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Why 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 right as it does on its growing might. As a result, When Right Makes Might poses significant questions for academics and policymakers alike. Underpinning her argument on the oft-ignored significance of public self-presentation, Goddard suggests that academics (and others) should recognize talk's critical role in the formation of grand strategy. Unlike rationalist and realist theories that suggest rhetoric is mere window-dressing for power, When Right Makes Might argues that rhetoric fundamentally shapes the contours of grand strategy. Legitimacy is not marginal to international relations; it is essential to the practice of power politics, and rhetoric is central to that practice.

Chinese President Xi Jinping emphatically rejects the so-called Thucydides Trap and its analogy that a rising China is destined for war with the United States, the status quo great power. But there is a contradiction between Beijing's peaceable rhetoric about a \"New Type of Major Power Relations\" with the US, and Beijing's disregard for the US and its allies. concerns about rising Chinese assertiveness in the East and South China Seas. It is not inconceivable that smaller Chinese and American allies in East Asia might well drag the US and China into a conflict rather than a conflict directly caused by the \"power transition\" between the two great powers per se.

Why do great powers accommodate the rise of some challengers, while others are contained and confronted, even at the risk of war? The book proposes that when faced with a new challenger, great powers will attempt to divine its intentions, to determine whether that rising power poses a revolutionary threat to the system, or whether it can be incorporated into the existing international order. In departing from conventional rationalist and realist theories of international relations, the author argues that established powers come to understand a rising power’s intentions by observing how it justifies its behavior through diplomacy and its claims on the way it exerts its power. Diplomatic rhetoric, therefore, plays a critical role in the formation of grand strategy. Legitimacy is not marginal to international relations; it is essential to the practice of power politics.

The crisis of the American-led international order would seem to open up new opportunities for rising states—led by China, India, and other non-Western developing countries—to reshape the global order. As their capacities and influence grow, will these states rise up and integrate into the existing order or will they seek to overturn and reorganize it? The realist hegemonic perspective expects today's power transition to lead to growing struggles between the West and the “rest” over global rules and institutions. In contrast, this essay argues that although America's hegemonic position may be declining, the liberal international characteristics of order—openness, rules, and multilateralism—are deeply rooted and likely to persist. And even as China seeks in various ways to build rival regional institutions, there are stubborn limits on what it can do.

The Brandt Line is a way of visualising the world that highlights the disparities and inequalities between the wealthy North and the poorer Global South. Forty years after its popularisation as part of a call for global reform, is the Brandt Line now a misleading way of representing world politics? This article assesses whether the Global South has lost its distinctiveness and coherence relative to the North since 1980. Existing assessments of global inequality do not settle the question of whether the North–South divide remains relevant for international relations because they overlook the most politically significant measures of inequality. Drawing on power transition theory, this article provides a systematic assessment of the North–South divide in terms of levels of economic development, relative inequality, economic power, and political satisfaction. The evidence suggests that the Brandt Line is largely intact. Although the economic diversity of the South has increased and its collective economic power has risen, relative income rankings remain unaltered and the states of the Global South are as dissatisfied as they were four decades ago. Differential growth rates are reshaping world politics without eroding the North–South divide traced by the Brandt Line.

The rise of non-Western powers has led to competing claims about how these states act among each other and how they behave vis-à-vis established powers. Existing accounts argue that the rising powers are a heterogenous group of competing states and that they are socialized into the existing Western-centered order. This article challenges these claims, arguing that the rising powers are dissatisfied with the international status quo and that they have begun to form a bloc against the established powers. The authors contend that this dissatisfaction arises from their lack of influence on the international stage, their status in the international hierarchy and the norms that sustain the current international order. They maintain that the formation of a rising powers bloc is driven by the countries’ economic growth and international dynamics, fostering their institutionalization as IBSA (India, Brazil, South Africa) and BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa). To support this argument, the study combines spatial modeling techniques to analyze rising power voting behavior in the UN General Assembly over the period 1992–2011.

The U.S.-China hegemonic competition is clearly underway, as the Biden administration acknowledges China as the only challenger to the existing global hegemony. This recognition has initiated a power struggle between the two, despite neither possessing absolute national power for complete dominance. This article goes beyond the traditional debate of whether China will eventually surpass the U.S. and focuses on deriving pertinent implications. The role of allies in shaping the U.S.-China competition is gaining significance. The U.S. is restructuring the global supply chain to exclude China, creating overlapping mini-lateral cooperative networks with traditional allies and friendly nations. Conversely, China is expanding its influence through traditional multilateral cooperation, aligning with alliance transition theory. Furthermore, mid-sized countries, especially pivotal ones are assuming a more critical role. This situation has implications for ROK government's foreign policy, which aims to play an active role as a Global Pivotal State emphasizing liberal democratic values and common interests.

Power transition in international politics is an ever-evolving approach owing to the rise and fall of the superpowers and great powers. Historically, the quest for more territories and resources has led to conflicts and wars between powerful empires and states, resulting in colonization, imperialism, and power transition. The first half of the 20th century witnessed long-running conflicts and wars among the great powers concerning power transition, which caused unheard-of violence and destruction in the history of humankind. However, in the second half of the foregoing century, the competing superpowers never resorted to direct confrontation during the Cold War but rather engaged in proxy conflicts and shadow wars by using proxy forces. The rise of China, the resurgence of Russia, and the emergence of transnational non-state actors in the early 21st century have ushered in the debate of power transition in international politics yet again. The 21st century power politics, based on geo-economics and the quest for energy resources and trade corridors, has been dubbed the New Great Game. Unlike the Cold War, the U.S. and China, the key players of the New Great Game, have avoided proxy confrontation by preferring competition and engagement. Pakistan, the closest U.S. ally during the Cold War and War on Terror, and now the closest ally of China in the emerging great-power competition, has fewer strategic options for maneuvering than ever before. This paper critically analyzes the future power transition in regional and far-regional geopolitics vis-à-vis the strategic options available to Pakistan’s policymakers and decision-makers.

How can declining states reliably infer the intentions of rising states? One prominent line of argument maintains that because declining states face intractable uncertainty about rising states’ future intentions, preventive war is often unavoidable even between states with truly compatible goals. This article presents a dynamic model of reassurance in which actors are uncertain whether or not their interests conflict. The model shows that by adopting a hedging strategy of limited containment short of war, declining states can reduce risers’ incentives to send dishonest cooperative signals. This, in turn, makes cooperation more credible as a signal of risers’ benign intentions. Moreover, these signals are sufficiently informative to dissuade the decliner from escalating to preventive war even under large power shifts. Thus, although power shifts promote limited competition among states with compatible goals, preventive war rationally occurs only in a bargaining context when the riser’s goals are known to be incompatible.