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In the context of international relations and
diplomacy, power (sometimes clarified as international
power, national power, or state power) is the ability of one state to influence or control other states. States with this ability are called powers, a term
that is sometimes capitalized. Recently entities other than states has acquired the same ability to influence and control other
states, most often these are multinational
corporations with financial assets surpassing smaller states, but also organisations such as the United Nations, the World Trade Organization, the International Monetary Fund and the World
Bank show that they have international power.
Theory
In the field of political theory, Niccolo Machiavelli theorised early and influentially on the
mechanisms of gaining and retaining political power, publishing
The Prince in 1513.
Power is usually defined as the ability to impose one's will on others, or to pursue one's goals at the expense of others'
interests. Power can be exercised through violence or through coercion, the threat of force.
In Western thought, the power of a state is generally thought of in qualitative terms; however, in the current political thinking of the People's Republic of China, national power can be
measured quantitatively using an
index known as comprehensive national
power.
State power is often divided into hard power (military power) and soft power (economic or cultural or persuasive power).
Categories of powers
Political analysis often personifies nation states as powers,
discussing superpowers, great powers, second-order powers and "European powers", for example, with convenient simplicity as
manifestations of Realpolitik.
States have always had variable levels of powers and a number of terms have been developed to describe this continuum.
- A hyperpower is a state that is by far the world's most dominant (for
example, the United States today)
- A superpower is a state that is greatly more powerful than almost all other
countries (for example, the US and USSR during the Cold War)
- A great power is a state that is one of the leading powers in the world (for example, the United Kingdom in the 19th century)
- A middle power is a state that cannot dominate other states, but does
have some international influence (for example, Canada today). A term often used
interchangeably with middle power is regional power, a state that
dominates other states in its region. An example of a regional power would be India in
South Asia.
See also
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