End of Balance of Power Theory

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2009 15: 347European Journal of International RelationsMette Eilstrup-Sangiovanni

`Testing Balance-of-Power Theory in World History'The End of Balance-of-Power Theory? A Comment on Wohlforth et al.'s

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The End of Balance-of-Power Theory? A Comment on Wohlforth et al.’s ‘Testing Balance-of-Power Theory

in World History’

METTE EILSTRUP-SANGIOVANNIUniversity of Cambridge, UK

The balance of power is one of the oldest and most venerable concepts in the study of International Relations. Few concepts have had a comparable influence on both scholarship and statesmanship, and few have been so fiercely contested. In a recent article, ‘Testing Balance-of-Power Theory in World History’ (EJIR, June 2007), Wohlforth et al. set out to test balance-of-power theory against 2000 years of world history. Although their article has considerable merits, I highlight three main weaknesses in their approach. First, I argue that they misstate balance-of-power theory. Second, the competing theoretical hypotheses they offer are (a) not novel, (b) too vague to enable pro-ductive empirical testing. Third, the historical evidence they present, based on the study of ancient international systems, is too scant and impres sionistic to be probative for the causal mechanisms they seek to evaluate. As a result, balance-of-power theory is neither refuted nor significantly refined.

KEY WORDS ♦ balance-of-power theory ♦ neo-classical realism ♦ neo-realism ♦ world history

Introduction

The balance of power is one of the oldest and most venerable concepts in the study of International Relations. Few concepts have had a comparable influence on both scholarship and statesmanship, and few have been so fiercely contested. In a recent article, ‘Testing Balance-of-Power Theory in World History’ (EJIR, June 2007),1 Wohlforth et al. (or the ‘Wohlforth

European Journal of International Relations Copyright © 2009SAGE Publications and ECPR-European Consortium for Political Research, Vol. 15(2): 347–380

[DOI: 10.1177/1354066109103145]



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team’) once again confront the balance of power. Noting that the concept is as central in today’s scholarship as it has been at any time since the Enlight-enment (p. 156), they set out to ‘test the balance of power’ against evidence from eight international systems over 2000 years of world history. The core proposition that they evaluate is that ‘balancing behaviour prevents systemic hegemony’. Their findings — chiefly that the effectiveness of balancing is frequently undermined by collective action problems, by emulation failure or by uncertainty, and that hegemonies are habitually allowed to form — fatally undermines, so they claim, the core propositions of balance-of-power (BoP) theory and renders questionable the common practice in International Relations scholarship of framing research around the expectation that states balance power — as in the case of the ‘puzzle’ of the missing balance against the United States today (p. 156).

There is much to admire in this collective effort by nine scholars to evalu ate balance-of-power theory. As an exercise in bringing historical evidence to bear on the study of International Relations the article — and the edited volume from which it is extracted2 — is unusually extensive and ambitious. Yet, there are two fundamental problems, which, I argue, limit its contribution to advancing theory.

First, the article (and the wider project) mischaracterizes BoP theory and therefore fails to secure an opponent. According to Wohlforth et al., the core proposition of BoP theory is that ‘hegemonies do not form in multi-state systems because perceived threats of hegemony generate balancing behaviour by other leading states’ (p. 157). Yet, as we shall see, although many BoP theorists assert a natural tendency towards balancing behaviour among great powers, it is hard to find strong support among BoP theorists for the proposition that ‘hegemonies do not form’ at the system level.

Second, and more importantly, the empirical analysis fails to advance our understanding of states’ balancing behaviour or of the systemic conditions under which balances of power form. The Wohlforth team set out to evaluate BoP theory in international systems far beyond the cradle of post-Westphalian Europe, which has — with some significant exceptions3 — been the main focus of BoP-oriented scholarship. One might argue that drawing on 2000 years of history across four continents to refute a proposition, which is belied by even a cursory glance at the historical record (namely that hegemonies do not form), amounts to overkill.4 Yet, the Wohlforth team not only aim to refute BoP theory by showing that international systems do fall prey to hegemony, but they also seek to generalize about why balances of power frequ ently fail to prevail. The ambition fails, however, for two reasons. First, the hypotheses they test are not sufficiently specific to yield conclusive find-ings. Second, and more fundamentally, I shall argue that a ‘world historical approach’ on the whole does not offer an appropriate testing ground for



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either the key propositions of traditional BoP theory or for the neo-classical realist propositions that the authors would substitute for it.

Below I first discuss Wohlforth et al.’s version of BoP theory and con sider the extent to which it reflects mainstream BoP scholarship. The following section comments on the historical findings of the Wohlforth team. The final section concludes.

BoP Theory According to Wohlforth et al.

In this section I first present the Wohlforth team’s version of BoP theory. I then show that their definition and operationalization of the balancing proposition is an inaccurate description of both classical and structural-realist versions of BoP theory. I further contend that the propositions they advance as ‘counter-claims’ — namely that balancing may be thwarted by collective action problems, emulation failure and uncertainty, but may be aided by system expansion or poor administrative capacity by an aspiring hegemonic state — are not in fact rival claims but auxiliary hypotheses close to the core of the BoP research programme. The Wohlforth team engage these auxillary hypotheses in a cursory manner. My charge, therefore, is not merely that they make a straw man of traditional BoP theory but that they ignore a large and very well-established body of contemporary BoP-oriented scholarship from which they could have derived more precise and detailed hypotheses than the ones they seek to test.

The Claims of Wohlforth et al.

It is commonplace to begin any discussion of the balance of power by ob -serving that there is not a single theory of balance of power but a variety of theories with different scope conditions, which yield differing — and often contradictory — predictions about both individual state behaviour and systemic outcomes.5 As Waltz (1979: 117) declares, ‘If there is any distinctively political theory of international policies, balance-of-power theory is it. And yet one cannot find a statement of the theory that is gen-erally accepted.’ Wohlforth et al. recognize that BoP theory comes in many varieties (p. 157). Yet, rather than single out a particular version of the theory to evaluate they insist, along with Levy, that the succession of different BoP theories share a common ‘foundational proposition’ or a ‘hard core’, which stipulates that hegemonies do not form,

… notwithstanding the many ways it has been defined over the centuries, the concept has a core meaning: ‘that hegemonies do not form in multi-state systems because perceived threats of hegemony over the system generate balancing behavior by other leading states in the system’. (p. 156)6




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This foundational proposition, they submit, is universalistic. To be sure, BoP theory emerged in Europe between the 17th and 20th centuries, and most extant empirical and theoretical research on balancing has been informed by the study of interactions among the European great powers. Yet, they insist, the ‘core balancing proposition is typically stated in universal terms applicable to any anarchical system — that is, any system comprising autonomous political units with armies that control territories and which wish to survive’ (p. 157). They further contend, that, ‘given that the version of the theory we are testing is universalistic in its claims — that “hegemony leads to balance ... through all of the centuries we can contemplate” — case selection is unimportant. Any significant counter-example falsifies the universal claim; eight such examples demolish it’ (p. 160; my emphasis).

In sum, the Wohlforth team make three initial claims:

1. the foundational proposition of BoP theory is that hegemonies do not form

2. (1) is a universal claim, applicable to any anarchical system in history3. given (1) and (2), any case of hegemony disproves BoP theory.

We must note at the outset that (3) does not follow from (1) and (2) unless the theory is taken to be both universalistic and deterministic. While some versions of BoP theory are stated in universalistic terms (Waltz, 1979), most versions, as Levy and Thompson (2005: 11) show, are subject to scope con-ditions, which circumscribe their applicability. And no BoP theory that I am aware of is deterministic in the sense that it predicts that balancing will always prevail. Rather, most versions of the theory are probabilistic insofar as they predict a tendency for states in multipolar systems to engage in balanc-ing behaviour and for balances of power to form.7 Of course, this by itself does not imply that eight historical cases of hegemony do not serve to refute BoP theory, but it does mean that proper case selection remains critical to any refutation.

Competing Hypotheses

Wohlforth et al. not only seek to disprove the notion that balancing is a universal empirical law in multi-state systems, they also seek generalizations about why balances fail. In this regard they offer five countervailing expecta-tions to BoP theory. The first three regard state behaviour:

a. efforts to form effective balancing alliances will frequently fail due to collective action problems

b. political obstacles inside states will frequently lead to failures to emulate power-generating innovations by potential hegemons




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c. uncertainty about which power poses the greatest threat of hegemony will frequently impede or prevent efforts to balance.

The remaining two hypotheses highlight what the authors label ‘exo -genous’ causes of balancing. According to the Wohlforth team, BoP theorists assume that problems of uncertainty, collective action and domestic-level impediments to balancing can be overcome endogenously (that is when inaction becomes too dangerous or costly, states will somehow surmount these obstacles and act to balance power). Yet, historically, they argue, this is rarely the case. Instead two exogenous factors are generally necessary to transcend these barriers and bring the system into balance. The first is system expansion. Most multi-state systems have been regional and subject to re-balancing via spatial and numerical expansion (that is the entry of new units from outside the system). This suggests that a vital mechanism of balancing lies outside rather than inside the system. The second factor is administrative capacity. A would-be hegemon must not only defeat its opponents but must also admin-ister conquered territory in a way that adds to its net capability to expand further (that is power must cumulate). This implies that an important check on hegemony consists not in effective counter-balancing but in the inability of the would-be hegemon to cumulate power. They conclude that systemic hegemony is likely in the following conditions:

1. when the rising hegemon develops the ability to incorporate and effectively administer conquered territories

2. when the boundaries of the international system are rigid (p. 159).

The Claims of BoP Theory

How well do the above claims by the Wohlforth team reflect standard BoP theory? In this section I first consider the claim that, according to BoP theory, hegemonies do not form in multi-state systems wherever they are situated in geography or history. As we shall see, this version of the balancing proposition corresponds poorly to both classic and structural-realist versions of the theory. I then examine the ‘competing hypotheses’ by the Wolhforth team regarding balancing failure and show that these are all embedded at the core of mainstream BoP theory. I also review some recent extensions of traditional BoP theory, which set forth more precise and detailed hypotheses about the conditions in which balancing behaviour and systemic power equilibrium can be expected. A closer engagement by the Wohlforth team with this more recent literature, I suggest, would have enabled a refinement of key hypotheses, which in turn would have facilitated more finely grained and productive empirical analysis.




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There is scope for considerable disagreement about where to draw the lines around BoP theory. So as not to bias the discussion in favour of versions of the theory which may be judged to lie far from the theoretical ‘core’ to which Wohlforth et al. refer, I focus on a group of mainstream scholars, who figure front and square in most reviews of BoP literature and whose insights serve as a foundation for most current BoP-oriented studies. The following list should be non-controversial and includes both classic and contemporary thinkers: Edward Gulick, Hans Morgenthau, Ludwig Dehio, Morton Kaplan, Inis Claude, Martin Wight, Kenneth Waltz, John Mearsheimer, and, among formal theorists, Emerson Niou, Peter Ordeshook, Gregory Rose, and Harrison Wagner.

Hegemonies do not Form in Multi-state Systems?

There are many varieties of BoP theory and disagreement abounds abou the accurate meaning of key concepts such as ‘balancing’ and ‘balance of power’ and even about what the theory purports to explain. BoP theorists do, however, agree on some fundamentals. All versions of the theory are predicated on the idea that states strive to survive as independent units. In an anarchical system based on self-help, states must worry about falling prey to stronger conquerors. The only way to guarantee survival in such a system is to prevent any one state (or coalition of states) from developing sufficient capabilities to subordinate others.8 States do this either by expanding their own capabilities (internal balancing) or by forming alliances (external balancing).

Forestalling hegemony is the primary goal of any BoP system. But does it follow that states will always balance against concentrations of power and that hegemonies or universal empires will therefore fail to form? To judge this question, we must first consider a distinction within traditional BoP theory between writers who argue that systemic power equilibrium (that is, an even or ‘balanced’ distribution of power throughout the system) is the result of a ‘hidden hand’ which produces stability out of the competitive behaviour of states seeking to maximize their own security whether or not they con-sciously aim to produce a general balance (‘automatic’ view) and writers who believe that a balance of power requires the explicit cooperation of states that have a common interest in and will to maintain it (‘manual’ view).9 The ten-dency to attribute law-like status to the balancing proposition comes from overemphasizing the former view. If power equilibrium emerges as the unwilled by-product of competitive behaviour, one must logically conclude that hegemonies will not form. This view was held by early writers such as Rousseau (1761) and Hume (1752) and is often, incorrectly, attributed to Morgenthau, who wrote,

… the aspiration of power on the part of several nations, each trying either to maintain or overthrow the status quo leads necessarily to a configuration that




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is called the balance of power … The balance of power and policies aimed at its preservation are not only inevitable but are an essential stabilizing factor in a society of sovereign nations. (Morgenthau, 1948[2006]: 179)

The automatic view, however, can scarcely serve as the basis for evaluating traditional BoP theory. The view is firstly flawed on logical grounds. As Rosecrance and Lo argue (1996: 481), the balance-of-power cannot be an automatic equilibrating mechanism. If it were, wars would be few and far between. Aggressors considering military action would be restrained by the prospect of a quick formation of an overwhelming balance against them and would back down, or give up their aims altogether.10 Furthermore, the automatic conception is a minority view in the European intellectual tradition. While many classic European writers used Newtonian language, popular in the day, to describe the BoP mechanism, most clearly regarded balancing as a product of skilled diplomacy.11 As Inis Claude observes, ‘it is probable that most writers who indulge in the language of automatism would, in fact, agree that equilibrium within a balance-of-power system is “a diplomatic contrivance”’ (1962: 49). Morgenthau, he emphasizes, did not in fact believe in the inevitability of balances of power forming but took pains to advocate balancing as a prudent principle of foreign policy, which depended on political will and skill for its implementation (1962: 35–6).12

If the balancing mechanism is not automatic but depends on diplomatic choice and skill, then not only does it follow that individual states may violate its rules, it also follows that the system as a whole may fail to create or preserve an equilibrium of power. This possibility is entertained by most classical writers. To Kaplan, for example, the rules of balance of power are ‘equilibrium rules’, which may be viewed either normatively (as prescribing behaviour that will preserve a systemic equilibrium), or as predictive (as predicting that actors will so behave if other variables of the system and environment are at their equilibrium settings). Either way there is no implication that the rules will be followed simply because they are equilibrium rules, or that a stable equilibrium of power will ensue (1969: 295). Morgenthau refers more loosely to the ‘uncertainty’ and ‘inadequacy’ of the balance of power due to which the independence of nations is essentially ‘precarious and in danger’ ([1948]2006: 186). To Claude, finally, ‘the results of a balance-of-power system are too heavily dependent upon contingencies to be postulated a priori. While the balance-of-power system may have inherent features and tendencies, it has no inherent results’ (1962: 50).13

The Wohlforth team might object that these considerations are extraneous to their argument since the implicit target of their criticism is structural realism. However, the possibility that a balance of power (that is, power equilibrium) may not be continual is also clearly present in structural-realist




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theory. Waltz’s version of BoP theory predicts a strong tendency towards balancing among great powers (but not among minor states). In terms of systemic outcomes, Waltz sometimes describes his argument in ways that make the balance of power seem like a natural law. Balancing of power, he argues, is not a strategy that states ‘ought’ to pursue but a response to systemic pressures, which prevails whether or not states consciously aim to establish and maintain a balance (Waltz, 1979: 119). His view of balance of power thus appears ‘automatic’ insofar as he does not believe it necessary for any state to act with the intention of producing a balanced distribution of power. Balances will emerge if a sufficient number of states act in a self-preserving way, even though such a systemic outcome was not their inten-tion (1979: 118).14 Consider also the claim by many structural realists that the present unipolar system is ‘unnatural’ and that we are witnessing the beginning of a return to multipolarity (Waltz, 2000b; Mearsheimer, 1990; Layne, 1993).

At the same time, however, Waltz insists that international structures merely motivate states to pay attention to relative power. As he notes, ‘states are free to do any fool thing they care to, but they are likely to be rewarded for behaviour that is responsive to structural pressures and punished for behaviour that is not’ (1979: 118). Waltz clearly expects relatively few states to be so foolish as to ignore systemic pressures, but he does not (and cannot) rule it out.15

Balancing, of course, is not universal or omnipresent. A dominant power may suppress balancing as the United States has done in Europe. Whether or not balancing takes place also depends on the decisions of governments … States are free to disregard the imperatives of power, but they must expect to pay a price for doing so. (Waltz, 2000a: 37)

Neither balancing nor balanced power distributions are all-pervading in structural realism. In a self-help system, Waltz writes, fear of domination ‘stimulates states to behave in ways that tend toward the creation of balances of power’ (1979: 118; my emphasis). But if enough states fail to heed struc-tural imperatives (for example, due to domestic constraints or other types of friction) or if, as I discuss below, there is marked uncertainty about the degree of threat, then we should not, on a Waltzian logic, expect balance-of-power mechanisms to produce systemic balances. Furthermore, relatively weak and divided states may simply lack the combined capabilities to counter a hegemonic state (Waltz, 2000a: 37). Waltz, therefore, presents a qualified BoP theory, one that allows for actors to choose to ignore (or to lack capacity to respond to) structural imperatives, but nonetheless expects a tendency towards systemic balances of power.16 Given this formulation, it




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seems clearly wrong to say that any historical case of hegemony would falsify his theory.

It is worth dwelling on this point for a moment since many scholars appear to read Waltz’s theory as stipulating an ‘iron law’ of balancing and power equilibrium. Waltz repeatedly describes the formation of balances of power as a tendency in international politics.17 His view of balanced power as a predominant or likely outcome in international politics has important im-plications for the theory’s testability. ‘According to the theory’, he states, ‘balances of power recurrently form, and states tend to emulate the successful policies of others.’ In principle, these expectations can be checked against historical observations, but in practice their indeterminacy makes testing difficult. ‘Because only a loosely defined and inconstant condition of balance is predicted, it is difficult to say that any given distribution of power falsifies the theory’ (1979: 124).18 The reason for this indeterminacy, as Waltz expli-citly recognizes, is that factors which lie outside of his theory’s purview may at times overwhelm the systemic imperative to balance (1979: 125).19 To be sure, one can argue over the usefulness of a theory that brackets many of the unit-level factors that may help to account for variation in system-level outcomes, and scores of scholars have sought to refine realist BoP theory to enable it to generate more detailed and precise predictions. But one cannot, as the Wohlforth team do, impute to the theory an unqualified prediction that ‘hegemonies never form’.

BoP Theory Claims Universal Validity?

Wohlforth et al. describe the bal ancing proposition as universalistic — it applies to any anarchical system ‘through all of the centuries we can con-template’. This description is largely correct if we stick to a Waltzian version of BoP theory. To Waltz, balance-of-power politics prevail ‘wherever two, and only two, requirements are met: that the order be anarchic and that it be populated by units wishing to survive’ (1979: 121). However, there is broad agreement that BoP theory — as developed by classic writers like Ranke, Toynbee, Dehio, Kaplan, Morgenthau, Gulick and Claude — applies more specifically to a European continental context (see Levy and Thompson, 2005: 9; Levy, 2004: 38–45; Gilpin, 1981: 111; Wohlforth, 2004: 216). Thus Levy argues, ‘the tendency to treat the theory and its propositions as universal is misleading because it fails to account for the scope conditions inherent in a long tradition of Western writing on the balance of power’ (2004: 44–5). This, of course, does not imply that BoP theory cannot be applied outside a European context. However, restrictive scope conditions mean that one cannot simply extend the theory without careful attention to the implicit assumptions that delimit its reach (ibid. p. 38).20




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One such assumption is that the basis of power in the system — and thus the basis for hegemony — is land-based military power in the form of large armies (Levy, 1985, 2004: 38–45; Levy and Thompson, 2005: 11; Rasler and Thompson, 1994; Mearsheimer, 2001). As Mearsheimer notes, great powers separated by large bodies of water usually do not have much offensive cap ability against each other. ‘For continental great powers, the greatest threats are posed by other continental states with large armies that can invade and occupy, not from maritime states’ (2001: 44). From a BoP perspective it is thus unsurprising that no blocking coalition formed against Britain at the peak of its global economic and naval empire in the 1870s. Seen in this light, the absence of balancing against Persia by some Greek city-states may be less puzzling than the Wohlforth team make it out to be.

Another scope condition implicit in classic BoP theory is homogeneity of the states that make up a BoP system. To Morgenthau, the stability of the balance-of-power depends on a moral consensus regarding the legitimacy of the system, which leads competing states to internalize restraint. This con-sensus, he believed, was nourished by the intellectual and moral foundation of Western civilization ([1948]2006: 228–30). Gulick takes a similar view. The European balance-of-power system, he observes, consisted of an ‘in-group’, which had a similar outlook on international law, similar concepts of military organization, strategy and tactics, which made it easier to gauge foreign power, similar cultural traditions, which made it easier to be moderate towards other states in peace settlements, and a uniformity of assumptions about the fundamental goals of foreign policy (1955: 19–23). Most Euro-pean theorists regarded this homogeneity as a necessary precondition for a functioning BoP system (1955: 20, 297).21

In short, most versions of BoP theory are subject to (implicit or explicit) scope conditions, which delimit their reach (we might say they are ‘con-ditional’). As noted, this does not imply that BoP theory can be applied only to Europe or that efforts to modify traditional BoP theory in order to extend it beyond a European context should be discouraged. It does imply, however, that systematic balancing against hegemonic threats can only be expected — on the terms of ‘conditional’ versions of the theory — in systems that meet certain preconditions (see Levy and Thompson, 2005: 2–3).

Note moreover, that even a universalistic unconditional version of the balancing proposition would not lead us to expect balancing to prevail in all sys-tems at all times. To expect this would be to confuse the stipulation that BoP theory applies to ‘any and all anarchical systems’ with a claim that balancing behavior and/or power equilibrium predominate in all anarchical systems at all times. As Nexon (2009) points out, structural BoP theory holds that the struc tural mechanisms and processes that produce balancing outcomes are ‘unconditional’, that is, they are relatively invariant across time and space.




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Simply put, states in self-help systems are primed to pay attention to relative power, wherever they are placed in geography or history. However, the causal mechanisms and processes associated with the balance-of-power may vary in how they translate into outcomes in different contexts depending on the presence or absence of particular independent variables. In short, while ‘unconditional’ BoP theory applies to all anarchical systems it does not per se predict balanced distributions of power across all systems. It merely stipulates that BoP mechanisms remain significant to international political outcomes in all anarchical systems.

Alternative Hypotheses: Collective Action problems, Uncertainty, Domestic Impediments, System Expansion, Administrative Failure

To counter what they describe as a universalistic and deterministic balancing proposition, the Wohlforth team set forth five ‘counter-hypotheses’, which are grounded in contemporary social science theories. Below I review each of these hypotheses. I show that while they are presented as ‘rival pro positions’ they are in fact a staple of traditional BoP theory. Also, and perhaps more importantly, the factors highlighted by the Wohlforth team as the chief barriers to successful balancing — collective action problems, uncertainty and emulation failure — are the focus of a growing body of contemporary scholarship that seeks to refine traditional BoP theory to enable it to yield more precise and detailed testable hypotheses. The Wohlforth team do not engage this literature. Had they done so, I suggest, they might have been led to formulate more precise and detailed hypotheses, which might have yielded more conclusive empirical findings.

Collective Action Problems

The first counter-hypothesis by Wohlforth et al. is the familiar notion that ‘efforts to form effective balancing alliances will frequently fail due to collect-ive action problems’ (pp. 158–9). To support this proposition, Wohlforth et al. rightly cite Olson’s theory of collective goods (1965). How ever, they fail to acknowledge collective action problems as a frequently discussed source of balancing failure within standard BoP literature.22 That collective action problems can hinder effective balancing has long been acknowledged by BoP theorists and was highlighted expressly by Waltz (1979: 164–5; see also Morgenthau, 1978). Indeed, it is almost impossible to find a version of BoP theory that does not take into account this limiting factor. The Wohlforth team also fail to tap into the large literature since Waltz, which focuses on identifying the concrete circumstances that render collective action problems insurmountable (see, inter alia, Hirshleifer, 1983; Niou et al., 1989; Conybeare and Sandler, 1990; Christensen and Snyder, 1990;




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Jervis, 1991; Conybeare et al., 1992; Rosecrance and Lo, 1996; Snyder, 1997; Horrowitz, 2001). This literature offers two basic structural-systemic explanations for free riding or ‘buck-passing’. One explanation holds that buck-passing behaviour is determined by geography. For example, Mearsheimer argues that buck-passing occurs primarily among great powers that are geographically insulated from the aggressor and who are therefore not vulnerable to invasion (2001: 272–3).23 The second explanation holds that the tendency to free ride depends on military technology. For example, Christensen and Snyder (1990) claim that great powers under multi-polarity will pass the buck when they perceive a de-fensive advantage, whereas perceived offence-dominance makes chain-gangs more likely, and Jervis (1991: 39) finds that domino effects (that is, bandwagoning) operate most strongly when offence has the advantage.24 (On offensive advantage as a source of balancing failure see also Hopf, 1991; Horowitz, 2001; Powell, 1999: 151.)

In addition to systemic factors, recent literature also focuses on strategic relations among balancers as a source of collective action problems. As Snyder notes, individual states have two powerful incentives not to act against an aggressor. One is the familiar hope or belief that others will do the job and thereby allow the abstainer to enjoy the collective good without con-tributing. The other is the fear that if one acts, others will free ride; in that event, one gets stuck with the entire cost (1997: 51). Ceteris paribus, the fear of being ‘suckered’ (and hence the collective action problem) will be greater if relations among balancers are conflict-ridden and if states fear that other would-be balancers may gain a decisive advantage from abstaining.25 Rosecrance and Lo (1996) further suggest that if relations among balancers are antagonistic, an aspiring hegemon can often induce balancing failure by playing ‘divide and conquer’ tactics whereby he offers ‘side-payments’ to those who stand aside from a counter-coalition.

In short, the Wohlforth team are correct to identify collective action prob-lems as an important source of balancing failure. My critique is that they fail to build on existing literature in a way that allows knowledge to cumulate. A substantial literature exists on collective action problems by both pro- and anti-balancing writers. By failing to engage this literature, the Wohlforth team miss an opportunity to refine their framework. Their hypothesis is simply that ‘collective action problems lead to an undersupply of external balancing’. They do not specify the conditions in which this is likely to happen, nor do they indicate how collective action problems are expected to manifest them-selves. Their empirical test thus represents a missed opportunity to improve our knowledge of the conditions in which collective action problems may undermine balancing.




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Emulation Failure

The Wohlforth team’s second counter-hypothesis is that ‘political obstacles inside states will frequently lead to failures to emulate power-generating innovations by potential hegemons’ (pp. 158–9). To support this proposition they cite the ‘new institutionalism’, which generates the expectation that increasing returns, path dependence, and other domestic-level institutional lags raise the costs and lower the supply of internal balancing via domestic reforms. By citing generic social science literature rather than BoP-specific scholarship, the Wohlforth team implies that BoP theorists fail to acknowledge the prospect of emulation failure. Domestic constraints on internal balanc-ing, however, are far from foreign to BoP theory. As Morgenthau observes, governments, certainly those subject to democratic control, must not only secure the approval of their own people for their foreign policies but also for the domestic policies designed to mobilize national power. Balancing efforts are therefore always hostage to domestic opposition ([1948/2006: 158). Waltz also points to domestic constraints on emulation: ‘Failure of balances to form and failure by some states to emulate the successful prac tices of others’, he argues, are often rooted at the domestic level, which lies outside neorealism’s purview (1979: 125). While the Wohlforth team are right to criticize structural BoP theory for bracketing the unit-level factors that may hinder effective emulation, they are wrong to suggest that the demonstrable influence of such factors impugn BoP theory. As Nexon (2009) points out, although, the structural logic of BoP theory expects emulation to increase with the threat of hegemony (Waltz, 1979: 124), it does not rule out situ-ations in which a) the advantage accumulated by a domination-seeker is so great that it cannot reasonably be offset by countervailing developments resulting from emulation, or b) in which collective action problems rooted in unit-level structures prevent effective emulation by other states. As long as actors routinely find themselves ‘punished’ for failing to emulate the practices of successful pol ities through loss of autonomy, dismemberment or elimination, neorealism’s claims are to some degree confirmed.

Clearly, we would like to know more about the circumstances in which emulation may fail. As with collective action problems, however, Wohlforth et al. do not specify what kinds of domestic-level obstacles are likely to impede internal balancing and under what conditions. They simply conjecture that ‘domestic-level institutional lags’ can raise the cost of balancing. Yet, a growing literature exists (broadly within the neo-classical realist fold) which seeks to specify domestic-level determinants of balancing behaviour and from which more detailed hypotheses can be derived (see, inter alia, Barnett and Levy, 1991; Rosecrance and Stein, 1993: 17; Rosecrance and Lo, 1996: 481; Papayoanou, 1996; Schweller, 2004, 2006). For example, Schweller’s (2004, 2006) theory of ‘under-balancing’ predicts that regimes with high levels of




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political and social integration are more likely to balance successfully against external threats, since they find it easier to gain domestic support for required reforms. By contrast, fragmented states tend to under-react to dangerous threats because they do not perceive a uniform threat or because they find it difficult to extract resources for balancing from a divided society.26 In sum, the cost of balancing-related policy change and/or institutional reform is more likely to be borne by homogeneous societies. Regime type may also matter. Ceteris paribus, the fewer veto points within a political system, the easier reform should be and the more accurate BoP theory’s predictions (see Schweller, 2004: 161). Instead of the vague hypothesis that ‘[unspecified] institutional lags may lead to failures of emulation’ the Wohlforth team could have usefully engaged these specific multi-level arguments, which have clear observable implications.27

Uncertainty

The third rival hypothesis is ‘that pervasive uncertainty ex ante about the identity and severity of the hegemonic threat will tend to exacerbate other system- and unit-level barriers to balancing’ (pp. 158–9). It is unclear, however, which particular literature this hypothesis rivals. Uncertainty about the identity and/or severity of threats has long been identified as a source of instability in BoP systems (see e.g. Claude, 1962: 91; Gulick, 1955: 26–9; Morgenthau, 2006: 215; Kaplan, 1957, 1969; Wright, 1965: 761). As Kaplan notes, timely counter-balancing is often inhibited by the fact that states have insufficient information about the capabilities of other states or coalitions (1969: 294). Morgenthau goes further, suggesting that it is im pos-sible to assess even with approximate accuracy the key factors that deter mine the power of a nation in the present or future as they are subject to incessant and often unnoticeable change. Hence, ‘the rational calculation of relative power, which is the very lifeblood of the BoP’, becomes ‘a series of guesses the accuracy of which can be ascertained only in retrospect’ ([1948]2006: 215–16).

Uncertainty is also at the heart of Waltz’s defence of bipolarity. Competi-tion in multipolar systems is more complicated than competition in bipolar ones because uncertainties about the comparative capabilities of states multiply as numbers grow, and because estimates of the cohesiveness and strength of coalitions are hard to make (Waltz, 1979: 163–71, 1988: 622). In such structural conditions, even if one assumes that the goals of most states are worthy, the timing and content of the actions required to reach them become much more difficult to calculate. This means not only that strategic blunders by individual states are more likely but, ipso facto, that also general balancing failures are more likely.




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The Wohlforth team do not discuss the conditions in which uncertainty is likely to matter most. But again, a range of relevant hypotheses can be derived from existing literature. It is generally believed, for example, that uncertainty is more pronounced the greater the number of significant players. Uncertainty may also be exacerbated by rapid technological innovation, which can lead to sudden and unpredictable shifts in power ratios (Levy, 1987: 237; Wright, 1965). It is well established that uncertainty tends to exacerbate problems of free riding and emulation failure, as Wohlforth et al. suggest (see Waltz, 1979: 163–71). The extent of this effect, however, may depend on states’ risk-profiles (see Kim and Morrow, 1992; Powell, 1999). If a majority of states are risk-averse, then the effectiveness of the BoP mechanism is reinforced since states will tend to leave a wider margin of error when forming defensive alliances (Horrowitz, 2001: 713). The more countries are risk-acceptant the more likely it is that uncertainty will prompt some states to stand aside in the hope that their contribution is not essential to defeating the aggressor.

System Expansion and Administrative Capacity

The two remaining countervailing hypo theses concern what the Wohlforth team call exogenous sources of balancing. Ultimately, the Wohlforth team argue that balancing behaviour within international systems is not what best explains variation between balances-of-power and hegemony. Rather, the explanation for why systems become more or less concentrated lies mainly in factors that are exogenous to the system, namely the leading state’s adminis-trative capacity and the system’s capacity to expand (p. 178). These factors, they claim, ‘are absent from BoP theory and indeed most international relations theory’ (p. 159).

If, as the Wohlforth team claim, the outcome predicted by BoP theory — a roughly balanced system — occurs frequently due to causal processes other than those identified in BoP theory (that is, alliance-formation, internal balancing and emulation) then this would indict the theory. Yet, the notion that a system’s capacity to expand is ‘exogenous’ to the system and missing from BoP is flawed. As Wohlforth et al. recognize units belong to an international system if ‘the behavior of each is a necessary factor in the calculations of others’ (Bull and Watson, 1984: 1). If, as the Wohlforth team argue happens when a system expands, ‘existing states that previously had little or no interaction with the system begin significant interaction’ or then by definition they become constitutive members of the system. Increased interaction with external powers, moreover, may often be a deliberate strategy of balancing. If a system is defined by interaction to the extent that ‘the behavior of each is a necessary factor in the calculation of others’ then an effort by states to increase interaction with a distant power in order to enlist




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its help in balancing against a local threat (as when Sparta enlisted Persia’s help to balance against Athens) logically cannot be defined as ‘exogenous to the system’, nor can it reasonably be seen to run contrary to the predictions of BoP theory.

The claim that ‘system expansion’ is ‘absent from BoP theory and indeed most international relations theory’ (p. 159) is also amiss. The notion that a stable balance may depend on the system’s ability to enlist outside states that act as counterweights to local powers is a staple of classic BoP theory. Wohlforth et al. correctly attribute this insight to Ludwig Dehio28 (who is amongst the most important 20th-century BoP theorists). But Dehio is not alone in acknowledging the importance of what he calls ‘system openness’ to the functioning of the balance of power. Deutsch and Singer (1969) find that all BoP systems tend to be eventually self-destroying, but that system closure will quicken this process whereas openness may reverse it. Even if states in a BoP system consistently oppose the ambitions of its currently top-ranking member, they argue, BoP theory predicts the destruction of states whose rulers misjudge the precise balance of strength, or whose economies and populations no longer yield the increasing increments required to compete. If the probability of states perishing is small, but positive, and the probability of substantial new powers arising is zero, then — over time — we get a diminishing number of effective contenders, leading eventually to a two-power world or to the survival of a single power. Only when new powers arise from outside will the system return to equilibrium (1969: 322). This insight is consistent with a large BoP literature, which holds that local or regional balances are often sustained by more powerful states outside the region (see Morgenthau, [1948]2006: 209–12; Jervis, 1997: 133; Levy, 2002: 141; Levy and Thompson, 2005: 5).29 In short, the finding that bal-ancing of power works best in open, rather than closed, systems does not contradict BoP theory.

The second ‘external determinant’ of balancing success, according to the Wohlforth team, is the extent to which force cumulates, which is determined by the relative ease of occupation and administration by the rising hegemon. In most cases, they argue, the superior administrative capacity of the con-queror is a necessary condition for hegemony. By contrast, when bids for hegemony fail, it is often because of administrative constraints on power cumulation by the putative hegemon, which means it cannot effectively rule and expand its dominion, not because of counter-balancing.

Wohlforth et al. may be correct that failures of hegemony sometimes owe less to the presence of blocking alliances and more to the inability of an aspir ing hegemon to cumulate power. Insofar as this inability is due to administrative inefficiencies rooted at the domestic level, these factors are bracketed in purely system-level BoP theories (along with economic, social




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and other factors which determine relative power) but they are included in multi-level constructions of the theory.30 Still these factors cannot be described as ‘exogenous’ to the system. Units exist within a system and unit-level factors are thus inside the system even if they are not theorized in systemic accounts.31

The Wohlforth team claim that counter-balancing by other states tends to matter less in defeating a bid for hegemony than the administrative incapacity of the hegemon itself. It is unclear, however, under what specific conditions hege monic failure due to administrative incapacity would impugn BoP theory. If a conquering state is incapable of holding on to, administering and extracting resources then ipso facto it is not powerful enough to achieve hegemony through conquest. In such circumstances we would not expect more than a weak counter-balancing effort to overthrow it. A further problem with Wohlforth et al.’s analysis is that administrative failure may frequently mask effective counter-balancing. What they define as ‘administrative incapacity’ — i.e. the inability to hold on to, administer and extract resources from conquered territory — may often be due to fierce resistance to hegem onic rule and must therefore be seen as itself a result of balancing.32 For example, the brevity of Assyria’s hegemony in the 9th century BCE (Assyrian predominance was overthrown by a massive vassal rebellion after circa 15 years) is attributed to ‘administrative incapacity’ by the Assyrian state (p. 161) but seems equally to offer evidence of counter-balancing in the form of revolt by subverted entities. By assuming that administrative failure is endogenous to the hegemon, the Wohlforth team may systematically underestimate the causal impact of balancing.

Summary

This section has sought to show that the Wohlforth team mis characterize BoP theory. BoP theory does not predict that states will always balance against preponderant power or that a balanced distribution of power resources will always result at the system level. To counter what they describe as a universalistic balancing proposition, the Wohlforth team offer a set of generic hypotheses regarding collective action problems, domestic-level con straints on emulation and uncertainty. They do not specify adequately the unit- or system-level factors that contribute to these problems or indicate their observable implications. Moreover, they disregard recent versions of BoP theory that address these very problems. As we have seen, contemporary BoP theory points to a variety of factors that influence balancing behaviour, including, inter alia, uncertainty, risk-propensity, offensive technological advantage, number of players, velocity of economic growth, and domestic-level factors, including regime stability and social cohesion. Thus, while we




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still do not possess anything like an established theory of BoP, we have a large number of empirically testable propositions, which more accurately reflect the state of theory than the propositions the nine authors set out to test.

A properly specified BoP theory might yield, inter alia, the following predictions:

1. States tend to balance against leading land-powers in autonomous, contiguous systems where power and hegemony are defined in terms of land-based military force. Not all great powers balance all the time. Weak states are not expected to balance. Collective action problems, uncertainty and emulation failure may further prevent or delay viable balances.

a. Collective action problems tend to be most pronounced when many actors are involved; under uncertainty; when there is more than one threat; when geographic conditions or military technology are perceived to favour the defence; when states are risk-acceptant.

b. Emulation failure is most likely among states with fragmented societies and feeble public support.

c. Uncertainty about the severity/identity of threat is especially likely when many actors are involved; in the presence of rapid technological change.

2. In terms of system-wide outcomes, hegemony is most likely when:

a. technology or geographic circumstances favour offensive manoeuvres;b. seized resources cumulate easily with those already possessed by the

would-be hegemon;c. system boundaries are rigid.

The Historical Record

This section considers the historical evidence brought to bear on BoP theory. The Wohlforth team examine eight historical cases. In each case balancing at some point fails, allowing one state to predominate over others, if only temporarily. The eight cases clearly disconfirm the universalistic premise that hegemonies never or rarely form in multi-state systems. As we have seen, however, most BoP theories are probabilistic. One or a few cases of hegemony do not refute the claim that there is a tendency for balances to form. Whether or not eight cases representing approximately one-fifth of all known multi-state systems suffice to refute BoP theory depends largely on case selection and on the nature and strength of the specific findings re-garding balancing failure. In this regard, it is worth noting that at least one of the systems — the East Asian System (1000–1800 CE) — appears to violate the scope conditions of BoP theory33, while another — the Greek city-state




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system — features strong endogenous balancing combined with weaker balancing against an external power, which is consistent with BoP theory. The remaining six cases all offer ‘mixed’ evidence insofar as they feature both periods of widespread and intensive balancing as well as periodic balancing failures.

Since they misrepresent key assumptions of BoP theory, Wohlforth et al. cannot claim to have refuted BoP theory. Yet, the more interesting question is whether we learn anything new from their test about the causes of bal-ancing failure. Unfortunately, I suggest, the hypotheses they test are too general and imprecise and the evidence too scarce and impressionistic to add significantly to our understanding of when balancing fails.

It is not possible here to review all the cases in detail — for that the reader will have to turn to the Wohlforth article (or their edited volume). Instead, I shall consider some general findings before homing in on a particular case, which highlights some of the main difficulties with their test. I wish to stress that I am not disputing the factual accuracy of the historical evidence they rely on. What I take issue with is not the evidence presented (which I take at face value) but the conclusions drawn from it.

The Wohlforth team report the following general findings for their eight case studies:

1. In all eight cases, the system at some point passes the unipolar threshold so that one state amasses sufficient capabilities to predominate over others. Free riding is found to have been a necessary or contributing factor to hegemony in six of eight cases. Emulation failure is judged to have been important in five cases, and threat uncertainty also features in five cases. In all eight cases, hegemony is associated with system border rigidity and with superior administrative capacity by the hegemon.

Those are the findings summarized by the Wohlforth article (p. 177). Yet, looking across the eight cases, several additional factors stand out:

2. During the more than 2000 system-years reviewed there are many more failed bids for hegemony than successful ones.

3. Each bid for hegemony is opposed by one or more counter-coalitions. When local counter-balancing fails — often, we are told, due to collective action problems — outside powers frequently enter to restore the balance. Thus regional balances are restored by external intervention in the Ancient Near Eastern System (900–600 BC), among the Greek city-states (500–330 BC), and in the Eastern Mediterranean system (300–100 BC).




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4. In all systems, except the East Asian System (1000–1800), balancing behaviour is significantly more prevalent than bandwagoning.34

5. Most instances of hegemony prove unstable and are eventually overthrown by either a regional counter-coalition or by external intervention.

6. During the total period surveyed there are more multi- or bi-polar system-years than hegemonic/unipolar ones.35

In short, the case studies appear to show that political communities do often attempt to balance against unfavourable distributions of power and that, despite uneven developments in technology and in capacities for mobilization of internal resources, balances-of-power recurrently form.

An assessment of BoP theory should not, of course, look only at system-level outcomes but should also consider the processes that produce those outcomes and consider whether they conform to the expectations of the theory.36 Clearly, this is where the Wohlforth team’s case studies should be at their strongest.

Turning now to the more detailed evidence offered in the case studies I shall focus on the analysis of the Greek city-state system (500–330 BC). The Greek city-state system in the 5th century is often viewed as an archetypical example of balancing in an anarchical system. Yet, according to Wohlforth et al., the Greek system, which consisted of more than a thousand small city-states, two dozen middle-ranked powers and five great powers, defies BoP theory in two important respects. First, there is more evidence of bandwagoning than balancing. To be sure, the Greek city-states balanced fiercely among themselves for centuries. However, the real hegemonic threat came from the Persian Empire and balancing against Persia was feeble. Fewer than 40 city-states established the Hellenic League against Persia, while hund-reds of others chose to free ride and some openly supported Persia (p. 163). But is this evidence contrary to BoP theory? After all, most of the major and middle-ranked Greek powers did join the Hellenic League. And wide spread free riding among the many small city-states is predicted by BoP theory.37 Wohlforth et al. further insist that the Hellenic League defies BoP theory because it is a blatant case of under-balancing. The League mustered only 40,000 hoplites and 350 triremes against much greater forces available to the Persians. Many more city-states would have had to join the League to bal-ance the forces available to the Persians (pp. 163–4). This argument ignores the fact that the Greeks were defending against a remote power with limited capacity to project its power into heartland Greece. We should not therefore expect numerical symmetry of forces.38 The celebrated victories of the Hel-lenic League bear this out. The Persians tried to invade Athens in 492 and again in 490 and mounted an elaborate attack on mainland Greece in 480, all




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of which were successfully rebuffed at land and at sea. The Persian force that attacked the Greek heartland in 480 BC was superior in numbers but the Greeks nonetheless held off the Persians for days — due in large part to their superior discipline and weaponry — and proceeded to defeat the Persian fleet at Salamis. Athens then established the Delian League that eventually included some 150 states, which drove the Persians from Thrace and swept them out of the Aegean and Iona (p. 163–4). In short, despite numerical asymmetry of forces, the evidence presented by the Wohlforth team hardly suggests an instance of failed balancing.

The second way the Greek system defies BoP theory, according to the authors, is that from the early and middle 4th century BC, the Greek poleis were able to thwart successive bids for regional hegemony by Sparta, Athens and Thebes only by enlisting assistance from Persia (p. 164). But again, the evidence presented appears not to contradict BoP theory. After the Greco-Persian wars, the Delian League, which was increasingly run like an Athenian Empire, continued to grow in strength, achieving several significant victories against Persia. This alarmed Sparta and war broke out between the two major Greek powers in ca. 460 BC. Sparta eventually ended the Peloponnesian Wars by defeating Athens with a fleet funded by Persia in 404 BC. According to the Wohlforth team, Sparta thereby compromised Greek independence, and allowed intra-Greek rivalries to trump the systemic imperative to balance power (p. 164). Yet, from a balance-of-power perspective, it is unsurprising that Sparta perceived a greater threat from a growing, contiguous Athens than from Persia (against whom Athens had won many celebrated victories). Moreover, contrary to the claims by the Wohlforth team, events following the Peloponnesian Wars strongly support BoP theory. As Waltz notes, since it is always difficult to say that any given distribution of power falsifies BoP theory, the strongest evidence for structural pressures is provided by ‘least likely’ cases in which states that could have been expected not to balance do so, or in which states join with long-standing enemies in order to counter a rising threat (1979: 125). When the end of the Peloponnesian Wars leaves Sparta dominant, Athens, Argos, Thebes and Corinth — the latter two formerly Spartan allies — join forces to challenge Spartan dominance. But when the Spartan army receives a terminal blow by Thebes some years later, Athens comes to mistrust growing Theban power and negotiates an alliance with the former Spartan enemy. In short, patterns of alliance formation con-tinue to conform to the expectations of BoP theory.39

The Greek system of city-states offers evidence of widespread balancing. So do several of the other systems surveyed by the Wohlforth article.40 To be sure, all eight cases also offer evidence of balancing failures. However, we do not learn much about why these failures occur. Evidence in relation to the causal mechanisms that Wohlforth et al. claim to test (uncertainty, free riding




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and emulation failure) is too scarce to be probative for these mechanisms. Take, as an example, collective action problems. ‘Free riding’ is said to have been a necessary or contributing factor for balancing failure in six of eight cases (p. 177). Yet, in the majority of these cases no concrete evidence is pre-sented to demonstrate the presence of collective action problems; such problems are simply inferred from the absence of a viable blocking-coalition. The Ancient Near Eastern system (900–600 BC) is a case in point. Here, it is claimed that Assyrian hegemony was facilitated by ‘endemic collective action problems that corroded anti-hegemonic alliances’ (p. 162) but, apart from noting that some states made side-deals with Assyria, no concrete evidence is marshalled regarding the nature or magnitude of these problems. How many states failed to balance? Which ones were they? What were the seeming reasons for their strategic choice? How do we know that the absence of viable blocking coalitions was due to collective action problems and not other path ologies (such as uncertainty or a widespread preference for band-wagoning)? The same is true for the Ancient Indian system (500–200 BC). Also here we are told that ‘the evidence indicates that [balancing efforts] were undermined by collective action problems’ (p. 168). Yet, no evidence is presented to substantiate this claim. Without at least some information about which states abstain under what specific circumstances, we cannot judge whether balancing failure is indeed caused by collective action problems or by some other factor.

Findings regarding emulation failure are equally indeterminate. The authors claim that emulation failure facilitated hegemony in five of eight cases. But while we do gain some interesting insights about the institutional innov-ations that may have empowered different hegemons and endowed them with ‘superior administrative capacity’ (‘institutional innovations’ range from effective assimilation of foreigners through re-settlements by Assyria and Rome (pp.161, 167) and universal military conscription as well as the introduction of a rational bureaucracy by Qin (p. 169) to ideological revolutions in the Americas), we learn little about the types of domestic-level dynamics that acted as a barrier to successful emulation among balancers. Often, the pres-ence of domestic-level ‘institutional lags’ is simply inferred from the absence of successful emulation.41 In the case of the Ancient Near Eastern system, for example, we are told that ‘evidence points strongly to the importance of the other units’ inability to respond institutionally to Assyria’s key power-accumulating reforms’ (p. 162), but we are given no real taste of that evidence. Thus, all we know after reading the case is that the states in question failed to emulate.

In sum, although we are presented with eight historical cases in which individual balancing efforts at some point fail to concatenate to produce systemic balances, we do not learn much about when and why balancing of




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power either succeeds or falls short. As a result, the evidence presented by and large fails either to make a convincing case against BoP theory or to grant plausibility to a coherent alternative view. To be fair to the authors, the brief case narratives are compressed versions of longer, more detailed, case studies that appear in their edited volume. Yet, while I cannot discuss this here, the book chapters generally fail to offer more systematic and conclusive evidence.42

Conclusion

According to Wohlforth et al., BoP theory yields the proposition that ‘hegemonies do not form in multi-state systems’. As we have seen, this attri-butes a claim that neither classical nor neo-realist BoP theorists ever asserted. The historical evidence marshalled to refute it should therefore do little to shake our faith (if we have any) in BoP theory. In sum, the Wohlforth team test a version of BoP theory that hardly anybody would subscribe to while excluding important revisions, refinements and elaborations of the theory, which clarify its assumptions and enable it to yield better and more precise predictions. 43

Despite these shortcomings, the article has considerable merits, which the preceding criticisms should not be allowed to obscure. Most importantly, the article builds additional support for the proposition that, if we wish to successfully account for variation in how states respond to concentrations of power, we must discard purely systemic theory and instead pursue a neo-classical realist research agenda, which takes into account dyadic relations and domestic-level factors. Although the Wohlforth team fail to offer systematic or conclusive evidence in regard to any of the factors highlighted by auxiliary hypotheses to BoP theory, their initial test clearly suggests that further research is warranted on factors such as threat uncertainty, collective-action problems, successful divide-and-conquer strategies by aspiring hegemons and emulation failure. The article is therefore best understood, I think, not as an attempt to ‘refute’ or ‘fatally undermine’ BoP theory, as the authors claim, but as an effort to further refine it.

The best reading of the Wohlforth article is, as I have said, that they have sought to provide yet another compelling case against the usefulness of structural realism and for a neo-classical realist theory, which seeks to inte-grate unit-level factors and processes with systemic ones to explain systemic outcomes. Yet, if the aim is to further a neo-classical research agenda, then two problems present themselves. First, as already discussed, the hypotheses at both unit and system level would have to be better specified. Second, if the aim is to further a neo-classical research agenda, then there is reason, I think, to be sceptical of the ‘world historical’ approach espoused by the




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Wohlforth team. The Wohlforth article (and the edited book) is part of a growing scholarship that uses world history to expand the scope of BoP research and IR scholarship in general (see, inter alia, Little and Buzan, 2000; Buzan and Little, 2002; Cioffi-Revilla, 1996; Kaufman, 1997; Hosli, 1998; Wilkinson, 1999, 2002; Tin-bor Hui, 2005). But while the world historical approach to IR is promising in some respects, I am not ultimately convinced that it offers a practical ground for testing or refining BoP theory along the lines the Wohlforth team call for. As we have seen, any plausible test of contemporary BoP theory must, as a minimum, entertain hypotheses about the role of uncertainty and of collective action problems. Apart from the number and relative size of the relevant units, a system-level approach to these questions would require scholars to take into account factors such as the state of military technology, the balance of offensive/defensive ad -vantage, relative rates of economic and military growth, etc. A neo-classical multi-level approach would further require detailed specification of unit-level factors that may shape balancing responses. Testing such a theory would require scholars to collect data on a broad range of factors, including, inter alia, the quantity and quality of information available to states, domestic institutional structures, elite consensus, government or regime vulnerability and social and elite cohesion. One would need to use careful process tracing techniques to learn about decision-making processes, perception biases, etc. Such data are much harder to come by for some periods and places than for others and invariably tend to get scarce as we travel back in history as the case studies by the Wohlforth team demonstrate.44

This is not to say that careful studies of ancient systems could not yield insights of value to the study of contemporary systems. Yet, the relevant question is not whether we can learn anything of value from studying ancient systems, but whether we can learn more about balancing of power — more, that is, that would be of relevance to understanding the current international system — from studying ancient systems than we can from conducting additional, better specified, tests on the post-Westphalia European and con-temporary international system. The answer, I think, is ‘probably not’. The last 500 years offer rich variation in balancing behaviour, while holding relatively constant (when compared to ancient systems) other fundamental variables, such as the nature and structure of states and their economic and social organization. While we do not always have precise data on relative power, the balance of offensive/defensive advantage, etc., we know a good deal more about these factors in a post-Westphalian context than we do when it comes to ancient systems. Moreover, when it comes to research into domestic sources of balancing behaviour, such as strength of state institu-tions, the European system can be very successfully mined for relevant




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data (as, for example, Schweller’s, 2004 examination of under-balancing in interwar Britain and France demonstrates).

The real question, as I have said, is not whether BoP theory can help us understand unit interactions in international systems across 2000 years of history, but whether BoP theories hold any relevance to our understanding of the contemporary international system. To see whether this is the case, we would need to evaluate the claims of BoP theory in a broader range of contemporary settings — at both global and regional levels. For example, as Madeleine Hosli (1998) observes, balancing and balances of power are notable by their absence in most areas of the third world. It’s worthwhile examining why. In a good example of what an answer to this question might look like, Paul et al. (2004) have offered a rich analysis of balancing of power in a number of regional subsystems (Western Europe, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, East Asia, South Asia, and Latin America). Comparative studies along these lines are a fruitful way of exploring the possible balancing dynamics at play across different systems. Another promising area of research is to explore ‘new forms’ of balancing. While many scholars have argued that BoP theory is losing its relevance either due to the advance of nuclear weapons and other WMD (see e.g. Rosenau, 1969) or because of growing global social forces and the increasing importance of sub-national actors, others argue that traditional balancing has simply been replaced by new forms of ‘soft balancing’ (i.e. tacit balancing short of formal alliances), and ‘economic balancing’. Rigorous studies of these phenomena would, I believe, be more likely to find application in a contemporary world than a world historical approach.

Notes

I would like to thank Duncan Bell, Andrea Sangiovanni, Randall Schweller and two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on previous drafts of this article.

1. William Wohlforth, Richard Little, Stuart Kaufman, David Kang, Charles Jones, Victoria Tin-Bor Hui, Arthur Eckstein, Daniel Deudney and William Brenner (2007) ‘Testing Balance-of-Power Theory in World History’, EJIR 13(2): 155–85.

2. An edited volume by the authors has been published since the article was written (Kaufman S., R. Little and W. Wohlforth (eds) (2007) The Balance of power in World History. Palgrave). The present response is addressed specifically to the content of the article, but many of the weaknesses I point to are also present in the edited volume.

3. See e.g. Walt (1987); Bennett and Stam (2000); Miller (2004); Ross (2004); Thomas (2004).




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4. The unqualified proposition that ‘hegemonies do not form in multi-state systems’ is contradicted by numerous prominent accounts, which show that imperial and hegemonic structures have been the most prevalent system structures until modern times. See e.g. Gilpin (1981: 116); Watson (1992); Jervis (1997: 132); Levy and Thompson (2005: 4). See also Lake (2007).

5. The many and diverse varieties of BOP theory are explored by, among others, Wight (1966); Claude (1962); Pollard (1923); Gulick (1955); Haas (1953); Little (2007).

6. The authors here quote Levy (2004). Yet, a closer reading of Levy shows that he acknowledges that most balancing propositions are probabilistic and that, far from being universalistic, most BoP theories are subject to scope conditions, which restrict their application.

7. It may be worth clarifying what I mean by probabilistic versus deterministic. As King et al. explain (1994: 59, 211), in a probabilistic world random variation always exists. Even if we could correctly measure all variables, our analysis still would not generate perfect predictions. A deterministic world, by contrast, con tains no random variation; non-systematic variation is only that portion of the world for which we have no explanation. Simply put, a deterministic theory always predicts the same outcome from a given starting condition; from this given starting point there is only one possible future. Hence, if the world were deter-ministic, and a theory claimed to take into account all relevant variables, then we could say with certainty that the theory was false if we made an observation that was inconsistent with it. The same is not true for a probabilistic theory.

8. While many see the BoP as a means to maintain peace or preserve the status quo there is broad agreement that these goals are incidental to the more fundamental aim of preserving the independence of major powers by forestalling hegemony (Gulick, 1955: 30–4; Claude, 1962: 671; Morgenthau, [1948]2006: 181; Wight, 1973: 101; Zinnes, 1967: 270–88; Wagner, 1986; Waltz, 1979).

9. This distinction was first drawn by Claude (1962: 43–50).10. Clearly war is a necessary instrument for the BoP to operate successfully. War

is what ultimately prevents hegemonies from forming. Yet, as Rosecrance and Lo point out, although war might function to enforce the balance on wayward aggressors, this logic holds only ab initio. Any rational aggressor facing the prospect of defeat would restrain his aggressiveness. If the lesson has to be brought home time after time it could only be because the aggressor believes his aggression may not be rebuffed (1996: 481). This would not be a rational expectation in a system characterized by automatic balancing. Another way to make the point is to say that if the balancing mechanism were automatic we would expect few major wars. Major (or “all out”) wars imply that an aggressor perceives a good chance of achieving his ambitions (or he would not continue to fight). This in turn implies that a balancing effort has either failed to emerge in a timely fashion or been insufficient, thus invalidating the notion of balancing as an ‘automatic equilibrating mechanism’.

11. See Jervis (1997: 131) and special section of The Review of International Studies 1989. See also Vasquez (2002: 30).




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12. The correct interpretation of Morgenthau’s view is that the balance of power and policies aimed at its preservation are an essential stabilizing factor in a society of sovereign nations but by no means an automatic occurrence.

13. It may be helpful to draw an analogy here to rational choice theory. The fact that it would be rational for actors in a prisoner’s dilemma to defect doesn’t mean that they always will. The demand to ‘be rational’ is here normative not in a moral but a prudential sense; it’s what you should do, given the ends you have (as described by the payoffs). But rational choice theory is also predictive insofar as it assumes that, given the right environment (the absence of uncertainty that makes rational behaviour too difficult to calculate, etc.), most people will act rationally most of the time.

14. Waltz’s theory can be more easily understood through an analogy to natural selection: birds don’t ‘intend’ to develop hollow bones, but those birds that don’t develop hollow bones end up dying out, and those that do survive and reproduce more effectively, such that most birds tend to have hollow bones.

15. Waltz explicitly recognizes that there are factors that lie outside of his theory’s purview, which may at times overwhelm the imperative to balance (2000b: 125). See also Schweller (2000: 166–7).

16. For a similar conclusion, see Nexon (2009).17. See especially Waltz (1979: 118, 119, 129). Elsewhere Waltz argues that, ‘realist

theory predicts that balances disrupted will one day be restored. A limitation of the theory…is that it cannot say when’ (2000b: 27).

18. Indeterminacy with respect to outcomes does not imply that structural-realism is non-falsifiable. If states have the opportunity to resist a bid for domination or to seek to overthrow a reigning hegemon but choose not to, or if states are rewarded, rather than punished, for policies that abet the concentration of power in the hands of a single political community then this would clearly impugn the theory. To Waltz, the solution to the problem of indeterminacy is to select ‘difficult tests’. Simply put, if we observe outcomes that the theory leads us to expect even though strong forces work against them, the theory will command belief. I shall return to this point in the 3rd section which discusses the empirical evidence supplied by the Wohlforth team.

19. Wohlforth et al. are, of course, aware of this limitation. Wohlforth has written a lucid piece on the difficulties of testing a theory that yields no inherent predictions except for, as he reads it, predicting ‘a tendency against hegemony’ (2002: 251).

20. To Levy, restrictive scope conditions implies that one cannot simply extend the theory to other areas without careful attention to the implicit assumptions that delimit its reach. For example, predictions about balancing against the US cannot be based on a straightforward extrapolation of BoP theory as derived from European experience (Levy, 2004: 38). In their edited volume Wohlforth et al. acknowledge that BoP theory may either be unconditional, applying to any and all states systems, or conditional, applying only to contiguous systems lacking offshore balancers. But they claim that the distinction is unimportant since ‘most of the systems we examine are contiguous most of the time’, so evidence from




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them is pertinent to both conditional and unconditional versions (Kaufman et al., 2007: 9; my emphasis). Acknowledging that most BoP theories are subject to scope conditions, however, qualifies the evidence, since not all the systems they examine are contiguous or lack offshore balancers.

21. Gulick’s own view is that homogeneity is not a prerequisite for BoP but that its absence would render the system highly unstable (1955: 24).

22. In addition to Olson, they cite an article by Rosecrance (2003) in which he makes only fleeting reference to collective action problems. His works in which he addresses collective actions problems at length (e.g. Rosecrance and Lo, 1996) are not mentioned.

23. Wohlforth et al. (2007) briefly acknowledge that BoP theorists have advanced auxiliary hypotheses to account for buck-passing behaviour, taking into account geography and relative strength. Interestingly, their historical cases suggest that geography is not an important factor in determining the success of hegemonic bids but there is no systematic testing of the impact of geographic remoteness on balancing behaviour. See Kaufman et al. (2007: 10).

24. The likelihood that hegemony will succeed depends not only on perceptions of offensive/defensive advantage and the behaviour they trigger, but also on the actual offence–defence balance. In a truly offence-dominant world, would-be hegemons are likely to be able to roll up the system quickly and effective counter-balances will not form. In a truly defence-dominant system, on the other hand, hegemony is less likely to succeed, even if states engage in extensive buck-passing. See Christensen and Snyder (1990).

25. This is consistent with Jervis’ finding (1997: 241) that successful balancing is most likely when states perceive only one threat.

26. The Wohlforth team do briefly cite the work of Randall Schweller in which he investigates how domestic variables influence specifically balancing behaviour but they fail to engage Schweller’s specific hypotheses.

27. Failure to specify the precise nature of ‘institutional lags’ means that the observable implications of such ‘lags’ remain vague. This in turn makes it difficult to determine the causal impact of this variable. As I discuss below, in several of the case studies the presence of ‘institutional lags’ appears to be simply inferred from the absence of successful emulation rather than identified independently.

28. According to Dehio, if Europe had been a closed system some great power would eventually have succeeded in establishing hegemony. But the system was open to counterweights on the eastern and western wings of the continent, from Britain and Russia and through them the influence of overseas territories and Eurasia, which meant that, regularly, just before the moment of hegemonic achievement, new powers were brought into the balance to serve as counterweights (1963: 8, 41–2).

29. From a BoP perspective, it is unsurprising that hegemony is frequently averted due to external intervention rather than endogenous balancing. Indeed, the prospect of external intervention may in some cases contribute to weak endogenous balancing since states might forgo balancing against the strongest regional power (or threat) if their survival and security are guaranteed by an




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external power. This would amount to a kind of ‘moral hazard’ (see e.g. Levy, 2004: 141).

30. As Ted Hopf has shown, power cumulativity (understood as the relative availability of the resources that underlie military capability and the relative ease of their extraction by occupying states) can also be conceptualized as a system-level variable along with the offence/defence balance (1991: 475–6). In this case, when extractability is generally high across the system, hegemony should be more likely.

31. I thank Randall Schweller for helping me to refine this point.32. Although balancing is usually taken to mean a buildup of resources to stave off

a looming threat, fighting back after an attack to overthrow a hegemony and restore balance, if feasible, must also be seen as a form of balancing.

33. The East Asian System (1000–1800 CE) is best described as a suzerain system, at least with respect to the ‘inner core’ of states like Japan and Korea whose relation-ship to China was that of tributary states rather than equals. During the period surveyed, the system is, by Wohlforth et al.’s own admission (p. 172) ‘strongly unipolar’. China was by far the largest, most powerful and most technologically advanced nation in Asia — if not the world. China produced almost one-third of the entire global manufacturing output, where the region’s second largest state, Japan, produced less than 4%. Since one would not expect states to expend resources on balancing if balancing stands no chance of success (see esp. Blainey, 1973: 115–25), counter-balancing would not be predicted in this instance except at such a time when Chinese power weakened sufficiently to make balancing a plausible strategy.

34. Note, however, that it is not the case that bandwagoning impugns BoP theory as many believe. Weak states may have no choice but to bandwagon. As Waltz argues, ‘whether states bandwagon more often than they balance is an interesting question. To believe that an affirmative answer would refute BoP theory is, however, to misinterpret the theory and to commit what one might call “the numerical fallacy” — to draw a qualitative conclusion from a quantitative result’ (2000b: 38).

35. A rough count of the system-years surveyed by Wohlforth et al. reveals that over half were multi- or bi-polar. Thus, approximately 156 decades were bi- or multi-polarity, vs 117 unipolar or hegemonic decades. However, it should be noted that 60 ‘unbalanced’ decades are observed in the East Asian system alone, while most other systems show a clear tendency towards multi- or bi-polarity. Needless to say, this is a very rough count, rendered suspect both by the somewhat arbitrary cutoff dates for the cases and by vague coding. It is worth noting that a larger compilation of data by Kaufman et al. (2007: 231) comprising 7500 system years also finds that balanced systems are slightly more common than unbalanced ones.

36. See Kaufman et al. (2007: 10); Waltz (1979: 123–5).37. See note 33.38. History shows that even inferior armies may be effective for defending against a

more powerful adversary if that adversary lacks the technology for supply far from




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its home base, as was the case for Persia in the Greco-Persian wars. Formulations of BoP theory in which resources are treated symmetrically may therefore be inappropriate for interpreting a broad range of historical events (see Niou et al., 1989: 187–8).

39. The only clear instance of balancing failure occurs circa 330 when the Greek city-states are unable to prevent Macedon under Phillip II from emerging, briefly, as hegemon over Greece. The Wohlforth article does not analyse this case.

40. For example, in the case of the Ancient Near Eastern System at least eight coal-itions formed against Assyria (see Kaufman et al., 2007, for a detailed account). The majority of these efforts were ultimately ineffective but we learn little about why.

41. In the Persian case, emulation failure is classed as a ‘necessary factor’ for bringing about hegemony but is never discussed in the case narrative. Similar ambiguities characterize other cases. In the case of Assyrian hegemony in the Ancient Near Eastern system, threat uncertainty is said to have contributed to hegemony (p. 177) but it is never discussed in the narrative, while in the case of Magadhan hegemony in the Ancient Indian system, threat uncertainty is judged to have been ‘unimportant’ although it is stressed in the narrative as a prominent source of collection action problems (p. 168).

42. To give an example, the chapter on the Ancient Near Eastern system makes the important claim that Assyria’s failure to hold on to power was the result of ‘admin-istrative failure’ rather than effective counter-balancing. ‘The source of Assyrian weakness at this time seems to have been dysfunctional domestic institutions’, we are told (Kaufman et al., 2007: 31). Yet, the only evidence offered to sustain this claim is a reference to an Assyriologist, who refers to the period as one of ‘weak kings and overmighty governors’. How this pathology produced a failure of administrative capacity and what specific role that played — relative to other factors — in bringing an end to Assyrian hegemony is not demonstrated.

43. One might argue over whether BoP theory represents a progressive or a degen-erative research programme in light of the numerous auxiliary hypotheses that have been developed to ‘shield’ the core. Yet this is not the question addressed by Wohlforth et al.

44. The case narratives presented in their article appear to demonstrate the difficulties involved in using ancient systems as a basis for testing and refining BoP theory. By the authors’ own admission, there is a great deal we do not know about many of these ancient systems (p. 161). In many cases we lack detailed and reliable ex ante measures of relative power. Moreover, ‘considerable uncertainty remains concerning the boundaries of various systems and the distinction between multi-polar and fragmented systems’ (n. 4, p. 180). In some cases there is also uncertainty about the range and extent of a hegemon’s authority (p. 168) and ‘the sequence of events is often unclear’ (p. 168). Availability of data is not, of course, a strict function of how recent a case is. We do know a good deal about the Greek city-state system. However, we know much less about other systems included by the Wohlforth team.




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Errata

In Mette Eilstrup-Sangiovanni, ‘The End of Balance-of-Power Theory? A Comment on Wohlforth et al.’s “Testing Balance-of-Power Theory in World History”’, 15(2): 347–80, the following errors have been identified.

On p. 352, the sentence starting with ‘There are many varieties...’ should be changed to: ‘There are many varieties of BoP theory, and ... disagreement abounds about the accurate meaning of key concepts such as “balancing” and “balance of power” and even about what the theory purports to explain (Levy and Thompson, 2005: 1)’.

On p. 354, the sentence beginning ‘Balances will emerge’ should be re written as, ‘Balances will emerge if a sufficient number of states act in a self-preserving way, even though such a systemic outcome was not their intention (Boucoyannis, 2007: 711)’.

A reference to Boucoyannis, Deborah (2007) ‘The International Wanderings of a Liberal Idea, or Why Liberals Can Learn to Stop Worrying and Love the Balance of Power’, Perspectives on Politics 5(4): 703–27, should also be added to the list of references.

On p. 354, the sentence starting with ‘Consider also the claim’ should end with: (Nexon, 2009: 337; e.g. Waltz, 2000b; Mearsheimer, 1990; Layne, 1993).

On p. 354, the sentence beginning, ‘Waltz, therefore, presents’ should be re-written as ‘Waltz, therefore, presents a moderately strong balance of power theory, one that allows actors to choose to ignore structural imperatives but that nonetheless expects a tendency toward systemic balances of power (Nexon, 2009: 338)’.

The footnote to Nexon (2009) on p. 354 should be deleted.On p. 356, the sentence beginning, ‘For continental great powers’,

the reference should be to Levy and Thompson (2005: 10), and not Mearsheimer (2001: 44).

The editors regret any inconvenience caused by these errors.

European Journal of International Relations Copyright © 2009SAGE Publications and ECPR-European Consortium for Political Research, Vol. 15(3): 394

[DOI: 10.1177/1354066109342605]



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