By Robert Gillen
The book is titled “War and Change in World Politics” and presents the reader with a new important theory on the change of world politics. The book also offers an intellectual framework that could change our way of thinking about international relations.
Dr. Gillen argues in his book that the fundamental nature of international relations has not changed over thousands of years and proves this vision by appealing to history, sociology and economic theory to determine the forces of change occurring in the global system. In his research, he focuses on the differential growth of power in the world order and the result of imbalances therein.
A change in the balance of economic and military power undermines the foundations of the existing system because whoever gains force sees the costs of changing the system as exorbitant and the benefits of keeping it enormous.
As a result, Gillen asserts that acting parties seek to bring about system change through regional, economic and political expansion so that they could outweigh the huge costs of the continuing change in marginal benefits resulting from it.
When the states acquire the ability to change the system according to their interests, they will seek to achieve this – whether by increasing economic efficiency and maximizing the mutual gains, or by re-distributing wealth and power in line with their interests.
