On April 24th, Peter J. Katzenstein, Professor at Department of Government of Cornell University, visited the School of International Studies and held a discussion with teachers and students at C105 on his new book, Protean Power: Exploring the Uncertain and Unexpected in World Politics, co-authored with Lucia Seybert, and the core concept of "protean power" put forward in the book.
Professor Katzenstein begins with the Greek mythology of Proteus, a sea god who can change his body at will and has a prophet, leading to a discussion of protean power. The financial crisis that swept the world in 2008 made him consider if there were deeper factors other than the financial system itself to have led to the crisis, as well as a government mechanism capable of solving problems in the face of a crisis.
Traditional studies of international relations mostly focus on transcendental, predictable and definite actors and events, and mostly regard the governments as the actors. Professor Katzenstein's new book focuses on unknown or future, unexpected, accidental factors and more diverse actors, suggesting that unpredictability may be the new normal, and there will be many unexpected events that are constantly changing the course of history. Ignoring "the unexpected" often leads to miscalculation. For example, Trump's election as president of the United States has changed the minds of many international relations scholars.
The concept of of power is constantly being extended, such as soft power, which is a new trend in the study of international relations. Power is also more scattered in the hands of different actors than at any other time in history. A variety of actors may have protean power, such as giant multinationals with monopoly technology, or the reshaping of European political ecology by immigrants and refugees in the past few years. Therefore, Professor Katzenstein's discussion divides power into two forms, namely, control power in the traditional sense, and protean power. He pointed out that traditional research paradigms and models pursue certainty, so uncertainty is gradually eliminated or equated with risk, which causes limitations in the study of international relations, and we should treat risk and uncertainty differently.
In the form of matrix, he presented the refusal, affirmation, improvisational or innovative response strategies adopted by the actors under different combinations of uncertainty and risks based on the characteristics of the international situation and the past experience of the actors. Taking the control power with the United States represented by the United States Government as the actor and the protean power with America as the actor as examples, Professor Katzenstein pointed out that the control power and protean power co-existed, entangled, and co-evolved.
In the lecture, Professor Katzenstein also analyzed the research and interpretation of power from different aspects by scholars such as Robert Alan Dahl, Peter Bachrach, Morton Baratz, Igor Lukes, Joseph S. Nye, Jr., Michel Foucault and Alexander Wendt. In the Q&A section, teachers and students had an active academic discussion with Professor Katzenstein from the aspects of the actor of protean power, the relationship between multilateral power and constructivism, and the way to recognise and obtain protean power.
Professor Katzenstein is the Walter S. Carpenter Jr. Professor of International Studies at the Department of Government of Cornell University. His research and teaching are at the intersection of international relations and comparative politics. Professor Katzenstein is devoted to the study of political economy, as well as security and cultural issues in world politics. His current research focuses on power, regional politics and civilization, the role of the United States in the world, and German politics. Professor Katzenstein has taught in International Studies at Department of Government of Cornell University since 1973, won the Helen Dwight Reid Award for International Studies Papers of the American Political Science Association in 1974, won the Woodrow Wilson Award for Best Monograph in Political Science of the American Political Science Association in 1986, was elected as a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1987, won the Masayoshi Ohira Memorial Award of the American Political Science Association in 1993, and was elected a member of American Philosophical Society in 2009, and was the former president of the America Political Science Association.
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