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This Concept Is Present In Macchiavellis The Prince Which Details What ...

This concept is present in Macchiavellis The Prince which details what leaders must do to keep hold of their power. (Baylis & Smith 2005 p. 174). The third concept is that of self-help that Waltz deems necessary to gain security in an anarchic structure. Hedley Bull's The Anarchical Society(1977) concurs with Waltz that all states exist in an anarchical society where there is no higher authority than the sovereign state. Therefore national interest is the states first duty that ensures the right for citizens to feel secure within state borders. Self-help is necessary as this cannot be entrusted to anyone else and this is achieved through the accumulation of power to reduce vulnerability in the anarchic system of states. The state's first law of motion is to preserve the state and in order to do this it must pursue power. (Baylis & Smith p. 162-3, 169).
The writer has also been inspired by the academic Paul Kennedy (1989) in his book: The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers. The writer will use this thesis to assess whether China is rising at the expense of the decline of the US. According to Kennedy's thesis the rise and fall of power is cyclical thus once a great power has arisen it must inevitably fall. A state that has achieved economic strength will protect that strength using military power but this involves great cost. Eventually the cost will be too great and the power will decline and be replaced as evidence by the decline of Britain in 1873. (Nye 1990 p. 3) The United States has undoubtedly been the great power of the 20th Century. Will it remain so during the 21st century or will it fall and be replaced by China thus confirming Kennedy's thesis that all great powers will eventually follow this decline thus paving the way for the next great power?
There are those who believe the era of the superpower is coming to an end. Fukuyama believes that states will not need to rival each other for power. The spread of liberal democracy and its sidekick liberal economy has triumphed over other regimes. (Fukuyama 1992). It is further believed that open economies create interdependency and a sharing of common interests. (Nye 1997-98 p. 76). Also, the state is in relative decline due to the emergence of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) such as the IMF (International Monetary Fund) and WB (World Bank) and also MNCs (multinational corporations. (Baylis & Smith 164). Even in the US Congress the former House of Representatives speaker Newt Gingrich does not regard China's growth as in any way a threat whilst there are those who have views to the contrary. This highlights how the theoretical debate translates into a political one. There are those who view the universalism of western liberalism as unchallengeable and now the norm.


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