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Ian Hall, Accommodating rising powers: past, present, and future. Edited by T. V. Paul, International Affairs, Volume 92, Issue 5, September 2016, Pages 1270–1272, https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-2346.12724
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Extract
The challenges inherent in managing states growing in power and influence are perennial concerns for both theorists and practitioners. Much of the recent literature on rising powers has focused, however, more on the prospects for military conflict between established and emerging states during so-called power transitions. This book takes a welcome step back from these arguments about the causes of war, in order to take a fresh look at the management of what used to be called, in the 1930s, ‘peaceful change’.
In his opening chapter, T. V. Paul argues that in times of power transition, as new powers are rising, conflict can be avoided if established states adopt strategies of accommodation and rising states tread carefully, seeking only incremental adjustments to the existing order. These accommodation strategies can involve a number of different things—‘status adjustment, the sharing of leadership roles … and acceptance of spheres of influence’ (p. 4)—and can be applied in different combinations according to the nature of the rising power and its intentions. Paul notes that a rising power can be accommodated either fully—given equal status, commensurate special responsibilities and be permitted to exercise significant influence over its region—or partially, as its new standing is acknowledged by established states in one or two areas, but not in all.
