THE JOURNAL OF POLITICAL STUDIES
VOL. 1
JANUARY 2014
NO. 2
DISCUSSIONS
BALANCE OF POWER THEORY AND A UNIPOLAR INTERNATIONAL SYSTEM
Meicen Sun*
*Meicen Sun is a Ph.D. student of international relations and law at the University of Pennsylvania. She received her A.B. with Honors A.B. with Honors in international relations from Princeton University, under thesis advisor Robert Keohane and co-advisor Thomas Christensen. (See Bibliography for full notation)
1. I will use the acronym “BOP” to refer to the theory of balance of power, and “balance of power” to refer to the actual phenomenon of balance of power.
"Balance of power theory grew out of many centuries of multipolarity and a few decades of bipolarity. Today the world is characterized by unprecedented unipolarity. Balance of power theory, therefore, cannot provide guidance for the world we are in."
In responding to this statement I will first discuss the logical fallacy inherent in its argument: though the balance of power theory (BOP, below1) emerged concurrent to certain types of power configuration in world politics-multipolarity and bipolarity in this case, it does not follow that it was these types of configuration per se that gave rise to the theory itself. Multipolarity and bipolarity can, and should be considered themselves as manifestations of the underlying logic of the internation
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