The Balance And Imbalance Of Prestige:How Great Powers Manage The Competition Of Prestige?

The object of the research is "prestige" in international politics.Although prestige has been an important factor of human behavior,aside from relatively few exceptions the academic attention it has attracted as an influence in politics has been sporadic or tangential.For exploring the role of prestige in great powers' diplomacy,the research distinguishes different understanding in various political situations,defining two types of perceptions about prestige:the balance of prestige and the imbalance of prestige as well as discussing their influence on foreign policies.Through introducing interactions between the self-evaluation and reputation,the study regards the balance and imbalance of prestige as a perception produced by two critical dimensions:the level of satisfaction of prestige that based on the comparison of national capability and national prestige,as well as the level of satisfaction of international status that derives from intersubjective acts.When a country considers that its capabilities and prestige match and satisfies about its international status,the balance of prestige arises,facilitating the government to alleviate tensions and maintain incumbent international order.Conversely,when a country sees there is a large gap between its capabilities and prestige and dissatisfies about its status,the imbalance of prestige appears and leads to brinkmanship and revisionism.By the analysis based on different dimensions,the study argues that the balance of prestige alleviates great-power conflicts about prestige meanwhile the imbalance of prestige exacerbates great-power conflicts about prestige under anarchy.According to the levels of two dimensions,the study defines four types of situations:status seekers with capabilities that over prestige,status defenders with capabilities that over prestige,status seekers with prestige that over capabilities,and status defenders with prestige that over capabilities.Besides,two dimensions also affect each other.According to the two types of perceptions of prestige and analytical framework,the study selects the Concert of Europe in the nineteenth century to support the hypotheses of the balance of prestige.The hypotheses of the imbalance of prestige are justified by four cases:Wilhelm Germany at the eve of the First World War,the UK and USSR in the Cold War,and the US after the "September 11"terrorist attack,all of which correspond to the different circumstances of prestige respectively,revealing how the imbalance of prestige makes decision-makers radical and irrational.By historical cases and theoretical framework,the study analyses the management of prestige in the China-US relation and focuses on the likelihood of the joint prestige built by these two great powers.The contributions of the dissertation are to expound the different influence on foreign policies from different types of prestige,grant a precise conceptual space to prestige in international relations,and fill the lacuna that remains unnoticed in previous literature on the one hand.On the other,the research elaborates the mechanism of states' motive of prestige and provides an integral perspective to analyze the conflict of great-power prestige.Therefore,in the contemporary situation where the China-US competition for international leadership is increasing and becoming much fiercer,the conclusions will be beneficial to the mitigation of bilateral relations and the stability of the international order.