Innovation and Subsystem Creation : The Nexus of Change in the International System

Subsystems, or networks, populate the international system of states. Occassionally, a subsystem collapses and the constituent states become free agents with respect to the remaining subsystems. If we consider what the free agents want of a new subsystem as well as what the subsystems desire to gain by adding additional members, then we should expect that only the strongest free agents, excluding the former nexus power, will be drafted into the extant subsystems and, consequently, that former nexus powers will attempt to reconstitute a new subsystem from among the residual states. In this paper, I thoroughly expand on this process of systemic change and derive observable implications that I test with new data on subsystem membership. Results help to explain the puzzle of why systemic leadership has remained relatively exclusive to a few states despite the vast proliferation of states over time and space