Balance Of Power Political,

Balance of Power: Political perceived by both as covering the world as a whole. The smallest power advantage obtained by the one had to be compensated by the other. In the post Cold War world regional balances became more important. In South East Asia, for example, the members of ASEAN had transformed their economic cooperation in a security alliance directed to what they saw as the hegemonic ambitions of Vietnam, demonstrated by Vietnam’s intervention and occupation of Cambodia. Recently Vietnam joined ASEAN because of an unspoken common interest in balancing China’s possible bid for hegemony in the region. American foreign policy has been constantly concerned with regional balances of power, in Europe, but also in East Asia and the Middle East.

6. Conclusion: A Permanent Feature of International Politics? Since the Congress of Vienna all attempts to create an international order were based on an extension of balance of power policy. The exception was the League of Nations. But its impotence can be explained by the neglect of balance of power considerations and overestimation of the effectiveness of the all against one requirement of punishing an aggressor, especially if that were a Great Power. After 1991, the United States was the only global Great Power left. It is not likely that it will remain so indefinitely. Potential challengers, such as China or the European Union, are already there, even though still much too weak. Will balance of power policy become relevant again in the future? As long as a monopoly of violence at the international level does not come into being, balance of power policy may well remain relevant. See also: First World War, The; International Law and Treaties; International Organization; International Relations, History of; Military History; Peacemaking in History; Second World War, The; Warfare in History

Bibliography Carr E H 1946 The Twenty Years’ Crisis 1919–1939. Macmillan, London Elias N 1982 The Ci
ilising Process, Vol. II: State Formation and Ci
ilization. Basil Blackwell, Oxford Gulick E V 1955 Europe’s Classical Balance of Power: A Case History of One of the Great Concepts of European Statecraft. Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY Kant I 1957 Perpetual Peace. Bobbs Merril, New York Kautilya 1992 The Arthasastra. Rangarajan L N (ed.) Penguin Books, New Delhi, India Kissinger H A 1957 A World Restored: Metternich, Castlereagh and the Problems of Peace. Houghton Mifflin, Boston, MA

Meinecke F 1929 Die Idee der Staatsraison in der neueren Geschichte. Oldenbourg, Munich, Germany Nicholson H 1947 The Congress of Vienna. Phoenix Publishing, Bern, Switzerland van Benthem van den Bergh G 1992 The Nuclear Re
olution and the End of the Cold War: Forced Restraint. Macmillan, Houndmills, Basingstoke, UK Vincent R J, Wright M (eds.) Special issue on the balance of power. Re
iew of International Studies 15(2) Watson A 1992 The E
olution of International Society: A Comparati
e Historical Analysis. Routledge, London Wedgwood C V 1963 The Thirty Years War. Routledge, London

G. van Benthem van den Bergh

Balance of Power: Political As Kenneth Waltz has noted, ‘If there is any distinctively political theory of international politics, balance-of-power theory is it. And yet one cannot find a statement of the theory that is generally accepted’ (Waltz 1979, p. 117; for surveys of the meaning of balance of power see Claude 1962, Haas 1953, Wight 1968, 1973). But cutting through the welter of possible meanings and making a few simple and undemanding assumptions leads to a conception that explains a number of outcomes which, while familiar, cannot otherwise be readily explained: no state has come to dominate the international system; few wars are total; losers rarely are divided up at the end of the war and indeed are reintegrated into the international system; small states, who do not have the resources to protect themselves, usually survive. There is then a form of stability in international politics. Although the fates of individual units rise and fall, states and much of the pattern of their interaction remain. The system is never transformed from an anarchical into a hierarchical one. (Note that this says nothing about whether wars are more likely when power is evenly distributed among the units or whether one state, although not dominant, is clearly stonger than the others (Kugler and Lemke 1996). Although those engaged in this debate often frame it in terms of balance of power, in fact the question is quite a separate one.) The outcomes will follow if four assumptions hold. First, there must be several independent units. Second, the units must want to survive. They can seek to expand and indeed many usually will, but at minimum they must want to maintain their independence. Third, any unit must be willing to ally with any other on the basis of calculations of interest, which means that ideology and hatreds must not be strong enough to prevent actors from working together when it is necessary for them to do so. Fourth, war must be a viable tool of statecraft. Under these conditions, the 1039

Balance of Power: Political system will be preserved even as states press every advantage, pay no attention to the common good, adopt ruthless tactics, and expect others to behave the same way. Put differently, states do not strive for balance; the restraints are not internal in the sense of each state believing that it should be restrained. Rather, restraint and stability arise as ambition checks ambition and self-interest counteracts self-interest. The basic argument about how this happens is well known, if contested. For any state to survive, none of the others can be permitted to amass so much power that it can dominate. Although states do not invariably join the weaker side, if they are to safeguard their own independence and security they must balance against any actor that becomes excessively menacing. In a way analogous to the operation of Adam Smith’s invisible hand, the maintenance of the system is an unintended consequence of states seeking to advance themselves, not the product of their desire to protect the international community or a preference for balance. Balance is then maintained by negative feedback: movement toward dominance calls up forces that put dominance out of reach. The theory obviously passes one important test in that no state has been able to dominate the international system. But this is not definitive. Few have tried: Napoleon, Hitler, perhaps the Kaiser and Louis XIV. Although others may not have made the effort because they anticipated that they would be blocked, the small number of challenges must undermine our confidence that the system could have been maintained had there been more of them. Furthermore, although the overall balance of power system has never failed, local ones have. Not only have some countries come to dominate their regions (this can perhaps be accommodated within the theory), but isolated systems have fallen under the sway of one actor. While we consider it natural for China to be unified, in fact for centuries it consisted of independent states. Rome’s neighbors did not unite to check its power, and the British conquest of India was also made possible by the failure of a local balance. But these cases were still geographically limited and did not produce a world empire and bring international politics to an end. The other restraints and puzzles mentioned earlier— the fact that few wars become total and that losers and small states are not divided up—also follow from the dictates of self-interest within the constraints imposed by the anarchical system. Since any state can ally with any other, states do not have permanent friends and enemies. Because today’s adversary may be tomorrow’s ally, crippling it would be foolish. Furthermore, while the state would gain territory and wealth from dividing up the loser, others might gain even more, thus putting the state at a disadvantage in subsequent conflicts. The knowledge that allies and enemies are not permanent and the expectation that losers will be treated relatively generously reinforce one another. 1040

Because the members of the winning coalition know that it is not likely to remain together after the war, each has to fear accretions to the power of its allies. Because winners know that they are not likely to be able to dismember the loser, why should they prolong the war? Each state’s knowledge that its allies have reason to contemplate a separate peace provides it with further incentives to move quickly. The result, then, is a relatively moderate outcome not despite but because of the fear and greed of the individual states. This is one reason why international wars are much more likely to end in negotiated settlements than civil wars (Licklider 1993). There is something wrong with this picture, however. Wars against hegemons can become total, losers sometimes are divided up, and the postwar relations among states are often very different from those prevailing previously (Jervis 1985). The reason is that a long and bitter war against the hegemon undermines the assumptions necessary for the operation of the balance. States are likely to come to believe that wars are so destructive that they cannot be a normal instrument of statecraft and to see the hegemon as inherently evil and aggressive, which means that it is not a fit alliance partner and the winning coalition must stay together. As a result, wartime allies are not regarded as being as much of a potential threat as balance of power reasoning would lead us to expect. Postwar politics may then be unusually moderate and a concert system may evolve in which the states positively value the system, develop longer-run conceptions of their self-interests, and forego competitive gains in the expectation that others will reciprocate. Ironically, then, a war against a would-be hegemon that epitomizes the operation of the balance of power is likely to produce a system in which the actors consciously moderate their behavior and restrain themselves.

1. An Alternati
e View The model of the balance of power presented here is clearly a version of systems theory in that it sees a radical separation between intentions and outcomes. An alternative view of the balance of power that sees more congruence is summarized by Edward Gulick when he says that ‘balance-of-power theory demanded restraint, abnegation, and the denial of immediate selfinterest’ (Gulick 1955, p. 33). Morton Kaplan’s conception of the balance of power similarly posits internalized moderation as two of his six rules call for self-restraint: ‘stop fighting rather than eliminate an essential national actor,’ and ‘permit defeated or constrained essential national actors to re-enter the system as acceptable role partners’ (Kaplan 1957, p. 23). For Kaplan, these rules not only describe how states behave, they consciously guide statesmen’s actions. In contrast to the version of balancing

Balance of Power: Political discussed earlier, Kaplan points out that in his computer model, ‘if actors do not take system stability requirements into account, a ‘‘balance of power’’ system will be stable only if some extra systemic factor … prevents a roll-up of the system’ (Kaplan 1979, p. 136). In other words, stability and restraint are not likely unless the actors seek stability. Here the system is preserved because states want to preserve it and there is little conflict between a state’s short-run and long-run interest. The two are harmonized because the norms have been internalized through socialization as the actors watch and interact with their peers. Indeed, Paul Schroeder’s important study of the transformation of European international politics caused by the Napoleonic wars stresses that stable peace and the concert were produced not only by the defeat of the aggressor, but also by the painful learning that led the victors to understand that others’ interests had to be respected, that smaller states could play a valuable role, and that the eighteenth century practice of compensation and indemnities led to endless cycles of warfare (Schroeder 1994; also see Schroeder 1992 and Jervis 1992). But this view cannot readily explain how the system can be maintained in the face of actors who have interests in exploiting others’ moderation. Nevertheless, it is certainly possible that states feel internal restraints and that, if they do not, the system will be torn apart by high levels of warfare. If the proponents of the version of balance of power set forth here draw on the analogy of Smith’s invisible hand, critics can respond that unalloyed capitalism, like an engine out of control, will produce so much unconstrained energy that it will soon destroy itself. Just as economic liberalism must be embedded in broader societal norms if capitalism is to be compatible with a well-functioning society (Polanyi 1944), perhaps the pursuit of narrow self-interest can yield stability and a modicum of productive peace only if it is bounded by normative conceptions that limit predatory behavior.

2. Anticipation of the Operation of Balance of Power States may be restrained by the expectation that if they are not, they will be faced with intense opposition. These cases fall in between the two models discussed above. Indeed, if the view of the balance as automatic is correct it would be surprising if decision-makers heedlessly sought to expand; awareness of the likely feedback would lead them to be restrained even though this impulse does not flow from internalized norms and the desire to preserve the international order. Much has been written about self-defeating expansion, but we should not neglect the fact that leaders may be inhibited by the anticipation of these processes. These cases are literally countless—that is, they cannot be counted because they do not leave traces in the historical record. But perceptive leaders realize that

the balance of power makes it dangerous for their countries to be too powerful. Edmund Burke made the point eloquently at the end of the eighteenth century: Among precautions against ambition, it may not be amiss to take one precaution against our own. I must fairly say, I dread our own power and our own ambition; I dread our being too much dreaded. It is ridiculous to say we are not men, and that, as men, we shall never wish to aggrandize ourselves in some way or other. Can we say that even at this hour we are not invidiously aggrandized? We are already in possession of almost all the commerce of the world. Our empire in India is an awful thing. If we should come to be in a condition not only to have all this ascendant in commerce, but to be absolutely able, without the least control, to hold the commerce of all other nations totally dependent upon our good pleasure, we may say that we shall not abuse this astonishing and hitherto unheard-of power. But every other nation will think we shall abuse it. It is impossible but that, sooner or later, this stage of things must produce a combination against us which may end in our ruin (quoted in Morgenthau 1978, pp. 169–70).

Finally, if we think of balance of power in the broadest sense of power checking power, these dynamics are built into the basic forms of domestic politics. The American Constitution was built on the concept of checks and balances because the founders believed that potentially dangerous power could best be tamed by countervailing power, to use the term that Galbraith later applied to many aspects of American political and economic life (Galbraith 1952). Other aspects of domestic politics illustrate negative feedback as the unintended consequences of the pursuit of narrower self-interest in a way even more analogous to the automatic balance. Most obviously, it is hard for any political party to gain a monopoly of power because the competition can mount matching or competing claims. If the political pendulum swings in one direction, those losing influence usually will increase their unity and activity. See also: Alliances: Political; Diplomacy; First World War, The; International Relations, History of; International Relations: Theories; National Security Studies and War Potential of Nations; Nations and Nation-states in History; Peacemaking in History; Realism\Neorealism; War: Causes and Patterns; War, Sociology of; Warfare in History

Bibliography Claude I 1962 Power and International Relations. Random House, New York Galbraith J K 1952 American Capitalism: The Concept of Counter
ailing Power. Houghton Mifflin, Boston Gulick E V 1955 Europe’s Classical Balance of Power. Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY Haas E B 1953 The balance of power: prescription, concept or propaganda. World Politics 5: 442–77

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Balance of Power: Political Jervis R 1985 From balance to concert. World Politics 38: 58–79 Jervis R 1992 A political science perspective on the balance of power and the concert. American Historical Re
iew 97: 716–24 Kaplan M A 1957 System and Process in International Politics. Wiley, New York Kaplan M A 1979 Towards Professionalism in International Theory. Free Press, New York Kugler J, Lemke D (eds.) 1996 Parity and War. University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor, MI Licklider R (ed.) 1993 Stopping the Killing: How Ci
il Wars End. New York University Press, New York Morgenthau H J 1978 Politics Among Nations, 5th edn. Rev. Knopf, New York Polanyi K 1944 The Great Transformation. Farrar & Rinehart, New York Schroeder P W 1992 Did the Vienna settlement rest on a balance of power. American Historical Re
iew 97: 683–706 Schroeder P W 1994 The Transformation of European Politics, 1787–1848. Oxford University Press, New York Waltz K N 1979 Theory of International Politics. AddisonWesley, Boston, MA Waltz K N 1991 America as a model for the world? A foreign policy perspective. PS: Political Science and Politics 24: 669 Waltz K N 1993 The emerging structure of international politics. International Security 18: 44–79 Wight M 1968 The balance of power. In: Butterfield H (ed.) Diplomatic In
estigations. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA Wight M 1973 The balance of power and international order. In: James A (ed.) The Bases of International Order. Oxford University Press, London

R. Jervis Copyright # 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

Bankruptcy Bankruptcy procedures are intended to provide an efficient and fair mechanism for the reorganization or liquidation of the assets of insolvent debtors. Debtors include both individuals and business entities. A second important objective of some bankruptcy procedures is the financial rehabilitation of overindebted individuals. Rehabilitation sometimes includes discharge of indebtedness.

1. Fair and Efficient Administration of Insol
ent Estates 1.1 The Need for Bankruptcy Reliance on the usual legal procedures to collect debts from non-paying debtors can lead to inefficient and unfair results when applied to an insolvent debtor. When there are not enough assets to pay all creditors, non-bankruptcy law commonly favors the creditor who seizes and sells assets before other creditors do. The resulting race to seize the debtor’s assets can lead

to inefficient dispositions of debtor’s assets. For example, if a business is making a profit even while insolvent, it may be more efficient to allow it to continue to operate and pay debts from future profits, yet competition between creditors can lead to sale of assets that makes continued operation of the business impossible (Jackson 1985). Competition between creditors also leads to unnecessarily duplicative collection activities. Many people also believe it is unfair to give priority in the distribution of the limited assets of an insolvent estate to the creditors who are the first to initiate formal collection actions. Bankruptcy procedures address each of these difficulties. Once a bankruptcy proceeding is initiated, unsecured creditors are automatically enjoined from using non-bankruptcy collection procedures. In some countries, secured creditors are similarly enjoined. These injunctions eliminate duplicative collection efforts and permit an orderly disposition of the debtor’s assets. In bankruptcy, the debtor’s assets constitute a bankruptcy estate, to be managed in the interests of the estate’s beneficiaries, the creditors. When the bankruptcy estate makes distributions, creditors with similar contractual priorities are usually paid pro rata according to the amount they are owed. Contractual promises to subordinate or to privilege particular creditors in the distribution of debtor’s assets (including security agreements) are normally respected, and a few creditors (e.g., tax creditors) receive priority payments by statutory mandate. However, priorities are not usually given to creditors who have initiated collection activities before the bankruptcy filing. 1.2 Liquidation
s. Reorganization in Business Bankruptcy The assets of an insolvent business estate may be sold, either as a unit or in separate parts, to the highest bidder(s), which is called a liquidation. Alternatively, the assets may be retained by an entity and operated as a continuing business, which is called a reorganization. In a liquidation, creditors are paid the proceeds of the sale(s). In a reorganization, creditors are given securities (debt instruments and\or shares) in the new reorganized entity, which represent rights in the future income of the continuing business. Bankruptcy creditors often have conflicting interests in the decision whether to liquidate or reorganize an insolvent business estate. Creditors with contractual priority over other creditors (including, most importantly, secured creditors) usually prefer rapid liquidation if the anticipated proceeds will pay them in full. Reorganization both delays repayment and introduces an element of risk, because the continuing business might lose money, thus depriving these senior creditors of full payment. This preference for liquidation exists even when reorganization seems the better option from the

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International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences

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