Canada and the World, Ep. 18: Great power politics
A new podcast
series from OpenCanada.org and the Balsillie School of International
Affairs.
How has the way states achieve power, and prevent others from doing so, changed over the past several decades?
This week, guest host Patricia Goff chats with T.V. Paul and David Welch about creating and restraining great and rising powers, from China to India to the United States. What do we mean by hard and soft balance of power and what are the best strategies and instruments to use today to keep powers in check? Do we still look to classical Europe for cues and to set norms? Is China the greatest current example of aggressive use of power, or has there been an exaggeration of the threat it poses? And, finally, is the US actually in decline or has it simply lost the will to lead?
Our guest host
Patricia Goff — in the host chair this week for Bessma Momani — is associate professor of the department of political science at Wilfrid Laurier University and the Balsillie School of International Affairs in Waterloo, Ont. She specializes in international political economy, international relations theory, and international organization, with a particular interest in trade, intellectual property, and the cultural capacity of international organizations.
This week’s guests
T.V. Paul is the James McGill professor of international relations in the Department of Political Science at McGill University in Montreal. He served as the president of the International Studies Association for 2016-17. Paul is the author or editor of 18 books and over 65 scholarly articles/book chapters in the fields of international relations, international security, and South Asia. His most recent book is Restraining Great Powers: Soft Balancing from Empires to the Global Era (Yale University Press, 2018).
David A. Welch is a CIGI senior fellow, chair of global security at the Balsillie School of International Affairs and professor of political science at the University of Waterloo. He is also founder of the Japan Futures Initiative and an award-winning author. He received his Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1990.
Canada and The World is produced and edited by Matthew Markudis. Each episode is available for download (below) and can also be found on iTunes and other podcast applications.
