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Unit 7 Superpowers
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- Unit 7 Superpowers
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- PEARSON (PEARSON)
Full revision notes for Unit 7 Superpowers. Includes diagrams, definitions and case studies. Can revise solely off these notes and get top grades.
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7. Superpowers7. 1. a. Definitions and characteristics
Definitions:
● Superpower: country with the ability to project its dominating power and influence anywhere in
the world.
○ E.g. US
● Regional power: project dominating power and influence over other countries within the
continent or region
○ E.g. UK or Germany in Europe, Saudi Arabia in the Middle East, South Africa and Nigeria
in Africa
● Emerging power: countries with a large role in one of more superpower characteristics, and with
growing influence
○ E.g. India
● Demographics: statistical data relating to the characteristics of a population and particular
groups within it.
,Characteristics of superpowers:
1. Economic: large GDP, high % of international trade, currency used as reserve currency
2. Political: ability to influence the policies of other countries through the dominance of
negotiations, important part of IGOs, often results from dominance in other characteristics
3. Military: high global reach -> can achieve geopolitical goals, global influence through blue water
(ocean) navy and drone, missile and satellite technology
a. Indicators of power: army size, defence spending, nuclear weapons, intercontinental
ballistic missiles (ICBMs), size of navy, arms exports, presence/leading international
military organisations
4. Cultural: ability to influence the beliefs, values, ideologies and way of life in other countries
a. Achieved through: media dominance, TNCs, migrants, imposition of viewpoint in
international agreements
b. Indicators: spread of music, fashion, food, language, religion...
5. Demographic: large population (-> large diaspora of workers at TNCs), assists economic power
through large markets and economies of scale, army can be larger
6. Natural resources: control access to certain resources, makes other countries dependant, inputs
for economic growth
Example: USA
Example: China
Extra:
● Hyperpower: one, globally dominating superpower
○ 1850 - 1910: Britain
○ 1990 - 2010: USA
7. 1. b. Hard and soft power
Mechanisms for maintaining power sit on a spectrum from hard to soft power.
● Hard power: using coercive policies - military and economic influence (trade deals, sanctions), to
force a country to act in a particular way.
● Soft power: more subtle persuasion of countries to act in a particular way, on the basis that the
persuader is respected and appealing. Includes political persuasion (diplomacy) and cultural
influence.
○ USA, UK, France and Germany (all Western liberal democracies) top the soft power
ranking by Monocle Magazine.
- Both terms created by Joseph Nye in 1990 - argues that the most successful countries combine
both into ‘smart power’.
Most effective?
● Hard power:
○ Gets results but expensive and risky
○ Can be seen as unnecessary or illegal - can lose allies and moral authority
■ E.g. Russian invasion of Crimea 2014
■ E.g USA: 1991 - 1st Gulf War - to expel Iraqi forces that had invaded Kuwait
, 2003 - 2nd Gulf War - invaded Iraq after economic sanctions (soft
power) weren’t enough to persuade President Saddam Hussein to
change policy
● Soft power:
○ Rely on having respected culture, values and politics - won’t persuade everyone
○ If applied well, low cost and creates alliances and friendly relations that will spread
■ E.g. UK: one of the largest networks of diplomats and embassies, benefits from
its moral authority, BBC World Service, films, series and literature, London as a
finance, banking and law centre
7. 1. c. Changing importance of characteristics and powers
The relative importance of different forms of power has changed over time. Before, military power and
hard power were the most common mechanisms of getting and maintaining power. In the 19th and 20th
centuries, controlling large areas of land became very important.
● Geo-strategic location theories:
Heartland theory:
- 1904 by British geographer Halford Mackinder
- World island (Europe, Asia, Africa) has most of the natural resources
- Heartland (central Asia, Himalayas, Arctic) - hard to invade because of physical
- Power-based, whoever controls this, controls the world
Influence:
- Persuades the USA, UK and other powers that Russia must be contained
- Reinforces the idea that physical resources are important
In the 21st century, this seemed antiquated:
- Modern military technology (inter-continental ballistic missiles, drones…) reach anywhere in a
country - size is no longer protection
- Physical resources are traded internationally, less need to have them domestically
- War and conflict are no longer accepted
Modernisation:
Modernisation theorists believed that capitalism was the fundamental solution to poverty. This is
because capitalism is an economic and political system in which a country's trade and industry are
controlled by private owners for profit, rather than by the state. They believed that given the right
circumstances, countries will progress over modernity.
Dependency theory:
Dependency theory argues that developing countries remain dependent on wealthier nations and that
their reliance, or dependency, on developed economies is the cause of poverty.
- Core-periphery theory: exchange of primary exports to developed nations in return for
manufactured products. Terms of trade against them, since the increase in tariffs. This imbalance
in the terms of trade remains unfavourable to developing countries.
, Poverty is maintained in developing countries without the opportunity to process or add value to
primary goods.
Soft power is now more important in creating and maintaining power, by creating economic and
political alliances:
- In 1991 and 2003, the USA invaded Iraq, partly to secure oil supplies
- Russia invaded Georgia in 2008 and Ukraine/Crimea in 2014, claiming to be protecting ethnic
Russians.
7. 2. a. Direct colonial control
● a form of colonialism that involves the establishment of a centralised foreign authority within a
territory, which is run by colonial officials. Usually, the native population is excluded from all but
the lowest level of the colonial government.
In the imperial era (1500 - 1950), European powers (Portugal, Spain, UK, France) had conquered the
Americas, Asia and Africa and built empires that directly controlled these territories. The development of
these relied on:
- Powerful navies (transport soldiers and weapons + protect sea-routes and coastlines)
- Large and advanced armed land forces (to conquer and control)
- Businesses (often of the state) to exploit natural resources
- Fleet of merchant ships to transport goods
- People from the home country to compose the government and services in the colonies
Empires were maintained directly by force. Attempts by the conquered people to rebel against the
colonial power were brutally suppressed. Britain had the largest empire, reaching its peak in 1920 when
it controlled 24% of land globally.
Empires ended in the period 1950-70. European countries gave independence to their colonies because
the costs of maintaining them were too high as Europe rebuilt after WW2. Since 1950, China has
effectively acted as a colonial ruler of Tibet, brutally suppressing dissent during rebellions by Tibetans in
1959 and 2008.
7. 2. b. Indirect control
● a system of governance used by the British and others to control parts of their colonial empires,
particularly in Africa and Asia, which was done through pre-existing indigenous power
structures.
What it looks like:
1. Political: dominance in international decision making within IGOs (e.g. UN, G7, WTO…)
2. Military: threat of large powerful armed forces with global reach, selective arms trading that
supplies to their allies but not enemies
3. Economic: trade deals and trade blocs to create economic alliances that create interdependence
between like-minded countries
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