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Centers of power in world politics:
diversifying leadership resources

Semenenko I.S.,

Primakov National Research Institute of World Economy and International Relations, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia, semenenko@imemo.ru

elibrary_id: 251670 | ORCID: 0000-0003-2529-9283 |

Lapkin V.V.,

Primakov National Research Institute of World Economy and International Relations, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia, vvlh@politstudies.ru

elibrary_id: 43429 | ORCID: 0000-0002-0775-2630 | RESEARCHER_ID: AAB-9386-2021

Pantin V.I.,

Primakov National Research Institute of World Economy and International Relations, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia, v.pantin@mail.ru

elibrary_id: 74145 | ORCID: 0000-0002-4218-4579 | RESEARCHER_ID: K-5736-2017

Article received: 2025.05.18 16:00. Accepted: 2025.06.20 16:00


DOI: 10.17976/jpps/2025.05.08
EDN: EBTYSJ

Rubric: Theme of the issue: Contours of the future in the optics of political science

For citation:

Semenenko I.S., Lapkin V.V., Pantin V.I. Centers of power in world politics: diversifying leadership resources. – Polis. Political Studies. 2025. No. 5. https://doi.org/10.17976/jpps/2025.05.08. EDN: EBTYSJ (In Russ.)

This article was prepared with the support of a grant from the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation for major scientific projects in priority areas of scientific and technological development No. 075-15-2024-551 “Global and regional centers of power in the emerging world order”.

Abstract

The emerging new world order is based on an evolving balance of power, and this is a strong incentive to reconsider the potential of the key actors of these transformations that aspire to the status of “centers of power”. In international political studies, these entities are usually presented as global (world) and regional powers. The article aims to verify and develop this classifcation, and to characterize the resources these actors rely on in an increasingly turbulent world. The authors formulate criteria characterizing “centers of power” in the emerging world order and clarify the substantive characteristics of this concept. We assess the current mechanisms for strengthening the leadership positions of centers of power in times when competition for development resources grows and international political conflicts intensify, and offer an expansive interpretation of the concept of “center of power”, which are not limited to sovereign “powers” within the borders of a nation-state. In a comparative perspective, world politics are presented as a systemic dynamic of conjugate centers of power and as a multitude of poles of world development. Special attention is paid to the study of the systemic organization of the polycentric world order, structured by centers of power, and to the target-oriented orders they generate. Examples of power centers in the modern world order, varying in influence, in the nature of their claims to leadership and in resource provision, include the USA, China, India, Australia and the Turkic world currently centered on Turkey. The discursive power of such centers has important ideological and political dimensions. The potential for strengthening Russia's position as a global center of power is assessed in this regard. Leadership positions of emerging centers of power are afrmed via the diversifcation of their resource potential, and values-oriented political projects based on the civilizational foundations of the identity of large political communities are a key instrument to this end. Promoting a new paradigmatic basis for global development capable of providing a diversity of political space dimensions to uphold a polycentric world order is high on the agenda of world politics. 

Keywords

political power, centers of power, leaders of world development, state, world order, valuesoriented political projects, narratives, material resources, intangible resources, civilizational identity.

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