The Balance Of Power

First Published in 2004. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Since the sudden disappearance of the Soviet Union, many scholars have argued that the balance of power theory is losing its relevance. This text examines this viewpoint, as well as looking at systematic factors that may hinder or favour the return of balance of power politics.

Offering an analysis of the concept of the balance of power in IR, Little establishes a framework that treats the balance of power as a metaphor, a myth and a model. He then uses this framework to reassess four major texts that use this to promote a theoretical understanding of international relations.

The balance of power is one of the most influential ideas in international relations, yet it has never been comprehensively examined in pre-modern or non-European contexts. This book redresses this imbalance. The authors present eight new case studies of balancing and balancing failure in pre-modern and non-European international systems.

This is a major study of French foreign and security policy in the era of the Great War. Peter Jackson examines the interplay between contending conceptions of security based on traditional practices of power politics and the new internationalist doctrines that emerged in the late nineteenth century.