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This article attempts to clarify what we know and do not know about the international system's power structure by first analysing some key concepts in power analysis and then summarizing some traditional ideas about international power. In Part I of the article concepts like 'the exercise of power', 'the possession of power', 'power structure', and 'power base' are discussed; it is concluded that the key difficulty in analysing international power is our scanty knowledge about power bases. Part II departs from the notion that when mapping the international power structure we should first and foremost identify the 'Great Powers', analyse the relations between these Powers, and examine the 'spheres of interest' surrounding them; it is argued that this is traditionally done in a simplistic way but that more realistic accounts of international power may become complex enough to call into question whether there really exists something that deserves to be called an international power structure.

Do international systems tend to remain anarchic because of recurring balances of power, or do they tend toward imbalances and hierarchy? Leading structural theories posit competing predictions about systemic outcomes, and the historical record offers evidence to support both claims. This suggests the need to theorize conditions under which one tendency or another is likely to dominate and what factors lead systems to transition from one state to another. We draw on constructivist and English School insights about international authority and legitimacy to develop such a framework. We conceive of patterns of international authority as structures independent from, and interacting with, mechanisms usually associated with international anarchy, such as the balance of power. We propose that international authority systems vary along two dimensions: particularist cosmopolitan and substitutable nonsubstitutable. Both are emergent properties of ideas and institutions located at the unit level. We argue that certain authority systems - particularist and nonsubstitutable - reinforce, and are reinforced by, anarchy and balanced distributions of capabilities. Others - cosmopolitan substitutable - facilitate rollup and domination and are likely to emerge or be maintained in hierarchic and highly asymmetric systems. By offering a structural account of international authority, we hope to contribute to the global turn in international relations, offering a framework for comparing systems across time and space. We also aim to help make sense of contemporary struggles over norms and values, their structural causes and consequences, and their potential implications for the future of global power politics.

The military power in the present international structure is largely concentrated in the advanced industrial First World and the Soviet Union, while the economic power, though a little more diffused after the energy crisis, is still with the First World. The stability of this system rests largely on actual or implied threat of the use of force by those who possess the nuclear and conventional weapons. Thus the NPT, far from being a vehicle for disarmament, legitimizes both the nuclear weapons and the inegalitarian order that rests on it. The emerging new pattern of East-West rivalry is considerably heightened in the setting of the growing North-South tension, as shown in Zaire recently. Obviously, the renunciation of nuclear weapon by its present possessors will be the first step towards creating a new order made explicit in the NIEO declaration.

Conventional accounts of the 19th-century international system describe it as a conservative restoration of the 18th-century system and account for the general stability of the 19th century primarily on the basis of the actors' peaceful dispositions. They fail to recognize or explain the profound structural changes in 19th-century politics. Problems that could not be successfully dealt with in the 18th century were solved or managed by 19th-century statesmen by means of three new systemic arrangements: a system of intertwined guarantees and duties for the great powers; arrangements for shielding European politics from extra-European quarrels; and a network of intermediary bodies, separating and linking the great powers, to serve as buffers and spheres of influence.