Policy Of Prestige:
The policy of prestige is the third manifestation of the struggle for power on the international scene. The prestige of a nation in international relations is considered as its reputation for power. Charles Burton Marshall was thinking in these terms when he said-
Prestige is the faculty enabling a great power to avoid final, miserable choices between surrender and war. Prestige is the ingredient of authority in international affairs. One may point out its meaning by an account of a geneticist who crossed a tiger and a parrot. When asked about the results of the experiment he replied: “What it talks, I listen”. The quality which demands being listened to is prestige and a nation suffers a loss of it at great peril”.
In other words, we may say that prestige is the reputation that reflects one’s position in society. According to Prof. Hans J. Morgenthau, the purpose of the policy of prestige “is to impress other nations with the power one’s own nation actually possess, or with the power it believes, or wants the other nations to believe, it possesses”. Prof. Morgenthau thus defines it “as the policy of demonstrating the power a nation has or thinks it has or wants other nations to believe it has”. According to Prof. V.V. Dyke, “Prestige is the reputation that reflects and suggests authority or importance or ascendancy”. To broaden the statement, Prof. Dyke further points out, it is the reputation for distinctive success in meeting whatever tests are thought to be significant. It is, in fact, the reputation for an ability to achieve goals of a challenging sort, for a will to achieve them, and for a future in which these qualities will be preserved if not enhanced. Failure to meet this sort of challenges will means a loss of prestige. On the contrary successful response to these challenges would reinforce prestige. A state with good prestige can be sure that others will not encroach upon its interests and it may get due respect on issues to which the prestige is relevant.
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