Discuss the main factors that have contributed to the gradual transformation of the world from ‘Billiard Ball Model’ to ‘Cobweb Model’. (2014, 15 Marks)
Arnold Wolfers (Discord and Collaboration, 1962) pictured states as billiard balls: hard-shelled, internally opaque units that collide and rebound according to mass, that is, power. John W. Burton (World Society, 1972) replaced the table with a cobweb of transactions such as trade, finance, migration and communication, whose densities ignore borders. The shift is from state-centric to society-centric world politics.
The two models
| Criterion | Billiard ball | Cobweb |
|---|---|---|
| Unit | Unitary, impermeable state | Porous state among many actors |
| Channels | Government to government | Interstate, transgovernmental, transnational |
| Sovereignty | Absolute | Shared and diluted |
| Issues | Security first | No fixed hierarchy |
| Relations | Zero-sum, force decisive | Positive-sum possible, force often unusable |
Factors behind the transformation
- Economic globalisation. Production itself is now integrated: a manufactured good crosses many borders before sale, making each economy hostage to others’ policies.
- The communications and transport revolution. It ended the state’s practical monopoly over cross-border contact, from telegraph and jet travel to the internet and digital payments.
- Nuclear weapons. Great-power war became suicidal, which pushed rivalry into economic, technological and normative channels.
- International institutions. The UN, Bretton Woods and the GATT, later the WTO, turned episodic collisions into permanent negotiation.
- Non-state actors. Multinational corporations, NGOs, advocacy networks, and criminal and terrorist groups opened channels no government authorised. James N. Rosenau (Turbulence in World Politics, 1990) called them “sovereignty-free” actors.
- Transnational problems. Climate change, pandemics, financial contagion and cyber threats cannot be solved by any single state. COVID-19 vaccines and the Paris Agreement required cooperation.
- Decolonisation. It produced many states lacking a hard shell, penetrated by donors, lenders, diasporas and neighbours.
- Regional integration. The European Union pooled sovereignty permanently, which the billiard-ball model treats as impossible.
- Democratisation and mass media. These made foreign policy answerable to domestic publics, so the state no longer speaks with one voice.
Theoretical recognition
Robert O. Keohane and Joseph S. Nye (Power and Interdependence, 1977) described complex interdependence: multiple channels, no hierarchy of issues and a declining role for force. Their distinction between sensitivity and vulnerability showed that interdependence is asymmetric, so the cobweb has spiders as well as threads.
Has the billiard ball returned?
The transformation is layered, not complete. Russia’s annexation of Crimea (2014) and invasion of Ukraine (2022), tariff wars, semiconductor export controls and supply-chain “de-risking” show hard shells reasserting themselves. Interdependence is now weaponised rather than undone: Henry Farrell and Abraham L. Newman (2019) show states exploiting financial and information hubs. The United States raised tariffs on India to 50% in August 2025 before an interim understanding lowered them to 18% in February 2026. India itself left RCEP in 2019, treating exposure to China as a vulnerability rather than a benefit.
Conclusion
The cobweb has been laid over the billiard table rather than replacing it. States remain the decisive actors in security, but they act within dense transnational webs that constrain and connect them. Amitav Acharya‘s multiplex world (2014) captures the result. In 2025–26 China displaced the United States as India’s largest trading partner ($151.1 billion) despite an unsettled border, a condition neither model fully anticipated.