Power vacuums in international politics : a conceptual framework

Abstract

Policymakers and academics alike frequently invoke power vacuums asimportant phenomena in international politics, referring to them in a diverse array ofcontexts ranging from civil war to the decline and retrenchment of great powers.However, students of international relations (IR) have largely neglected to seriouslyengage‘power vacuum’as a social scientific concept. This renders it virtuallyimpossible to undergird current policy debates on power vacuums with social scientificanalysis, and more generally raises doubts about the concept’s analytic utility. In thispiece, I argue that‘power vacuum’is not merely a popular buzzword but a conceptwith considerable theoretical promise. I develop a conceptualisation of power vacuumsas spaces that experience authority collapse. Since, in the context of internationalpolitics, organisations can claim authority on several political levels, I posit theexistence of several types of power vacuums of which two appear particularly relevantto the study of IR: national and international vacuums. My conceptualisation is able toreflect the diverse ways in which the term is currently utilised, paves the way for novelresearch on a subject of great concern to policymakers, and uncovers the potential forcloser collaboration across traditionally rigid thematic boundaries within IR.