Geostructure of Power in the International Political System: A Trans- Structural Approach

Abstract

States relate to each other producing a larger phenomenon called the international political system (IPS), which is organized around two main axes: the axis of competition and the axis of cooperation. This research focuses on the first one, on the axis of competition between States, which is, the mutual disposition or position of state units in the system based on competition. For the analysis, three important theories of International Relations were reviewed, which are inserted within wider paradigms of thought: neorealism (as a part of the realist paradigm), world-systems theory (as a part of the neo-Marxist paradigm) and neoliberal-institutionalism (as part of the liberal paradigm). Through breaking down the variables employed by these theories, it was possible to determine that all of them highlight certain elements of national power that allow to "measure" states. It allowed to put in question the historically prevailing inter-paradigmatic stagnation and to overcome it. From this and with the aid of innovative quantitative techniques that made possible to measure the multiple dimensions of power revealed by the mentioned theories, a new trans-paradigmatic and trans-structural model is elaborated, which contributes to a broad and complex understanding of power in the international political system as long as it allows the visualization of the heterogeneity and multidimensionality of the distribution of power between states. This innovative classification of states that is built here not only synthesizes the specificities of each theoretical paradigm but also articulates them generating a model that allows to determine exactly the position that each state occupies in the geostructure of power through a precise, differentiated and complex comprehension of their national capacities.