Description
Book SynopsisWhy do great powers accommodate the rise of some challengers but contain and confront others, even at the risk of war? When Right Makes Might proposes that the ways in which a rising power legitimizes its expansionist aims significantly shapes great power responses. Stacie E. Goddard theorizes that when faced with a new challenger, great powers will attempt to divine the challenger's intentions: does it pose a revolutionary threat to the system or can it be incorporated into the existing international order? Goddard departs from conventional theories of international relations by arguing that great powers come to understand a contender's intentions not only through objective capabilities or costly signals but by observing how a rising power justifies its behavior to its audience. To understand the dynamics of rising powers, then, we must take seriously the role of legitimacy in international relations.
A rising power's ability to expand depends as much on its claims to
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This social constructivist alternative to a rationalist approach to international security is welcome.
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Table of ContentsList of Tables
Acknowledgments
1. The Great Powers' Dilemma: Uncertainty, Intentions, and Rising Power Politics
2. The Politics of Legitimacy: How a Rising Power's Right Makes Might
3. America's Ambiguous Ambition: Britain and the Accommodation of the United States, 1817–23
4. Prussia's Rule-Bound Revolution: Europe and the Destruction of the Balance of Power, 1863–64
5. Germany's Rhetorical Rage: Britain and the Abandonment of Appeasement, 1938–39
6. Japan's Folly: The Conquest of Manchuria, 1931–33
7. Conclusion: Legitimacy, Power, and Strategy in World Politics
Notes
Index
