Mike Berry
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- January 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780199686506
- eISBN:
- 9780191766374
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199686506.003.0012
- Subject:
- Economics and Finance, History of Economic Thought
This chapter analyses the central part that ‘power’ plays in Galbraith’s analysis of modern capitalism. I draw on ideas largely implicit in The Affluent Society and those developed more explicitly in ...
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This chapter analyses the central part that ‘power’ plays in Galbraith’s analysis of modern capitalism. I draw on ideas largely implicit in The Affluent Society and those developed more explicitly in his later work, notably in The Anatomy of Power, published in the early 1980s. This life-long concern with power, its uses and abuses, helps to explain Galbraith’s particular view of the proper way to study and apply economics in the public realm. It also explains his marginalized position in the discipline and his broader influence outside it. This chapter stresses the limitations of Galbraith’s substantive analysis of power, and notes its antecedents, but credits him with consistently tackling this central element of economic reality ignored by orthodox economists.Less
This chapter analyses the central part that ‘power’ plays in Galbraith’s analysis of modern capitalism. I draw on ideas largely implicit in The Affluent Society and those developed more explicitly in his later work, notably in The Anatomy of Power, published in the early 1980s. This life-long concern with power, its uses and abuses, helps to explain Galbraith’s particular view of the proper way to study and apply economics in the public realm. It also explains his marginalized position in the discipline and his broader influence outside it. This chapter stresses the limitations of Galbraith’s substantive analysis of power, and notes its antecedents, but credits him with consistently tackling this central element of economic reality ignored by orthodox economists.
Phil Haun
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- January 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780804792837
- eISBN:
- 9780804795074
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804792837.001.0001
- Subject:
- Political Science, Conflict Politics and Policy
This book considers why with its tremendous military advantage the United States so often fails to coerce much weaker states. The answer frequently resides in the large asymmetry in power which ...
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This book considers why with its tremendous military advantage the United States so often fails to coerce much weaker states. The answer frequently resides in the large asymmetry in power which provides the United States a high probability of victory in a brute force war. The resultant high expected outcome from war introduces an incentive to leverage coercive demands upon a weak adversary, concession to which threaten the survival of the state, its regime, or its regime leadership. Perceiving its survival at stake an opponent will resist, so long as it has the means to do so. Theoretically, to avoid signaling costs, a powerful challenger should only choose coercive strategies likely to succeed. In practice, however, as in Iraq in 1991 and 2003, U.S. leaders may first seek United Nations Security Council resolutions to lower the diplomatic and political costs for brute force war. Coercion may also fail when interests are so limited that the United States cannot continue to make its threats credible as in 1986 following the El Dorado air raid against Libya. In other cases, as in Bosnia and Kosovo, coercion eventually succeeded, but not before coercive diplomacy failed as the United States placed the prestige of NATO at stake over non-vital interests.Less
This book considers why with its tremendous military advantage the United States so often fails to coerce much weaker states. The answer frequently resides in the large asymmetry in power which provides the United States a high probability of victory in a brute force war. The resultant high expected outcome from war introduces an incentive to leverage coercive demands upon a weak adversary, concession to which threaten the survival of the state, its regime, or its regime leadership. Perceiving its survival at stake an opponent will resist, so long as it has the means to do so. Theoretically, to avoid signaling costs, a powerful challenger should only choose coercive strategies likely to succeed. In practice, however, as in Iraq in 1991 and 2003, U.S. leaders may first seek United Nations Security Council resolutions to lower the diplomatic and political costs for brute force war. Coercion may also fail when interests are so limited that the United States cannot continue to make its threats credible as in 1986 following the El Dorado air raid against Libya. In other cases, as in Bosnia and Kosovo, coercion eventually succeeded, but not before coercive diplomacy failed as the United States placed the prestige of NATO at stake over non-vital interests.
