Global Conflict Intensity and Great Power Summitry Behavior

Abstract

Despite the significance of Great Power summitry to the maintenance and evolution of world politics and order, little attention has been allocated to this central phenomenon. One earlier exception (Galtung, 1964) did find that the volume or restrictedness of summitry (1941–1961) was associated with two key properties of the global system: polarization and predictability. However, a close examination of this study reveals serious problems vis-à-vis a shifting contextual focus and conceptual ambiguity in the handling of the independent variables. A reexamination with an explicitly geocentric perspective, a dependent variable limited to chief executive summitry (1948–1971), and a focus on the conflict intensity aspect of polarization (primarily measured by the annual rate of change in world military expenditures and secondarily by event interaction data) produced results which differ greatly with those found in the earlier study. Most of the original hypotheses receive little if any support. Additional analysis suggests the possibility of such intervening variables as time, the bloc interaction variant of polarization, capability concentration, and capability distribution fluidity. Further study, probably over a longer period of time, will be required to arrive at a more definite conclusion. Moreover, while Great Power summitry does appear to be influenced by certain attributes of the global system, the weakness of the discovered relationships suggests that summitry is a complex form of Great Power behavior that must be placed in a larger framework of global politics.

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