equilibrium--the realist way of understanding change

Gilpin attempts to understand the causes of the international political change.

States have the function of protecting property rights and security of the people. Therefore, the state is the principal actor in the international system. States are rational, interest-satisficing actors who make cost-benefit calculations (based on power).

An international system has three primary aspects: diverse entities, regular interactions, and some form of control. Control over the international system is a function of 3 factors: 1. Distributions of power, which determines whose interests the system promotes; 2. Hierarchy of prestige (supported by the credibility of a state’s power, public goods, and common value); 3. Set of rights and rules (conduct of diplomacy, rules of war, economic intercourse among states, which is determined by power).

Gilpin identifies 3 ideal types of change: (1) Systems Change (change of the system/nature of actors); (2) Systemic Change (a change in the form of control—power transition); (3) Interaction Change (change of interstate processes). A precondition for political change lies in a disjuncture between the existing social system and the redistribution of power, which is caused by the growth of military, economic and technological power at different rates. The principle mechanism of change throughout history has been hegemonic war, though peaceful change (bargaining) exists in daily practices.

The process of international political change rests on a set of assumptions regarding the behavior of states: (1) The system is in equilibrium if no state believes it is profitable to change it; (2) A state will attempt to change the system if the expected benefits of such change outweigh the expected costs; (3) A state will attempt to change the system through territorial, political, and economic expansion until the marginal costs of further change are equal or greater than the marginal benefits; (4) Once an equilibrium is reached, the economic costs of maintaining the status quo tend to rise faster than the economic capacity to maintain the status quo; (5) If disequilibrium is not resolved (by the dominant power through increasing resources or decreasing costs), the system will be changed, and a new equilibrium reflecting the redistribution of power will be established.

Gilpin’s book is a brilliant realism work. Under his powerful logic and organization, he is able to give strong analyses of (1) states’ position in IR (2) state interests (3) power, and most importantly (4) change in/of international system.

However, his work, just like other neo-realism works, are highly materialism. Since they ignore the ideational elements, they have problem to explain the change of norms, rule of games, and cultural structure in IR, which are more fundamental. In addition, it is also problematic to ignore the possibility of incremental and peaceful change in/of international system.