ABSTRACT
Goethe’s Faust, who after years of tireless studying realizes that he still has not
grasped the essence of the world. Frustrated with the limit of his own knowl-
edge, he enters a pact with the devil in the hope to find the answer. Although
scholars working in the field of International Relations (IR) generally do not
harbour Faust’s ambitions the question of how to grasp ‘world politics’ remains
a formidable challenge. Perhaps the most prominent and most enduring answer
is to focus on ‘power’, that is, to conceive of the world of politics as one that is held together by power relations. Yet doing so does not provide analysts with an
essence. As the literature tells us, ‘power’ is an essentially contested concept,
with different interpretations held together more by a family resemblance than a
core meaning. And because the meaning we choose determines which relations
we consider relevant and where we locate political spaces – in short, how we
conceptualize ‘world politics’ – it is pertinent to be aware of the different ways
‘power’ can be defined. In short, we need to think about power.
