It is not useful to think of the contemporary international system as unipolar. Although there is widespread agreement among IR scholars and policymakers that the United States is the sole superpower and has been since the end of the Cold War, it is not analytically useful to focus IR analysis on the polarity debate.
Realists are the only ones who take polarity seriously.
- Balance of power is a response to polarity. States will balance and bandwagon to offset and provide a countervailing force to any rising or dominant power.
- Within theories of polarity, different concepts and mechanisms emerge
o Hegemonic stability theory says that it is possible for a hegemon to be an enforcer of a stable system, as long as growth is symmetrical. Therefore, a unipolar system can lead to peace (Gilpin)
o Balance of power theory states that all power amassed inherently presents an existential threat that must be matched.
- but even realist theories of polarity often contain a domestic level variable
o balance of threat (Walt)
o Schweller (capability of a state to balance)
o Glaser (type of state, greedy, revisionist)
- this shows that the structural variable of polarity alone cannot determine international behavior
- Additionally, there is disagreement on whether the unipolar status of the US has spawned any international reactions of consequence and whether the primacy of the US is stable
o Primacists v realists (Wohlforth, Layne, Pape)
o Hard to know if balancing is occurring (Lieber and Alexander)
- Among realists, the significance of polarity is under debate
- Mearsheimer predicted that post cold war the world would change and the US would face many challenges. It did not happen.
At the very least, it is polarity PLUS domestic level variables that matters.
Two major schools of IR theory—Liberalism and constructivism-- don’t rely on the polarity variable to describe, explain, and predict international behavior.
- Liberals look at domestic considerations, institutions, public opinion, democratic peace, institutional involvement, etc. to explain international behavior and war and peace
- Constructivists aren’t as involved in alliance patterns or systemic variables such as polarity.
o When they are, constructivist analysis shows that states balance and bandwagon based on socialization, common lifeworlds, and legitimacy rather than countervailing against power.
Realists who champion the importance of the polarity variable, were completely wrong in predicting the state of the modern world. A change in polarity (end of the Cold War) did not change much in terms of alliance or state behavior (NATO continued to enlarge)
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