Zakaria: State-centered Realism Fareed Zakaria: From Wealth to Power - The Unusual Origins of America's World Role

Hardcover: 200 pages
Publisher: Princeton University Press 1998
ISBN: 0-691-04496-1

In From Wealth to Power, Zakaria examines America's lagged expansion - the period between 1865 and 1908, when America had the power and the will to expand her interests abroad but didn't. Zakaria finds the explanation in the domestic political structure which resulted in the inability to transform national power into state power. Result for IR theory is state-centered realism; one form of neoclassical realism.

"Once the plans for expansion were set, threats appeared without fail." 85

Zakaria's book is a critique of defensive realist assumption that states expand to counter threats. State-centered realism keeps with classical realism in assuming that states expand when they have the power to.

"Great Powers have the luxury of defining their interests in ways that far exceed minimal security requirements; the United States proved no exception to this rule." 182

"The United States did not expand against strong states that posed a great threat to its security but largely against areas that were weak and in which expansion would entail a small cost." 184

Zakaria ends his book with "a good cheer" or a reserved promise of a more peaceful world: states today are not as autonomous or powerful than before.

Second Opinion: Robert Higgs / Independent Institute  ¶ 10/31/2006 07:24:00 ap.