Hegemonic Transition

This book offers an assessment of the ongoing transformation of hegemonic order and its domestic and international politics. The current international order is in crisis. Under the Trump administration, the USA has ceased to unequivocally support the institutions it helped to foster. China’s power surge, contestation by smaller states, and the West’s internal struggle with populism and economic discontent have undermined the liberal order from outside and from within. While the diagnosis of a crisis is hardly new, its sources, scope, and underlying politics are still up for debate. Our reading of hegemony diverges from a static concept, toward a focus on the dynamic politics of hegemonic ordering. This perspective includes the domestic support and demand for specific hegemonic goods, the contestation and backing by other actors within distinct layers of hegemonic orders, and the underlying bargaining between the hegemon and subordinate actors. The case studies in this book thus investigate hegemonic politics across regimes (e.g., trade and security), regions (e.g., Asia, Europe, and Global South), and actors (e.g., major powers and smaller states).

History records only one peaceful transition of hegemonic power: the passage from British to American dominance of the international order. To explain why this transition was nonviolent, Kori Schake explores nine points of crisis between Britain and the U.S., from the Monroe Doctrine to the unequal “special relationship” during World War II.

In Crises and Hegemonic Transitions Fusaro reconsiders the concept of hegemony at the international level by returning to the critical edition of Gramsci’s Quaderni thereby offering a novel way to interpret past and present developments within the world economy.

Offering a unique opportunity to make conceptual connections between neoliberalism and political authority, this book examines the transformation in the world economy as an outcome of historically specific social relations.

This book offers an assessment of the ongoing transformation of hegemonic order and its domestic and international politics. The current international order is in crisis. Under the Trump administration, the USA has ceased to unequivocally support the institutions it helped to foster. China’s power surge, contestation by smaller states, and the West’s internal struggle with populism and economic discontent have undermined the liberal order from outside and from within. While the diagnosis of a crisis is hardly new, its sources, scope, and underlying politics are still up for debate. Our reading of hegemony diverges from a static concept, toward a focus on the dynamic politics of hegemonic ordering. This perspective includes the domestic support and demand for specific hegemonic goods, the contestation and backing by other actors within distinct layers of hegemonic orders, and the underlying bargaining between the hegemon and subordinate actors. The case studies in this book thus investigate hegemonic politics across regimes (e.g., trade and security), regions (e.g., Asia, Europe, and Global South), and actors (e.g., major powers and smaller states).

"This timely contribution to the debate on global order brings together a distinguished group of American and European experts. Highly recommended to everyone who wants to understand how the COVID pandemic, the Trump administration and long-term shifts in global production have undermined US leadership." -- Reinhard Wolf, Professor of International Relations, Goethe University Frankfurt , Germany This book offers an assessment of the ongoing transformation of hegemonic order and its domestic and international politics. The current international order is in crisis. Under the Trump administration, the USA has ceased to unequivocally support the institutions it helped to foster. China's power surge, contestation by smaller states, and the West's internal struggle with populism and economic discontent have undermined the liberal order from outside and from within. While the diagnosis of a crisis is hardly new, its sources, scope, and underlying politics are still up for debate. Our reading of hegemony diverges from a static concept, toward a focus on the dynamic politics of hegemonic ordering. This perspective includes the domestic support and demand for specific hegemonic goods, the contestation and backing by other actors within distinct layers of hegemonic orders, and the underlying bargaining between the hegemon and subordinate actors. The case studies in this book thus investigate hegemonic politics across regimes (e.g., trade and security), regions (e.g., Asia, Europe, and Global South), and actors (e.g., major powers and smaller states). Florian Böller is Professor of International Relations at the University of Kaiserslautern, Germany. Previously, he taught at Heidelberg University and held fellowships at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Harvard University. His research on US foreign policy has appeared in the British Journal of Politics and International Relations, European Political Science Review, Contemporary Security Policy, and other journals. Welf Werner is Professor of American Studies at Heidelberg University, Germany, and director of the Heidelberg Center for American Studies. He was a John F. Kennedy Memorial Fellow at Harvard University and a research fellow at Johns Hopkins University and George Washington University. His research and teaching focus on US domestic and foreign economic policies.

How has world order changed since the Cold War ended? Do we live in an age of American empire, or is global power shifting to the East with the rise of China? Arguing that existing ideas about balance of power and power transition are inadequate, this book gives an innovative reinterpretation of the changing nature of U.S. power, focused on the 'order transition' in East Asia. Hegemonic power is based on both coercion and consent, and hegemony is crucially underpinned by shared norms and values. Thus hegemons must constantly legitimize their unequal power to other states. In periods of strategic change, the most important political dynamics centre on this bargaining process, conceived here as the negotiation of a social compact. This book studies the re-negotiation of this consensual compact between the U.S., China, and other states in post-Cold War East Asia. It analyses institutional bargains to constrain and justify power; attempts to re-define the relationship between a regional community and the global economic order; the evolution of great power authority in regional conflict management, and the salience of competing justice claims in memory disputes. It finds that U.S. hegemony has been established in East Asia after the Cold War mainly because of the complicity of key regional states. But the new social compact also makes room for rising powers and satisfies smaller states' insecurities. The book controversially proposes that the East Asian order is multi-tiered and hierarchical, led by the U.S. but incorporating China, Japan, and other states in the layers below it.

The hegemonic transition between British world power and American was the most drawn-out in the history of the world-system, starting in 1861. After 1919, America competed successfully with Britain in three main technological arenas: international transportation, international communication, and petroleum.