The Exercise of International Civil Power

Abstract

The words 'power' and 'influence' are unusually frequent in literature on international politics, but despite this, these terms represent an area where intensified research still seems necessary. Power is too often considered synonymous with military power, and so certain aspects of international power have been neglected. There is little known about how power is exercised by means of non-coercive methods through the exploita tion of a non-military power base. What, for instance, are the conditions that will enable a nation to negotiate successfully about the international monetary system in the IMF and other organizations? Civil power is exercised when one nation makes another behave in accordance with its own preferences by employing only the non-military components at its power base. Civil power is a theoretical concept which only rarely exists in reality.