Notes from different readings on the balance of power –

 Survival of the fittest analogy continuously aims balancing of power or gaining the
most power
 Different kinds of power – definition of power – conflict and diplomacy lecture
 Hobbes – ‘There is not ordinarily a greater signe of the equal distribution of
anything, than that every great man is contented with his share’ – ‘There is no way
for any man to secure himself […] till he see no other power great enough to
endanger him’
 aim above all for states is to achieve hegemony and not balance of power as it
ensures greatest i.e. security
 Balance of power analogy in relation to the theory of social contract
 as Hobbes points out in the Leviathan, ‘men are driven to quarrel with one
another because of their competition for gain, …’ (John Vincent Article)
 No governing body of law/world federal government, so absence of a ‘common
power to overawe’ equals war or preparation for one (Balance of power=out of
balance= destruction)
 general definition of out of balance is cause for destruction and chaos but out of
balance equals the concept of balance of power, so both is the same
+ balancing of powers will never stop as long as a state ‘no other power great
enough to endanger him (Hobbes)
 the case of a world federal government appears highly unlikely, specifically when
looking at the difficulties of turning the United Nations into an effective instrument
of world government
 so long as states remained grouped together in independent communities, there
is no way of removing the causes of disagreement among them
 The concept of the cold war was balance of power struggles
 arguably the cold war never ended
 David P. Gauthier remarks that “Hobbes would have approved [of] our phrase
cold war” because “it expresses well that he took to be the permanent relationship
of nations”
 Reasons of why the concept of balance of power is i.e. so widely accepted is argued
by Kenneth Waltz who states that ‘Because any state may at any time use force, all
states must constantly be ready either to counter force with force or to pay the cost
of weakness’
 this shows that the circumstances of anarchy mean that in international politics
law and institutions are governed and circumscribed by the struggle for power (see
reference 10 John Vincent article) which means to show that international politics is
a struggle for power and that war is inevitable in the international anarchy

But is Hobbes’ account feasible?