Quantitative Approaches to Global Power
Description
This book examines national power in the contemporary international system through an empirically grounded and theoretically integrated framework. Rooted in the trans-structural approach, it builds upon the theory of national-international power and consolidates the World Power Index (WPI) as a comprehensive measure of state capabilities across material, semimaterial, and immaterial dimensions.
The volume applies the WPI to measure, classify, and compare national power across the Global North and Global South, analyzing its implications for the provision of global public goods, health equity, artificial intelligence, ecological asymmetries, and the strategic role of elite sport in revealing national power and generating soft power.
More than a collection of studies, this book establishes the WPI as a reference framework for the study of national power and the international geostructure, offering scholars and policymakers a systematic foundation for interpreting the global power shift.
Reviews / Votes
"This collection of essays is essential reading. At a time when international politics is rife with misinformation and malicious rhetoric, the analysis in the chapters provides a clear-eyed view of geopolitical change. A vital academic contribution is made by defining and operationalizing power. The vitality and diversity of inquiry is highlighted by a careful curation of chapters. An essential interjection into commentary and debate of global power dynamics is made by showcasing the possibility and value of empirical inquiry." (Colin Flint, Distinguished Professor at Utah State University)
"National power is something that we all understand, but something that even academic experts struggle to measure. This book offers a series of practical applications of the World Power Index, showing how power indices can help us understand how countries compete, interact, and cooperate. Unlike most analyses that focus only on the so-called "great powers,"
Quantitative Approaches to Global Power
takes sub-global and regional power seriously. Highly recommended." (Salvatore Babones, Associate Professor at University of Sydney)
"The work
Quantitative Approaches to Global Power
presents a novel and enlightening theoretical and methodological advance of the World Power Index, an analytically rigorous tool for understanding the world we inhabit. With analytical consistency but also a welcome clarity, after demonstrating the explanatory power of emerging national realities from a global perspective, the book turns to the study of national case studies using the WPI, allowing them to be understood from a different, richer, and more fruitful perspective for comprehensive understanding." (Pablo Pineda, Director of the PhD Programme in Political Science, University of Guadalajara)
More details
Persons
Daniel Morales Ruvalcaba is Associate Professor at Sun Yat-sen University (China) and creator of the World Power Index (WPI), a multidimensional framework for analysing national power in the contemporary international system. He has held academic positions in Mexico and been a visiting scholar at Sciences Po (France), Maria Curie-Sklodowska University (Poland), and Universidad de la República (Uruguay). He serves on the editorial boards of several international journals. His research centres on Latin America, BRICS, and the Global South, examining shifting configurations of world power.
Carlos Pulleiro Méndez is an Associate Researcher at Tongji University, Shanghai, China. He holds a PhD in International Studies from the University of the Basque Country, Spain, and was a research fellow at Sun Yat-sen University (2018-2021) and a visiting scholar at the University of Deusto (2019-2020), Bilbao, Spain. In 2022, he became a lecturer at the European University of Gasteiz, Spain. His research focuses on sports diplomacy, international relations, and the geopolitics of sport.
Alberto Rocha Valencia holds a PhD in Sociology from the University of Paris VIII, France. He is Research Professor (Titular C) at the University of Guadalajara, Mexico, where he leads the consolidated research group "Integration, Governance, and Development in Latin America and the Caribbean." He previously served as Director of the Institute of Economic and Social Research at the Universidad Nacional de Ingeniería (Peru) and contributed to establishing postgraduate programmes in Political Science and Social Sciences at the University of Colima. A member of Mexico's National System of Researchers (1994-2024), his work focuses on Political Science, International Politics, regional integration, and globalisation.
Content
Chapter 1. Introduction.- Part I: National Power and Global Reordering Through the World Power Index.- Chapter 2. New Perspectives on National-International Power: A Theoretical, Methodological, and Technical Review.- Chapter 3. National Power and Economic Dominance: Exploring Global Influence Through the World Power Index.- Chapter 4. National Power and Autonomous Foreign Policy.- Chapter 5. National Power in the Global South: Multipolar Emergence and Geostructural Change.- Chapter 6. National Power in the Global North: Divergence and Patterns of Internal Reordering.- Part II: Empirical and Sectoral Applications of the World Powers Index.- Chapter 7. National Power and the Provision of Global Public Goods.- Chapter 8. National Power, Aid, and Health Equity: A Global Analysis.- Chapter 9. National Power and Technology: Analyzing the Development of Artificial Intelligence From the World Power Index.- Chapter 10. National Power and Ecologically Unequal Exchange: Emissions, Aboveground Biomass Loss, and Recursive Exploitation in the Semicore and Semiperiphery.- Chapter 11. National Power and Olympic Success. An Analysis of the Medal Table From the World Power Index.- Chapter 12. National Power and World Sports Rankings: Measuring the Capacity of Elite Sport to Reveal National Power and Produce Soft Power.