"Second superpower" is a term used to conceptualize a global

civil society Civil society can be understood as the "third sector" of society, distinct from government and business, and including the family and the private sphere.United States of America The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territo ...

. The term originates from a 2003 ''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'' article which described world

public opinion Public opinion is the collective opinion on a specific topic or voting intention relevant to a society. It is the people's views on matters affecting them. Etymology The term "public opinion" was derived from the French ', which was first use ...

as one of two

superpower A superpower is a state with a dominant position characterized by its extensive ability to exert influence or project power on a global scale. This is done through the combined means of economic, military, technological, political and cultural s ...

s. It has also been applied to the

USSR The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...

in the past, and to

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

, a rising power in the 21st century.

Peace movement in opposition to invasion of Iraq

Invention in response to February 2003 demonstrations

On February 15, 2003 global demonstrations took place against the impending

invasion of Iraq The 2003 invasion of Iraq was a United States-led invasion of the Ba'athist Iraq, Republic of Iraq and the first stage of the Iraq War. The invasion phase began on 19 March 2003 (air) and 20 March 2003 (ground) and lasted just over one mont ...

. These involved between six and thirty million people and were listed in the ''

Guinness Book of World Records ''Guinness World Records'', known from its inception in 1955 until 1999 as ''The Guinness Book of Records'' and in previous United States editions as ''The Guinness Book of World Records'', is a reference book published annually, listing world ...

'' as including the largest anti-war rally in history. In reaction, ''

'' writer Patrick Tyler wrote in a February 17 article that: :

Popularization as a description of popular opinion

The New York Times article was widely circulated in the

peace movement A peace movement is a social movement which seeks to achieve ideals, such as the ending of a particular war (or wars) or minimizing inter-human violence in a particular place or situation. They are often linked to the goal of achieving world peac ...

during February 2003, adding to the hope among many participants that galvanizing world public opinion could prevent the

Iraq War {{Infobox military conflict , conflict = Iraq War {{Nobold, {{lang, ar, حرب العراق (Arabic) {{Nobold, {{lang, ku, شەڕی عێراق (Kurdish languages, Kurdish) , partof = the Iraq conflict (2003–present), I ...

. UN Secretary General

Kofi Annan Kofi Atta Annan (; 8 April 193818 August 2018) was a Ghanaian diplomat who served as the seventh secretary-general of the United Nations from 1997 to 2006. Annan and the UN were the co-recipients of the 2001 Nobel Peace Prize. He was the founder ...

began to use the phrase "two superpowers" in speeches. In March, "

The Nation ''The Nation'' is an American liberal biweekly magazine that covers political and cultural news, opinion, and analysis. It was founded on July 6, 1865, as a successor to William Lloyd Garrison's '' The Liberator'', an abolitionist newspaper tha ...

" magazine cover story was titled "The Other Superpower". In it,

Jonathan Schell Jonathan Edward Schell (August 21, 1943 – March 25, 2014) was an American author and visiting fellow at Yale University, whose work primarily dealt with campaigning against nuclear weapons. Personal Schell was born in New York City on August 2 ...

wrote: : Though worldwide popular opposition failed to prevent the invasion of Iraq, leading some to reject the notion, the phrase is still popular among people in the

anti-war An anti-war movement (also ''antiwar'') is a social movement, usually in opposition to a particular nation's decision to start or carry on an armed conflict, unconditional of a maybe-existing just cause. The term anti-war can also refer to pa ...

and

anti-globalization The anti-globalization movement or counter-globalization movement, is a social movement critical of economic globalization. The movement is also commonly referred to as the global justice movement, alter-globalization movement, anti-globalist m ...

movements.

Internet-based activism

On March 31, 2003, Dr.

James F. Moore James F. Moore studies co-evolution in social and economic systems. He is best known for pioneering the Business ecosystem approach to studying networks of organizations that together constitute a system of mutual support and that co-evolve contr ...

Harvard Law School Harvard Law School (Harvard Law or HLS) is the law school of Harvard University, a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1817, it is the oldest continuously operating law school in the United States. Each class ...

Berkman Center for Internet and Society The Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society is a research center at Harvard University that focuses on the study of cyberspace. Founded at Harvard Law School, the center traditionally focused on internet-related legal issues. On May 15, 2008 ...

posted an essay entitled ''The Second Superpower Rears Its Beautiful Head''. In it, he advocated four ideas: embrace the concept explicitly within the peace movement as an inspirational goal and a counter to the "first superpower" idea promoted by the Bush administration, continue to develop blogging and other means of linking the community globally, find ways to influence first superpower institutions including international institutions and international law, and continue to develop reflective personal consciousness so as to be able to lead from love rather than fear. : This paper received 50,000 downloads in five days. The substance of the piece was debated by a number of authors, including

Jonathan Rauch Jonathan Charles Rauch (; born April 26, 1960) is an American author, journalist, and activist. After graduating from Yale University, Rauch worked at the ''Winston-Salem Journal'' in North Carolina, for ''National Journal'', and later for ''The ...

writing in ''

National Journal ''National Journal'' is an advisory services company based in Washington, D.C., offering services in government affairs, advocacy communications, stakeholder mapping, and policy brands research for government and business leaders. It publishes da ...

''. Many bloggers linked the paper with

Joi Ito is a Japanese entrepreneur and venture capitalist. He is a former director of the MIT Media Lab, former professor of the practice of media arts and sciences at MIT, and a former visiting professor of practice at the Harvard Law School. Ito has re ...

's '' Emergent Democracy'' concept and paper. Some attacked Moore's use of the term to describe primarily the effect of the

Internet The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, pub ...

. Brian Fitzgerald argued in the

Greenpeace Greenpeace is an independent global campaigning network, founded in Canada in 1971 by Irving Stowe and Dorothy Stowe, immigrant environmental activists from the United States. Greenpeace states its goal is to "ensure the ability of the Earth t ...

Weblog: :

"Googlewashing"

Moore's paper was the subject of an attack on the dissemination process and the relationship of the author and his reviewers to Google, by

Andrew Orlowski Andrew Orlowski (born 1966) is a British columnist, investigative journalist and former executive editor of the IT news and opinion website ''The Register''. In 2021, Orlowski became a business columnist for ''The Daily Telegraph''. Journalism ...

The Register ''The Register'' is a British technology news website co-founded in 1994 by Mike Magee, John Lettice and Ross Alderson. The online newspaper's masthead sublogo is "''Biting the hand that feeds IT''." Their primary focus is information tec ...

. Orlowski accused a small number of webloggers of " Googlewashing", a word Orlowski invented to describe

media manipulation Media manipulation is a series of related techniques in which partisans create an image or argument that favors their particular interests. Such tactics may include the use of logical fallacies, manipulation, outright deception (disinformation) ...

of Google to neuter the political significance of the word. He argued: :

Other states

Soviet Union

During the

cold war The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because the ...

era the term was heavily applied to

Union of Soviet Socialist Republics The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

, as the USSR was a power of comparable influence, but lagged behind the US in economy and wealth.

China

In the 21st century, the term has also been applied by scholars and geopolitical observer to the possibility that the

People's Republic of China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

could emerge as a "second superpower," with

global power In international relations, power is defined in several different ways. Material definitions of state power emphasize economic and military power. Other definitions of power emphasize the ability to structure and constitute the nature of social ...

and influence on par with the United States. The term is also used by Tony Blair.

References

External links

New York Times: "A New Power in the Streets"Greenpeace: "The Second Superpower Rears is Beautiful Head"Andrew Orlowski's "Anti-war slogan coined, repurposed and Googlewashed… in 42 days"
*

Joan Hinton Joan Hinton (Chinese name: 寒春, Pinyin: ''Hán Chūn''; 20 October 1921 – 8 June 2010) was a nuclear physicist and one of the few women scientists who worked for the Manhattan Project in Los Alamos. She lived in the People's Republic of C ...

The Second Superpower
(''Beijing International Peace Vigil'')

* ttp://mondediplo.com/2003/11/15google Pierre Lazuly's "Telling Google What To Think, Le Monde Diplomatique {{International power Internet-based activism Community organizing Technology in society Power (international relations)