balance of power

Syllable breakdown

Dictionary meaning

one of the oldest and most central concepts in international relations theory and diplomatic practice, describing the tendency of states in an anarchic international system to prevent any single state from achieving hegemonic dominance by forming coalitions or alliances against the rising power; as an empirical regularity the balance of power describes observed patterns of coalition formation; as a normative principle it prescribes that states should act to prevent dangerous concentrations of power; as an explanation of international outcomes it suggests that hegemonic bids will generally be resisted and defeated by the combined effort of threatened states; the Congress of Vienna (1815) was the most deliberate historical attempt to construct and maintain a balance of power in Europe, with the great powers seeking to prevent the recurrence of Napoleonic hegemony; in contemporary international relations debates the balance of power concept is applied to the rise of China, asking whether Asian and American states will balance against Chinese power, and to the post-Cold War unipolar moment, asking why American predominance did not generate more balancing coalitions