des global studies
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De la lección
La puissance
La puissance a-t-elle encore un sens et une efficacité ?
Conoce a los instructores
Bertrand BadieProfessor
Marie-Françoise DurandProfessor
And now how to measure power?
This is a very crucial and important question
in our studies, that’s to say
if the concept of power is so important,
is the cornerstone of the international order,
we must measure, we must have
a very precise measure of the power,
and, if it is possible, we have to try to set up
a kind of hierarchy of powers,
or a hierarchy of states
according to their own power.
But how to classify?
That is a very difficult question
and a dissensual vision
of the international relations.
Can we really define
an objective measure of power?
Well, the easiest way will be to say
that the power holder is the winner.
We have to observe
the international competition
and to decide that the winner
is reputed to be the most powerful.
But is it so clear by now?
When we observe for instance
that wars are no more won by the players,
by the actors, who are participating in,
that is a very tough question,
that now there is no more clear victory
in the contemporary wars.
So it’s difficult to use this kind of measure.
Other problem:
do we consider factors or markers of power?
A factor of power is reputed
to be a cause of power,
a marker of power is reputed to give us
a measure without deciding of the cause.
The problem is not so easy to solve, previously,
all the observers had the same indicator,
that’s to say the military capacity.
In the westphalian world,
the competition was at his pick
when the states were in war,
and so their military capacity
was supposed to give
an exact vision of their power.
That’s why many analysts use military expanses
as a good measure of power,
and if we follow this vision,
it is quite clear for instance that US
is the most powerful state,
as we know that US covers
about 43% of the world military expanses.
And all the other competing states
are very far behind this first rank,
which is clearly occupied by US.
But the question now is:
what is the exact power capacity
of military instrument?
Is military instrument deciding
the rank of power by now,
when for instance we observe
that the most powerful state, US superpower,
was defeated in Vietnam
by a weaker competitor,
when we observe that in Iraq,
in Afghanistan, in Somalia,
the US military power
was not able to lead to a clear victory?
And the second problem
is that military expanses are depending
on the economic capacity of a state,
and so, we can easily turn,
move to another vision,
which is considering
that the real basis of power
is not military power but economic power,
because without economic power,
there is no possible military power.
So economic power can be considered
as the substitute to the military power,
and that’s why for instance,
when you take into account
the hierarchy of military expanses,
some very rich countries
like Saudi Arabia or Oman
are situated in the top of the hierarchy.
But now, if we consider economic power,
what does it mean?
Generally, we use a very famous indicator,
which is the GNP, the gross national product.
And in this GNP, it’s quite clear
that US is the first,
with about as you know something like
17 000 billion of US dollars,
and China is now clearly located
at the second rank,
Japan at the third, Germany
at the fourth and so on.
But we know that GNP
is not a very clear indicator,
and the first question is:
what about the capacity of a GNP?
That’s why people included a second variable,
which is the purchasing power parity,
as it is quite clear that with
one dollar in US and one dollar in China,
we cannot do the same things,
and so the capacity of one dollar
in different countries is not the same.
So, can we redefine the GNP
only by this correction?
And this is opening another question,
if we take into account the economic power
we have to differentiate between
financial power and commercial power,
and this is another introduction to power
in our contemporary world.
If we take into account for instance
commercial power,
European Union is the first
and US is the second,
but both US and European Union
are clearly and directly challenged
by Chinese commercial power
and the distribution of powers is then different.
If now we take into account
another possible indicator,
which would be the technological power,
technological power is measured,
is currently measured
by the number of researchers
by inhabitants in every country,
and the distinction, and the distribution,
the hierarchy of powers will be different.
Japan has for instance
a number of researchers by inhabitants
which is more important than US
and especially European Union,
that’s why we have then
another classified order.
If now we move to other indicators,
we have different and new results,
for instance demography.
What is the power capacity
of a strong demography
when we know for instance
that the increasing demography of Africa
is giving a role to Africa,
which will be quite different
within 20-30 years than it is now?
What is the real capacity of demography
for restructuring and reshaping
the classification of power in the world?
For instance for setting
as permanent members of Security Council,
many countries pretend to take into account
the number of their inhabitants
and Pakistan, with more than 160 million
of people considers that, as such,
it must be hold as a power,
the same for Nigeria in Africa,
the same for Brazil in Latin America and so on.
And what about territorial capacity?
That’s to say is a huge,
a very vast territory able to create a power?
Russia was considered as powerful
because it had a very huge territory,
and then after, Susan Strange pointed
how that maybe the dimension,
the size of territory is an handicap,
an obstacle to power
rather than its easing power.
Now we consider for instance
that some very poor countries
have very huge territory,
like the Democratic Republic of Congo in Africa,
or Sudan in Africa and so on,
so the capacity of this indicator is really blurred.
Now we have to take into account new visions
and so new indicators of power
which were not used previously,
but which are more and more considered
in our present global world:
cultural capacity, that’s to say
the capacity to use its own cultural resources
for playing a role inside the international arena.
The role of for instance the English language
as a vector of power,
but we have also to take into account
religious resources of power.
Religion is more and more considered
as an active factor,
as an active resource of power,
Saudi Arabia, Iran, for instance
use there own religious specificity
as a factor of power
and as a very fruitful resource of power.
But in our new communicating world,
networks are also a resource of power,
and if the state or non state actors
are able to mobilize
very active transnational networks,
they have in their hands a real capacity of power,
which is challenging the classical vision of power.
If you observe the present international arena,
is military power able to contain
and balance religious power?
We can then imagine that there is something new
we have to use as an amendment
to the traditional IR theory,
that’s why power is not so clear
as it was or as it appears to be.
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