U.S. Hegemony
...al enough to stabilize it. Because they tend to act as small countries they are destabilizing, and thereby the ¨spoilers¨ of the system. (Kindleberger ,1973, according to Lake, 1983). The second variant draws Lake (1983) from the works of Robert Gilpin. In three aspects it differs from the first variant. Firstly the phenomenon to be explained differs. Instead of addressing the question of economic stability directly Gilpin seeks to explain why regimes emerge and change. Thereby Gilpin subsumes much of Kindleberger´s argument and draws more upon the phenomenon of collective goods. The nature of leadership is the second point of difference. Although Gilpin notes that all countries gain from a liberal trade regime, he asserts that the strongest and most advanced countries reap a disproportionate share of the benefits. The nature of the leadership lies in the fact that the benefits of maintaining an international liberal outweigh the costs (Gilpin, 1975 according to Lake, 1983: 520, 521). Thirdly the definition of the international economic structure differs. The international economical structure defined by Gilpin consists of two dimensions; political-military power and efficiency. In this concept the political-military power indicates how much influence a state possesses in the international economic system. The efficiency dimension determines the degree to which a state’s interests coincide with an international liberal economic regime. The more efficient the country is, the greater the possibility to gain from international trade and the greater the support for a liberal regime. Within the economical structure Gilpin defines three actors which are essentially similar as Kindleberger´s classification ¨peripheral states¨, ¨growth nudes¨ and ¨hegemonic leaders¨ (Gilpin, 1975 according to Lake, 1983: 520, 521). In building his own model Lake (1983: 521, 522) combines the models of Kindleberger and Gilpin. In Gilpin´s model the political-military dimension is replaced by the relative size of a country measured in a country’s proportion in world trade. The reasoning is that, nowadays, this better reflects the influence a country has than the political-military measure does. Furthermore efficiency is replaced by relative productivity, stating that this was the concept where Gilpin was originally referring to. Thirdly, besides the categories of spoilers, free riders and hegemonic leaders, Lake ads a fourth category; ¨supporters¨. Supporters are middle-sized countries of high relative productivity. Supporters cannot unilaterally lead the international economy, nor do they have the willingness to accept short-term costs for long term gains. Supporters will protect their least competitive industries whenever possible, whereas hegemons will self sacrifice in the short run in order to construct a liberal international economy. Lake addresses that the most open world economy will derive when a hegemon exists. Nevertheless, in a system with two or more supporters, a reasonable open structure can derive as well. This as a result of cooperation which comes into place through the desire of the supporters to export. The chance of instability will be much greater though, resulting from the possibility of cheating among supporters. Lake (1983: 522, 523) graphs the 4 degrees of actors; horizontally the relative productivity is represented while the vertical axis shows the relative size. By examining a countries relative productivity and relative size, one can determine to which degree of actor it belongs. The Gramsci School Whereas the American school has an international perspective of hegemonic stability theory, the Gramsci School takes a national perspective. The thought that ¨the man is not ruled by force alone, but also by ideas¨ is the premise of the hegemony theory in this aspect. Gramsci widely valued Marx writing that ¨the ruling ideas of each age have ever been the ideas of its ruling class¨ (Bates, 1975: 351). In Gramsci´s thought a hegemonic order was one were consent, rather than coercion, characterized the relationship between state and civil society (Gill and Law, 1989: 476). The hegemonic concept was defined as political leadership which was based on the consent of the led, a consent which is secured by the diffusion and popularization of the world view of the ruling class (Bates, 1975: 352). Gramsci divided the structure of society in two floors; the civil society and the political society. The civil society is composed of private organisms like schools and churches, these organisms contribute to the formation and of social and political consciousness. The political society on the other hand is composed of institutions like the government and courts; these are synonymous with the state. The state uses both floors to exert power over society, but in a different way. ¨The civil society is a marketplace of ideas…where intellectuals operate as salesmen to sell the world view of the ruling class¨. Thereby it is the ´free´ consent of the mass to the law and order of the land secured. To the extent where intellectuals fail to create acceptance, the ruling class falls back on the coercive apparatus which disciplines those who do not consent (Bates, 1975: 353). It shows that Gramsci believed that there could be no consensus without force, and no liberty without authority. The failure of the liberal state to create genuine hegemony meant simply that it failed to become truly liberal (Bates, 1975: 354, 356). Limitations of the hegemonic stability theory Although the hegemonic stability theory has become a widely accepted explanation for the dynamics of world economy, there are also points of criticism in literature. One of the issues is that the theory can only be tested with two cases, the hegemonic areas of Great Brittan and the United States (Lake, 1993: 479). Snidal (1985: 587, 588) argues that there are different strands of the theory; a centralized coercive leadership model and a decentralized benevolent model. Snidal argues that the hegemonic power acts as a quasi government by providing public goods, but also by taxing other states to pay for them. Subordinate states will be reluctant to do so, but because of the hegemonic`s preponderant power, will succumb. In the benevolent model, the benefits from the public goods are bigger for the subordinate states than the costs of the public goods. They may recognize the leadership as legitimate and reinforce its performance and position. In the coercive model however, the hegemonic actor is unable to either induce others t share costs or to exclude them from the good. The hegemony will use coercion by imposing itself as a centralized authority able to extract the equivalent of the taxes. The hegemonic actor can alter the distribution of benefits in favour of itself, resulting in an outcome that is not profitable for all countries. By asking why the hegemony would not benefit itself at the expense of other states, Snidal demonstrates the lack of attention to the Gramsci School. The hegemonic stability theory is build upon the provision of public goods, especially free trade. The critics here are that free trade does not fulfil the conditions of jointness and non-exclusion of public goods. The first condition is not fulfilled because the benefits are not commonly shared but redistributed. Furthermore, the hegemony is likely to be able to enforce at least partial exclusion from the good, not satisfying the second condition (Snidal, 1985: 590-592; Grunberg, 1990: 442-443). Another point of criticism is drawn from the assumption that collective action is impossible. Snidal (1985: 593) argues that this assumption is drawn from the incorrect understanding of the realist thoughts which underlie the hegemonic stability theory. Realism holds that states pursuit their own interests, but it does not prevent states from collaborating when it is in their best interest. II The United States as a Hegemony From the literature three aspects can be drawn which determine whether a country is a hegemony or not. The first aspect, mostly derived from the model of Lake (1983), is that the country must have the resources of power. Secondly, drawn to attention by Kindleberger (1973), the hegemony must posses the willingness to provide the public goods and incur the costs. Finally, the hegemon must seek consent by gaining acceptance of other countries. This condition is derived by putting Gramsci´s writings in international perspective. Power resources Before the second Iraqi war Wallenstein (2002: 63) stresses the U.S. is a superpower that lacks true power. After the Iraqi war Jervis (2003: 83) argues that the U.S. controls the greatest share of world power any other country. In order to analyze the power of the United States three aspects will be examined; military, economy, international diplomacy. Military: The U.S. has by far the greatest military force in the world. Its budget accounts for 40-45 percent of world defence spending and is bigger than the combined budget of the next 12 states (Ferguson, 2003: 18). But today even Bush recognizes that; ¨shadowy networks of individuals can bring great chaos and suffering to our shores for less than it costs to purchase a single tank¨. September 11th has shown that people with a high degree of determination, some money and dedicated followers, who military spoken are nothing, can create great chaos. It has brought embarrassment to the U.S. army and provoked a strategy of proactive action from the U.S. side. Therefore America tends to keep military strengths beyond challenge (Gaddis, 2002: 51; Wallenstein, 2002: 66). This proactive strategy, with the quick U.S. triumph in Afghanistan and the easy military victory in Iraq, has shown that on military area the U.S. is a superpower. Economic: ¨Instead of gunboats, international financial institutions sent bankers and consultants around the world¨. Mead (2004: 48-52) argues that economic power can be thought of as ´sticky power´, which comprises a set of institutions and policies that attracts others towards U.S. influence and then traps them in it. The U.S. built this sticky power on the basis of the monetary system and free trade. The dollar still is of crucial importance in the system of floating exchange rates while at the same time ¨the world would fall in depression without the U.S. as customer¨ (Mead, 2004: 52). 2003 Billions of dollars U.S Japan Germany U.K. China France GDP 11004.00 5164.55* 2806.64 2122.67 1767.50 2053.13 Exports G&S 1046.20 578.66* 344.01 532.67 444.03 530.77 Imports G&S 1544.27 512.38* 883.76 595.15 419.95 506.57 Investment abroad 2730.29 304.23* 654.95* 1128.02 n.a. 1173.00 Invest. in country 2435.54 78.14* 510.23* 673.58 n.a. 748.00 Table 1 Numbers of economic size for six leading countries in 2003. China only includes the mainland, not Hong Kong. For converting the currencies to dollars the exchange rate for buying on the 26th of October were used. * Numbers of 2002, the cases of 2003 were not available. Source: IMF International Financial Statistics database. Table 1 confirms the U.S. is an important customer and supplier in world-trade; in both imports and exports it’s almost twice as big as the second country. The GDP figure also directs the economical power to the U.S., with 11.004 billion dollars America’s GDP is bigger than of Germany’s, China’s, Great Britain’s and France’s GDP combined. Although China is growing fast it still is in no position to be compared to the U.S. In Lake’s model Japan is the only country which is able to compete on the relative size dimension. In the investment field the numbers are even more striking. The U.S. is not only the biggest investor in other countries, it is by far the country where the most foreign investments flow to. This means that the U.S. is depending on the world, but that the world is even more dependent on the United States. From the figures in table 1 it appears that America’s ´sticky power´ is present. International Diplomacy Ferguson stresses that by acting collectiv...