INSTITUTIONS US hegemony underpins liberal institutionalism—creates a forum for internationally beneficially strategies for economic growth and conflict prevention
Kromah 9
(Lamii Moivi Kromah, MA student, Department of International Relations @ University of the Witwatersrand, February 2009, “The Institutional Nature of U.S. Hegemony: Post 9/11,” p. 46-49, http://wiredspace.wits.ac.za/bitstream/handle/10539/7301/MARR%2009.pdf?sequence=1, Accessed 7/30/14, JC)
Especially after the cold war America can be described as trying to keep its position at the top but also integrating others more thoroughly in the international system that it dominates. It is assumed that the differential growth of power in a state system would undermine the status quo and lead to hegemonic war between declining and rising powers48, but I see a different pattern: the U.S. hegemonic stability promoting liberal institutionalism, the events following 9/11 are a brief abnormality from this path, but the general trend will be toward institutional liberalism. Hegemonic states are the crucial components in military alliances that turn back the major threats to mutual sovereignties and hence political domination of the system. Instead of being territorially aggressive and eliminating other states, hegemons respect other's territory. They aspire to be leaders and hence are upholders of inter-stateness and inter-territoriality.49 The nature of the institutions themselves must, however, be examined. They were shaped in the years immediately after World War II by the United States. The American willingness to establish institutions, the World Bank to deal with finance and trade. United Nations to resolve global conflict, NATO to provide security for Western Europe, is explained in terms of the theory of collective goods. It is commonplace in the regimes literature that the United States, in so doing, was providing not only private goods for its own benefit but also (and perhaps especially) collective goods desired by, and for the benefit of, other capitalist states and members of the international system in general. (Particular care is needed here about equating state interest with "national" interest.) Not only was the United States protecting its own territory and commercial enterprises, it was providing military protection for some fifty allies and almost as many neutrals. Not only was it ensuring a liberal, open, near-global economy for its own prosperity, it was providing the basis for the prosperity of all capitalist states and even for some states organized on non- capitalist principles (those willing to abide by the basic rules established to govern international trade and finance). While such behaviour was not exactly selfless or altruistic, certainly the benefits-however distributed by class, state, or region-did accrue to many others, not just to Americans.50 For the truth about U.S. dominant role in the world is known to most clear-eyed international observers. And the truth is that the benevolent hegemony exercised by the United States is good for a vast portion of the world's population. It is certainly a better international arrangement than all realistic alternatives. To undermine it would cost many others around the world far more than it would cost Americans-and far sooner. As Samuel Huntington wrote five years ago, before he joined the plethora of scholars disturbed by the "arrogance" of American hegemony; "A world without U.S. primacy will be a world with more violence and disorder and less democracy and economic growth than a world where the United States continues to have more influence than any other country shaping global affairs".51 1 argue that the overall American-shaped system is still in place. It is this macro political system-a legacy of American power and its liberal polity that remains and serves to foster agreement and consensus. This is precisely what people want when they look for U.S. leadership and hegemony.52 If the U.S. retreats from its hegemonic role, who would supplant it, not Europe, not China, not the Muslim world -and certainly not the United Nations. Unfortunately, the alternative to a single superpower is not a multilateral Utopia, but the anarchic nightmare of a New Dark Age. Moreover, the alternative to unipolarity would not be multipolarity at all. It would be 'apolarity' -a global vacuum of power.53 Since the end of WWII the United States has been the clear and dominant leader politically, economically and military. But its leadership as been unique; it has not been tyrannical, its leadership and hegemony has focused on relative gains and has forgone absolute gains. The difference lies in the exercise of power. The strength acquired by the United States in the aftermath of World War II was far greater than any single nation had ever possessed, at least since the Roman Empire. America's share of the world economy, the overwhelming superiority of its military capacity-augmented for a time by a monopoly of nuclear weapons and the capacity to deliver them—gave it the choice of pursuing any number of global ambitions. That the American people "might have set the crown of world empire on their brows," as one British statesman put it in 1951, but chose not to, was a decision of singular importance in world history and recognized as such.54 Leadership is really an elegant word for power. To exercise leadership is to get others to do things that they would not otherwise do. It involves the ability to shape, directly or indirectly, the interests or actions of others. Leadership may involve the ability to not just "twist arms" but also to get other states to conceive of their interests and policy goals in new ways. This suggests a second element of leadership, which involves not just the marshalling of power capabilities and material resources. It also involves the ability to project a set of political ideas or principles about the proper or effective ordering of politics. It suggests the ability to produce concerted or collaborative actions by several states or other actors. Leadership is the use of power to orchestrate the actions of a group toward a collective end.55
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