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Between dominance and decline: status anxiety and great power rivalry
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 08 February 2013
Abstract
This article investigates the role of status considerations in the response of dominant powers to the rise of emergent states. Accordingly, the hypothesis explored is that dominant actors are prone to fear that they will lose their upper rank, and, due to this status anxiety, resist the efforts of emergent powers to match or surpass them. The article begins by explaining why political actors deem status important and puts forward a theory of status anxiety in world politics. The more pronounced is this anxiety across status dimensions (economic and military capabilities as well as prestige), the higher the likelihood of conflict. This argument is then tested against competing theories of dominant power behaviour in two cases: the relations between France and Britain from the 1740s to Napoleon and those between Britain and Germany from the 1880s to World War One.
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References
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123 Kennedy, Antagonism, p. 416.
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125 As Gray argues, it is not easy to draw a distinction between a future security threat from Germany, even though a present one was ruled out, and the threat to the British rank as number one naval power, for which there was ‘eloquent proof’. Gray, Colin, ‘The Urge to Compete: Rationales for Arms Racing’, World Politics, 26 (January 1974), pp. 207–33, 224, esp. fn. 42CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
126 ‘Memorandum by Mr. Crowe’, in Gooch and Temperley (eds), British Documents VI, pp. 534–5.
127 Anderson, Eugene, The First Moroccan Crisis (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1930)Google Scholar; Barlow, Agadir.
128 Albertini, Origins, pp. 632–3.
129 Steiner and Neilson, Britain, pp. 72–5; Kennedy, Antagonism.
130 Woodruff, William, Impact of Western Man: A Study of Europe's Role in the World Economy, 1750–1960 (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1967), pp. 284, 288–9Google Scholar.
131 Germany wanted improved relations with Russia and British support against France, while Britain wanted Germany to help it against Russia. Kennedy, Antagonism, pp. 388–9.
132 Marder, Dreadnought, pp. 348, 350, 356, 345–58.
133 Lynn-Jones, Sean, ‘Détente and Deterrence: Anglo-German Relations, 1911–1914’, International Security 11 (Fall 1986), pp. 121–50CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
134 Paul Kennedy, ‘Great Britain Before 1914’, in May (ed.), Knowing One's Enemies, p. 173.
135 Ibid., pp. 194–5.
136 See for this argument Levy, Jack, ‘What Do Great Powers Balance Against?’, in Paul, T. V., Wirtz, James, and Fortmann, Michel, Balance of Power: Theory and Practice in the 21st Century (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2004), pp. 43–4Google Scholar.
137 ‘Memorandum by Lord Sanderson’, in Gooch and Temperley, British Documents, III, p. 430; also see Padfield, Naval Race, pp. 308–9.
138 I am grateful to the anonymous reviewers for this suggestion.
139 See inter alia Larson and Shevchenko, ‘Status Seekers’; Volgy et al. (eds), Major Powers.
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