How Hegemonic Leadership Transitions Are Linked to Kondratieff Wave Technology Innovation Clusters
Discussion
William R. Thomposon:
"The leadership long cycle argument makes a number of assertions about how hierarchy is established in global politics – one of which privileges clustered, radical innovations in technology as the principal driving force of the K-wave.3 This first set of assertions revolves around leading sectors which are industries built on radical innovations which have some potential of revolutionizing the way the economy is structured. Long-term growth is discontinuous and dependent on spurts in the development of these radical innovations. Radical innovations, in turn, generate new technology and industries characterized by high growth rates and alter the way old industries (characterized by slow growth rates) perform or, alternatively lead to their disappearance through Schumpeter's ‘creative destruction’ processes. Rapid growth on the part of the aggregate economy depends, of course, on the new, high growth sectors outperforming and more than offsetting the drag of the older, slow growth sectors.
It should be noted that these radical innovations are not simply a matter of the appearance of new hardware (Modelski 2001). Actors must learn how to cope with the implications of new technology and this takes time. Eventually, however, the effects become more routine as the new developments are assimilated, albeit unevenly around the world. Just how long this combination of hardware and perception process requires to work itself out, no doubt, is somewhat variable but probably approximates a generation. One generation is first exposed to the new technology and the following generation increasingly regards it as a routine way of doing things.
Initially, these leading sector trajectories were viewed as long waves or undulations of accelerated and slow economic growth. We have moved away from that conceptualization and now embrace the notion of a sequence of S-shaped growth curves. New sectors are introduced, grow quickly at first and then level off. Long-term economic growth is still subject to sequences of fast and slow growth but the underlying mechanism is the iterative introduction of new industries to replace old ones. Each new cluster of radical technological changes possesses an S-shaped trajectory that gradually flattens as its activities are perceived to become routine or even obsolete.
The introduction of radical innovations is monopolized by a single lead economy situated at or near the top of a global technological gradient on which the world's economies are organized hierarchically. At the bottom of the gradient, subsistence activities predominate. At the top, pioneering innovations for a time produce efficiency, productivity, and monopoly profits. The very frontiers of technology are extended with each radical innovation in the ways in which commodities are produced. Technological innovation, imitation, and highly uneven diffusion makes movement up and down the gradient conceivable, but not necessarily all that likely. But as some other economies catch up eventually in harnessing the new technologies, the lead economy loses its lead.
Lead economies experience at least two waves of innovation in a process referred to as the ‘twin peaks’ phenomenon. The first wave (ascent) pushes a new economy to the top of the technological gradient. This highly destabilizing outcome encourages increased conflict and global warfare fought primarily among the states with economies situated near the top of the gradient. Thanks in part to the surpluses gained in the ascent wave and the consequent ability to organize a winning coalition, the lead economy's victory in the ensuing conflict is made more probable. Its resources are applied to funding capabilities of global reach (naval power later supplemented by air and space power) and coalitions of land and sea powers to defeat the most threatening adversaries.
The innovation lead in the first wave, intensive mobilization during the intensive conflict, and global war victory all combined to facilitate the lead economy's development of a second wave of clustered innovations. Most allies and rivals that participated in the global warfare emerge exhausted. The exception is the lead economy that actually profits from the conflict and extend its predominance as the premiere commercial-industrial and power with global reach. After the global war has ended, the coalition leadership in the global war has increasingly segued into something resembling systemic leadership. Yet, it is also in this immediate postwar era that other advanced economies narrow the gap with the economic leader's position. If the leader's first wave is one of ascent, the second wave of the pair is thus a catch up wave. As the system leader's capability foundation experiences relative decline after a few decades, so too does its opportunity to lead systemically.
Two other distinctive assumptions of this Kondratieff wave interpretation are that: 1) the perspective is evolutionary and 2) the K-wave pattern began to emerge faintly as early as 10th century Sung China. No one argues that Kondratieff waves have been with us throughout recorded history. At some point, though, the long economic fluctuations with 40–60 year periodicity emerged. Only gradually were such processes likely to assume a shape that became easier to identify. In this case, the argument is that the first appearance of a paired K-wave pattern in economic innovations is found in the 10th century in Sung China which is sometimes credited with developing the first economy with modern, industrialized features. Most importantly, the expansion of maritime trade in the South China Sea and the Indian Ocean, as well as the revived use of the Silk Roads on land, facilitated the transmission of long term, paired growth impulses to the other end of Eurasia via Venetian and Genoese intermediaries. Many of the economic innovations that later characterized western commercial and industrialized successes can be traced back to Chinese practices (Modelski and Thompson 1996; Hobson 2004). It is possible, therefore, to analyze 9 twin peaked processes or 18 K-waves encompassing some one thousand years between 930 and 1973 (Modelski and Thompson 1996). Obviously, the claim that there have been as many as 19 k-waves, counting the one that still seems to be in progress, is a major departure from K-wave convention. But there is no insistence that each set was as fully manifested as more recent ones. The K-wave process emerged only gradually and became most evident only in the past few centuries."
Source
* Article / Chapter: Energy, K-Waves, Lead Economies, and Their Interpretation/Implications. Thompson, William R. In: Almanac: Kondratieff Waves: Dimensions and Prospects at the Dawn of the 21st Century
"One approach to interpreting Kondratieff waves, associated with the leadership long cycle research program, emphasizes the role of intermittent but clustered technological innovations primarily pioneered by a lead economy, with various significant impacts on world politics. This approach is further distinguished by asserting that the K-wave pattern is discernible back to the tenth century and the economic breakthrough of Sung Dynasty China. While K-wave behavior has many widespread manifestations, the question raised in this essay is whether explanatory power is improved by giving a greater role to energy and energy transitions in the K-wave process(es). Eight specific implications are traced, ranging from the interaction of technological innovations and energy to cosmological interpretations. In general, the answer to the question raised is affirmative, with one caveat on whether emphasizing new fuels and engines is a hallmark of the hydrocarbon era or a new and evolving feature of K-waves."
More information
* Article: LePoire D. J. 2009. Exploration of Connections between Energy Use and Leadership Transitions. Systemic Transitions: Past, Present, and Future / Ed. by W. R. Thompson, pp. 205–222. New York: Palgrave-Macmillan.
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"LePoire (2009: 217) offers an interesting frame on this problem by arguing for viewing history as a complex adaptive process in which succeeding phases of energy intensification over time have led to greater complexity. He thinks the succeeding phases are recognizable in five-fold expansions in energy intensity and dates them as follows: civilization (3000 BCE–400 CE), commerce (700–1720), industrialization (1720–1950), and knowledge-based (1950–?)." [1]