Hegemonic Cycle

= singular: the hegemony cycle

Description

Joshua Goldstein:

1.

"Hegemony cycles are ultimately defined by a special set of wars that I call hegemonic wars. These wars mark the end of a long period of hegemonic decline and rivalry and the rise of a new hegemony in the world system. Shifts between hegemony and rivalry in the core follow a cyclical pattern but on a longer time scale than the long wave. Hegemonic war is followed by strong hegemony (as one country emerges from war in the strongest position), followed by the weakening of hegemony, increasing competition, and ultimately another hegemonic war. This sequence, which I call the hegemony cycle, takes on the order of a century and a half to complete. Thus several economic long waves occur within one hegemony cycle. But the hegemonic wars, dating the long hegemony cycle, do not seem to be tightly synchronized with the shorter ups and downs of the long wave. Superficially, the long wave is an economic phenomenon, and the hegemony cycle is a political one. But in fact the long wave contains key political elements (war plays a central role), and the hegemony cycle contains economic elements (economic hegemony and competition)."

(http://www.joshuagoldstein.com/jgcyc01.pdf)

2.

"Each hegemony cycle begins with a period of strong hegemony following a hegemonic war (the Netherlands after 1648, Britain after 1815, and the United States after 1945).35The predominance of one core country over the others erodes, however, and the system moves toward a more multipolar, competitive power structure, eventually resolving the question of hegemonic succession with another hegemonic war. This hegemony cycle takes one to two centuries to complete and encompasses several long waves. Long waves and hegemony cycles do not appear to be tightly synchronized or linked. The long wave affects all countries in synchrony, while the hegemony cycle concerns the relative rise and decline of nations. Nonetheless the two cycles intersect in the same political-economic arenas."

(http://www.joshuagoldstein.com/jgcyc01.pdf)

Defining Hegemony

Joshua Goldstein:

"Hegemony has different meanings: some scholars refer mainly to military and political predominance, while others refer to economic predominance. I use the term in a broad sense including both. Also, some scholars (for example, Doran 1971) use hegemony to refer to the failed attempts at military supremacy within the great power system (for example, Napoleonic France), while others use it to refer to the leading country emerging victorious after such a challenge is suppressed (for example, postNapoleonic Britain). The latter usage is more common, and I will follow it.

In referring to a preeminent nation as "hegemonic" I do not mean to imply a necessarily oppressive or inequitable arrangement (as the flavor of the term sometimes implies) but only the "dictionary" sense: "leadership; preponderant ascendancy or authority, as among states. "2Modelski prefers the termw orld leadership, with its cooperative rather than exploitive overtones, while Organski refers to "one country at the apex of the pyramid" of world politics.

Hegemony seems to have acquired two connotations, positive and negative.

In the positive image, "benign hegemony," the leading country takes on the burden of maintaining international order and pays a disproportionate price for doing so. In this approach, international order is seen as a "public good" benefiting all countries, supported by the hegemonic power. Kindleberger (1973:28) argues that "the international economic and monetary system needs leadership, a country which is prepared, consciously or unconsciously, under some system of rules that it has internalized, to set standards of conduct for other countries; and to seek to get others to follow them, to take on an undue share of the burdens of the system." Britain had this role from 1815 to 1913, and the United States after 1945, according to Kindleberger, but in the interwar years Britain was unable, and the United States was unwilling, to accept this leadership role; Kindleberger sees in this lack of leadership the main causes for the severity of the depression of the 1930s. "Hegemonic stability theory" (see Keohane 1980), to quote McKeown's (1983:73) summary, argues that "it is the power of hegemonic states that leads to the emergence of open international economic systems" with free trade, benefiting all.

In the negative image of hegemony, the preeminence of one country is seen as an exploitative dominance of the world system gained by one country over other competitors. Kurth (1971:20) uses the term hegemony to refer to great power domination of small states. Kurth notes that since World War II, "while the practice of hegemony increased, especially by Americans, the mention of hegemony declined, especially by Americans." In current usage by the world-system school (see below),hegemony implies that one core country dominates exploitive core-periphery relations."

(http://www.joshuagoldstein.com/jgcyc06.pdf)

Status

Overview of the 3 contenting schools and interpretations, by Joshua Goldstein:

" In the current debate, as in the long wave debate, three theoretical groupings, or research schools, have developed (see fig. 6.1).

• One school is descended from Toynbee and Wright, with the incorporation of Organski's and Farrar's influence. This is the current leadership cycle school, led by Modelski.

• A second school, led by Wallerstein, is the world-system school, which has engaged the Toynbee/Organski problem of war and hegemony from a Marxist perspective. This school has interacted, but not agreed, with the leadership cycle school.

• The third school ... is the power transition school, growing out of Organski's approach.

Each current research tradition grows out of a more general approach to international relations peace research, neo-Marxism, and realism, respectively. And these three approaches in turn correspond roughly with the three world views (liberal, revolutionary, and conservative) discussed in chapter 1. In general, the peace research approach is oriented toward the quantitative and qualitative study of war to understand its causes and bring about its reduction. The neo-Marxist approach emphasizes the importance of the world-system structured by the inequality (and unequal dependency) between core and periphery and seeks to change the underlying socioeconomic context that leads to war. The realist approach focuses on national power and balance-of-power politics. and seeks "timeless" laws of national behavior. These differences in approach are reflected in different foci for the three current schools in the war/hegemony debate. The leadership cycle school focuses on the role of global war in establishing a new international order under a world leader roughly every century. The neo-Marxist world-system school focuses on hegemony and rivalry in the core of the world economy, linking hegemonic cycles to pairs of long waves. The power transition school focuses on changes in national power and their effects on war and hegemony."

(http://www.joshuagoldstein.com/jgcyc06.pdf)

Discussion

Research into War Cycles

Goldstein discusses, in his book on Long Cycles, the historical research of:

• Ludwig Dehio (see: Ludwig Dehio's Theory of War Cycles)

• Arnold Toynbee (see: Arnold Toynbee's Theory of War Cycles

• A. F. K. Organski's Power Transition Theory

• L. L. Farrar, Jr.

• George Modelski on the Leadership Cycle

Joshua Goldstein:

"The third strand of research coming out of Quincy Wright's work leads into the current debate on cycles of war and hegemony. The influences of Ludwig Dehio, Arnold Toynbee, and A. F. K. Organski come to bear, as shown on the right-hand side of figure 5.1. This strand focuses not on fifty-year cycles (long waves) but on longer cycles defined by the very biggest wars, which I will call "hegemonic wars. "34This conception of war cycles flows out of Wright's observation that every other fifty-year war concentration was "more severe." Toynbee formulated this into a one-hundred year war cycle scheme, and his contemporary Dehio formulated a similar scheme based on the recurrent efforts of Continental powers to gain hegemony in Europe.

This concept of a cycle of hegemonic challenges eventually drew Organski' s "power transition" theory into the debate, since that theory deals with the outbreak of war when a rising challenger surpasses the dominant power in capabilities. Different conceptions of what constitutes hegemony, hegemonic war, or a hegemonic challenge lead to different interpretations and datings of these phenomena. By hegemony I mean the position of the leading country in the world, which is able, by virtue of superior economic and military capabilities, to largely shape the rules by which international relations (both economic and security relations) are conducted."

(http://www.joshuagoldstein.com/jgcyc05.pdf)