Review: International Relations Theory: The Balance of Power
| Author | William B. Moul |
| Published date | 01 March 1991 |
| Date | 01 March 1991 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/002070209104600111 |
| Subject Matter | Review |
188
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL
dismissed
as
irrelevant
to
the
real
world
of
policy,
but
this
book
shows
clearly
that
the
law
is
inextricably
bound
up
with
pressing
policy
issues.
Victor
V.
FiclTokyo
THE
BALANCE
OF
POWER
Stability
in
international
systems
Emerson
M.S.
Niou,
Peter
C.
Ordeshook,
Gregory
F.
Rose
New
York:
Cambridge
University
Press,
1989,
viii,
359PP,
US$
54.5°
Studies
of
the
balance
of
power,
like
various
uses
of
the
balance-of-
power
metaphor
itself,
fall
into
distinct
sorts.
There
are
studies
of
game
theory,
a
branch of
applied
mathematics
where
utterly
abstract,
self-
interested,
perfectly
informed
players
seek
strategic
advantage.
There
are
experimental
studies
of
simple
games
in
small
groups laboratories
where
warm-blooded
individuals
pretend
to
be
states
competing
for
power
measured
in
tokens.
Much
older are
the
studies
of
diplomatic
historians
who
examine
the records
of
those
who
in
fact
did decide
the
fate
of
states
in
order
to
explain the
judgments
they
made
and
the
actions
they
took.
Such
work
is
as
free
of
quantitative
analysis
as
the
games
are
free
of
historical
analysis.
In
turn,
there
are
quantitative
historical
studies of
war
and
peace
and
alliance
formation
which
assess
the
political
arithmetic
of
balance
of
power
empirically.
Finally,
there
are
the
grand
theoretical
efforts
of
realists
who
combine
philosophical
insights
with
the
practical
politics
of
statesmen into
theories
of
what
is
and
what
should
be
in
a
world
of
states.
Those
who
do
one
type
of
book
usually
keep
to
themselves.
The
virtue
of
this
volume
is
that
Niou,
Ordeshook, and
Rose
combine
these
different
sorts
in
a
clear
and coherent
account
of
alliance
formations,
war,
and
peace.
They
begin
in
the
never-world
of
game
theory
and
decision
theory
which
provide
the
foundation
for
the
theoretically
informed
historical
analysis
of
two
Near
Eastern
crises
(1875-8
and
1885-8)
and
the
July
1914
crisis
prior
to
the
Great
War
with
which
they
close
the
book. Crucial
to
their
answer
to
the question
of
why
one
great-power
conflict
escalated
to
war
and
the
others did
not
is
a
distinction
between
system
stability
and
resource
stability.
They
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