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All 11 Flashcards — Structural power
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Question
What is structural power?
Answer
The power to shape the rules and systems (of trade, money, security) that others must operate within.
Question
What is relational power?
Answer
The power to make another actor do something within the existing rules — winning a single move.
Question
How do relational and structural power differ?
Answer
Relational power wins a single move within the rules; structural power sets the rules everyone plays by.
Question
What are the areas of structural power?
Answer
Finance (money system), trade and production, security, and knowledge/ideas.
Question
What is a reserve currency?
Answer
A currency other states hold and use for global trade — a key source of structural power in finance.
Question
Why is structural power so deep?
Answer
Shaping the rules shapes everyone's choices at once, and the rule-maker gets its way without coercing each actor.
Question
Why is US structural power a good example?
Answer
The dollar is the world's reserve currency and the US shaped the IMF/World Bank/WTO — influence over the whole financial system.
Question
How does structural power let a state avoid coercion?
Answer
Others already operate inside a structure it built, so it gets its way without pressuring each one.
Question
Is structural power permanent?
Answer
No — it weakens as global power shifts and rivals build alternative structures to escape it.
Question
What are the strengths of structural power?
Answer
It shapes everyone's choices at once, works without coercion, is self-reinforcing, and is hard to challenge from inside.
Question
What are the limits of structural power?
Answer
Rivals can build alternatives, it shifts with global power, it is resented, and overusing it pushes others away.
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Topic 1.3 hub
Power
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