Between Motivation and Reality: Projecting Power in the Name of Regional Security? - Comparing EU-Moldovan and Chinese-Philippine relations

Abstract

Between Motivation and Reality: Projecting Power in the Name of Regional Security? - Comparing EU-Moldovan and Chinese-Philippine relations Abstract Power comes in many shapes and forms. One need only look at the plethora of interconnected conceptions of power the academic literature on politics and international relations has produced over the last century and beyond to convince oneself of this fact. Michael Barnett and Raymond Duvall's (2005) 'taxonomy of power' captures this interconnectedness like no other approach. They distinguish between two 'kinds' of social relations - interactions between actors and relations of social constitution - through which power works as well as two degrees of 'specificity' - direct and diffuse - of which such relations can be. However, such approaches are few and far between, as the pertinent theoretical and empirical literature seldomly considers these concepts in concert. The purpose of this piece, therefore, is to illustrate the interconnectedness of different conceptions of power through the cases of EU-Moldovan and Chinese-Philippine relations. Barnett and Duvall's taxonomy serves as the theoretical framework. This piece's first finding is somewhat surprising. The EU's and China's power broadly work in the same way. Both the EU and China project power towards Moldova...