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Scientific article

Published:

Moral authority and status in International Relations: Good states and the social dimension of status seeking

Written by

Benjamin de Carvalho
Research Professor
Halvard Leira
Research Professor
Iver B. Neumann
Former employee
William C. Wohlforth

Ed.

Summary:

We develop scholarship on status in international politics by focusing on the social dimension of small and middle power status politics. This vantage opens a new window on the widely-discussed strategies social actors may use to maintain and enhance their status, showing how social creativity, mobility, and competition can all be system-supporting under some conditions. We extract lessons for other thorny issues in status research, notably questions concerning when, if ever, status is a good in itself; whether it must be a positional good; and how states measure it.

Themes

  • Diplomacy
  • Foreign policy
  • Historical IR

Written by

Benjamin de Carvalho
Research Professor
Halvard Leira
Research Professor
Iver B. Neumann
Former employee
William C. Wohlforth