Regional Leadership: Theories and Ideas on Regional Leadership §

Created Time: August 8, 2021 7:54 PM Database: Evergreen Database Last Edited Time: September 27, 2021 10:57 AM Type: Permanent Notes

Theoretical Perspectives on Leadership §

1. Rationalism concepts of leadership posit that ‘power capabilities’ are the main determining factor of state choices (Hans Morgenthau 1967; Kenneth Waltz 1979).

2. For Realism and Structural Realism , the most important is military power capability, which they contend has been the main foundation of US hegemony for many years.

   • Other examples of hard power capabilities include those of
     • economic
     • technological
     • technocratic nature

3. Hegemonic stability theory (HST) based principally on realist and neorealist assumptions on the primacy of the state, where the international system is anchored by a hegemonic state power that underwrites and underpins the system.

   Hegemonic states provide leadership through the provision of international public goods devised to maintain stability in the international system.

Another term or concept that is closely associated with leadership is that of ‘hierarchy’.

This relates more to the structure of the international system and the distribution of power within it rather than the exercises of leadership or power in a direct sense.

Nevertheless, like hegemony, it is fixated with notions of dominance.

According to Kang, hierarchy may be considered as ‘a system of international relations organized around a central, dominant power that involves shared expectations of rights and responsibilities for both the dominant and secondary powers’ (Kang 2004: 339).

having hegemony + unequal distribution of power $>$ equal distribution of power + unstable

Emerging theories on regional leadership §

In this respect, the core focus on ‘power’ has meant that this literature still largely takes its cue from mainstream theories on international leadership, resulting more generally in a strong emphasis being placed on the material basis resources of regional leadership (e.g. in military, economic and technological power terms), as well as the notion of regional hegemonic states.

Regional Powers $\{\begin{array}{l}\text{Great Powers}\\ \text{Regional Leaders}\\ \text{Dominant|Hegemonic}\end{array}$

Regional Hegemony: e.g. Japan/China in East Asia, Brazil in South America, India in South Asia, South Africa in Southern Africa.

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Ontology: What states actually are? §

Hence, in ontological terms, the mainstream scholarship on leadership has assumed that the nation state is almost the only actor able to perform leadership functions

the corollary of this argument being that non-state actors (e.g. multilateral institutions, civil society organizations, multinational corporations) still essentially lack the capabilities to match the state in this respect.

Moreover, much of this scholarship largely treats the state as a unitary entity, thus not deconstructed into composite elements (e.g. discrete actor constituencies that make up the ‘state’) – this approach often found in social constructivist analysis.

Epistemology : How literature know what states are? §

the mainstream literature has been largely founded on positivist and empiricist principles, and grounded in rationalist methodological approaches (e.g. rational choice/public-choice theories), leading to an emphasis on deductive logic to seek out ‘truths’ (Smith 2002; Buzan 2004; Cohen 2007).

Offensive Realism