Structural Power and International Regimes

This paper revisits the international relations approach to structural power. In particular, it stresses the influence of international regimes, institutions and international law, on current understandings of structural power. The new approach broadens conceptions that see structural power solely as constraints; structures not only reflect the capabilities of actors that created them, but also generate new capabilities. The institutional context and viewing the ‘structure’ through the prism of international regime theory enables us to resolve conceptual issues that eluded classic scholars such as Waltz and Strange; and allows a more pluralistic view of actors' interactions in the international system.