Exercise No. 7:  Global Power Shifts in the 21st Century


 

    Task One:  Global Power Shifts

  1. Read Chapter 11, "The Global Socialpolitical System, in Exploring and Shaping International Futures.  This exercise first is going to examine power (POW).
  2. Our International Futures model has a relative power measure (POW).  This measure computes a region's (or country's) relative power by examining a number of factors -- see Figure 11.4 on p. 183. --  including its proportion of the world's total population; its proportion of the world's total GDP; its proportion of the world's total conventional military forces: and it proportion of the world's total nuclear power.  "POWER" is measured in %s of the world's total power in a given year.  The US measure for the year 2000 is "27.12"  --  that means that according to International Futures the US held a little over a quarter of the world's power in the year 2000.  Task One is for you to analyze the base case's predictions of global power shifts over the 21st century.
  3. Click on this Excel file -- The New "Corrected" Power.xls -- that contains every country's IF's Power % for each year from 2005 to 2100 in IF version 6.09.
  4. Write an analysis of the shifts in  power that the IF model predicts will happen over the 21st century.  What shifts are most notable?  Which countries are the biggest "gainers" of power?  Which countries are the biggest "losers" of power?  Which countries experience interesting rising and falls in power over the course of this century?  Overall, how is the world's power distribution in 2100 projected to differ from that of 2050 and from that of 2005? (Hint:  find the top 10 holders of power in 2005 and then find the top 10 holders of power in 2050 and and then in 2100.  Note changes.  Any easy way to do that is to use the "sort" command in Excel.).  If you like, produce a graph of the 21st century power changes of big losers or winners.
  5. Task Two is to find your individual country and trace its shift in power.  Produce a bar graph showing power changes.  
  6. Open up the Intentional Futures Program.
  7. Choose "Display" and "Self-Managed Flexible Display."  
  8. In the "Display Menu" choose "Select Names" and "Full Set (of variables/parameters).  Find "POWER" and select your country.  Produce a bar graph.  It should look something like this:
     
     

    Task Two:    Analyzing the Components of Your Country's Power Shifts in the 21st Century

  1. Remember our power measure (POWER) is made up of  a number of factors, including a country's proportion of the world's total population, its proportion of the world's total GDP, its proportion of the world's total conventional military forces, and it proportion of the world's total nuclear power.   You can calculate trends in each of these four components of POWER your country to better understand the International Futures model "Power" prediction for your country.  
  2. You are now going to compute four ratios (POP/WPOP; GDP/WGDP; CPOW/WCPOW; NPOW/WNPOW) -- with your chosen country  in the numerator and the world total in the denominator.
  3. Open up the Intentional Futures Program.
  4. Choose "Display" and "Self-Managed Flexible Display."  
  5. In the "Display Menu" choose "Select Names" and "Full Set (of variables/parameters).  
  6. Click on the "Computations" box. 
  7. In the box that asks you to "Type in the formula using any variable names" put in a formula that will compute your desired variable.  For example, type in "(ChinaPop/WorldPop)*100) if you want to compute China's percent of the world's population.   Click the "Select Vars." box.  Type in a Formula Name -- such as China%Pop -- and hit "OK."
  8. Now you will tell the IF model where to find each variable.  With your first variable highlighted hit the "Select Vars" box.  Now you are in the normal Display Menu screen.  Type in "Pop" and select "China."  Now the IF model will know that "ChinaPop" means China's population in millions.
  9. Highlight "WorldPop" now and hit "Select Vars."  Type "WPop" and select "Wpop - World population in millions."  Now you can "exit" and "exit".  Your newly computed variable is now ready to be displayed.  You do have three more computations to do -- GDP%, CPOW% (conventional power %), and NPOW% (nuclear power %).  Hit the "Computation" box and answer "yes" to the question "Do you want to make a copy of this variable?"  Since you will be using the same basic formula in the next three computations, just make the appropriate modifications to the basic formula.  Your goal is to produce a single line graph that traces simultaneously changes in all four components of your country's total power index. There are no "world" variables for conventional or nuclear power.  To get the "world" value for these variables just switch from "Using Countries/Regions" to "Using Groups" and choose "world" as the group.  When you have calculated all four of your variables "Go to Display" and produce a graph that looks something like this:

     

  10. Write an analysis describing your country's power over the course of the 21st century, explaining what was "behind" that shift in overall power.  Was it because its share of the world's population increased (or decreased)?  Or because its share of the world's GDP increased or decreased?  Or its share of the world's conventional military forces increased or decreased?  Or its share of the world's nuclear weapons?  Remember, there are several additional components (p. 183) that the model uses to calculate a country's total "power," so these four components do not constitute the entire picture, but they are most of the story.  If one variable -- say your country's % of the world's total nuclear power -- is "0" throughout the time period you can trace a different component of power from those listed in Figure 11.4 on p. 183 if you wish.  The "Global Share of Miilitary Spending" (GDS, military) would be a good one to add. 

    11.