Developing Ways Towards Peaceful Power Transitions:A Comparative Study

Even though we may lack enough perspective to see it properly, the world is immersed nowadays in a complex transitional process, in which the hegemon, the United States, is in decay, and in which China is the most successful rising power. This scenario is usually known in International Relations as a Power Transition, and it’s usually considered to have a positive correlation with conflict and Global Wars. Even though China has clearly stated its lack of hegemonic intentions and its will to keep pursuing a peaceful development, the amazing and fast rise of the PRC has been enough to generate a perception of threat in the United States, that if it’s not dealt properly could lead to terrible and global consequences. Since we are still in the early stages of this transition and therefore there is still time to avoid tragedy, it’s important to start developing ways towards a Peaceful Power Transition to avoid falling in a global hegemonic War.The aim of this thesis is to develop a comparative case study on Power Transitions to help to create clearer ways towards Peaceful Power Transitions, and improve this gap in the International Relations Literature (what the British scholar Carr recognized as a core international relations dilemma, the Peaceful Transition Problem). To reach this aim, this research will focus on the transition of power that took place between the United Kingdom and the United States from the late XIX Century, specifically from 1866 until 1945. The study will analyze the factors and processes that made possible, that for the first time in history the two countries involved in a power transition, the declining hegemon (United Kingdom) and rising power (the United States), they didn’t go to war with each other. This was a unique historical case of Peaceful Power Transition worth analyzing. The case of the failed warlike power transition between UK and Wilhelmine Germany that took place between 1891 and 1914, and that ended up in the First World War, will be used as a comparative counterpart Warlike Power Transition, that will be contrasted with the Peaceful one that took place between the US and the UK. Using process tracing, hypothesis testing, and other comparative tools, such as Mill’s method of the difference, between these two cases, will help to identify the main factors that actually influenced a peaceful transition between the US and the UK and a warlike transitional outcome between the UK and Wilhelmine Germany.Even though the perception of transition helps to create a feeling of threat in the US towards a developing China, this study will also try to analyze if this transition is real:That is, if China is actually doing better than the US, comparing their power from an economic, political, military, social and soft-power point of view. Once this is done, using the two historical transitions mentioned above as an initial comparative guide, and after analyzing the evolution of the relationship between the PRC and the US, some strategies that could help the United States and China to avoid falling in a Hegemonic War will be presented, and the possibility of developing a Peaceful Power Transition will be also considered.