I. THE BOP THEORY: CORE ASSUMPTIONS AND THE
(IR)RELEVANCE OF POLARITY
VVWe should first understand the logic that gave rise to the BOP theory. Two assumptions are of central relevance. First, the international system is considered to be anarchic, with no system-wide authority being formally enforced on its agents (Waltz 1979, 88). Because of this “self-help” nature of the system, states do not have a world government to resort to in a situation of danger, but they can only try to increase their capabilities relative to one another through either internal efforts of self-strengthening, or external efforts of alignment and realignment with other states (Waltz 1979, 118). Second, states are the principle actors in the international system, as they “set the terms of the intercourse” (Waltz 1979, 96), monopolize the “legitimate use of force” (Waltz 1979, 104) within their territories and generally conduct foreign policy in a “single voice” (Waltz 1959, 178-179). Hence states are also considered to be unitary actors in the international system. This latter assumption is important because if non-state or transnational actors are powerful enough to challenge state actors, power configuration in the world may no longer be considered in terms of polarity but in terms of the number of layers of policy “networks”[1] instead. I base my argument on these two core assumptions about the international system also because they have
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themselves as manifestations of the underlying logic of the international system which the BOP theory also embodies. This logic of relative positionality of states in an anarchic system, as I will argue, has not fundamentally changed since the emergence of BOP theory. This leads to the second, empirical problem with the statement. On the one hand, a de facto unipolarity characterized by American hegemony has been around for much longer than since the end of the Cold War. On the other hand, the current economic and political status of China places it in a pseudo-superpower position vis-à-vis the United States. Both of these mean that the degree of unipolarity we observe today relative to the bipolarity of the Cold War is, if any, weak. Therefore, much of BOP’s relevance in the bipolar world will continue to be in today’s international system.