In light of recent global trends and crises, including the hasty withdrawal of Western troops from Afghanistan and the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine, this book sheds new light on global power shifts in multiple areas of international relations between industrialized countries and emerging powers.
This book argues that “the global age” is rapidly supplanting “the modern age”, and that modernity is paving the way for globality. The events that are taking place in the 21st century can no longer be effectively described, understood or explained by the concept of modernity which originated more than 500 years ago.
Further, this book challenges the academic and societal tendency to view international power-related phenomena on the basis of a dichotomy between hard and soft power. It assumes that another power source, independent of hard and soft power, does exist. Invisible, structure-manipulating, and effectively leveraged, it is precisely this “third power” that drives and shapes power phenomena in the “global age” more intensively than either hard or soft power.
This book seeks to verify its core hypotheses by applying them to a set of selected global phenomena, particularly from the domains of geopolitics (Belt & Road Initiative, Iran conflict, war in Afghanistan, and competition for a new world order) and technology (Global Navigation Satellite Systems, 5G infrastructure, race for international standards, and ICT rivalry). Rather than systematically examining each of these issues, it focuses on extracting theoretical meanings from these cases to demonstrate the logic of globality and structural power, partly from global-horizontal perspectives, partly through a structural-vertical lens.
Author(s): Xuewu Gu
Series: Global Power Shift
Publisher: Springer
Year: 2022
Language: English
Pages: 170
City: Cham
Preface: Modernity, Globality, and Structural Power
Contents
Abbreviations
Part I Global-Horizontal Perspectives
1 Globality: A New Paradigm of Thought?
1.1 Globalization, Globalism, and Globality
1.2 Modernity in Criticism
1.3 Globality as an Alternative Concept
1.4 Spring of Globality
1.5 Debates About Impacts of Covid-19 on Globality
2 The Nature of Globality and Its Logic
2.1 Globality of “Things”
2.2 Reversibility of Globality
2.3 Systemic Competition?
3 Measurability of Globality and World Order
3.1 The Logic of Measurability
3.2 Globality of World Order
3.3 Can Wilsonianism Survive?
4 Compatibility of Globality and Global Navigation Satellite Systems
4.1 Competitive Compatibility
4.2 Competitive Interoperability
4.2.1 GPS and Galileo
4.2.2 GPS and GLONASS
4.2.3 GPS and BeiDou
4.2.4 GLONASS and BeiDou
4.2.5 Galileo and BeiDou
4.2.6 GLONASS and Galileo
4.3 Winners of Compatibility of Globality
5 The Poverty of Eurocentrism in Light of Globality
5.1 The Unique Universality Claim of Eurocentrism
5.2 The “Inverted Eurocentrism”
5.3 The Eurocentric Mentality of EU Policy
5.4 Revival of a Real Universalism?
5.5 Incorrigible Europeans?
6 Can American Exceptionalism Survive the Global Age?
6.1 Where does American Exceptionalism Come From?
6.2 “Does American Exceptionalism Still Exist?”
6.3 The Myth of American Exceptionalism 1.0 and 2.0
6.4 Stages of American Exceptionalism
6.5 A Humbler American Exceptionalism
7 How Vulnerable is Globality?
7.1 The Danger of Geopolitical Rivalry
7.2 “In the Name of National Security”
7.3 Dilemma for ICT Companies and Huawei
7.4 “A Bifurcated 5G Ecosystem”?
7.5 The Risk of “Decoupling”
Part II Structural-Vertical Insights
8 Globality and Structural Power
8.1 Hard-and-Soft Power-Dichotomy in Crisis
8.2 The Case of Iran
8.3 The Case of Afghanistan
8.4 The Case of the EU
9 The Search for Structural Power
9.1 The Assumption of “Structural Power”
9.2 The Problem of Tautology
9.3 New Postulates of Structural Power
10 The Nature of Structural Power
10.1 The Leverage-Character
10.2 “Belt & Road Initiative” as Leverage
10.3 The “Invisible” Power
10.4 Symbols as Power
11 Dispositional Power and 5G Standards
11.1 Dispositional Interplay
11.2 5G Standards: A New Theater for Dispositional Power Games
11.3 Standard Essential Patents as a Source of Dispositional Power
11.4 China’s Strength in the 5G Standards Race
11.5 Huawei’s Dispositional Power
12 Understanding the Meanings of Context of Power
12.1 The Holy Context
12.2 Multiple Structures and Power Asymmetry
12.3 Pakistan as Part of the Taliban’s Structural Power
12.4 The Magic of Favorable Positions
13 The Illusion of “The Clean Network”
13.1 Three Waves of U.S. Campaigns
13.2 Moderate Success
13.3 Europe’s Concern
13.4 Germany’s “Sonderweg”
13.5 Soft-Balancing Act
14 Open RAN: An Adventurous Antithesis to Globality of 5G
14.1 5G Standards: High Globality and Low U.S. Dominance
14.2 A New “Standard-Game” Among China, America, and Europe
14.3 Open RAN: An Innovation or an Illusion?
14.4 Existing Globality: Victim to Ideologically Motivated Innovation
15 Epilogue: America, China, and the Future of the World
15.1 Geopolitical Dimension
15.2 Technological Dimension
15.3 Systemic Dimension
15.4 Philosophical Dimension
15.5 Prospects for the Chinese-Western Relationship
References
