Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
This chapter proceeds in five steps. First, I offer a description of the features of unipolarity
and explore a central puzzle: why American unipolarity has not triggered a power-balancing
reaction by other states. The concentration of material power capabilities is unprecedented,
but there are reasons why the traditional response to concentrated power—great-power bal-
ancing—has not occurred and is unlikely to. In part, this is because of the extreme concentra-
tion of power itself. But it is also because of unique features of the contemporary internation-
al system, namely the presence of nuclear weapons and the dominance of capitalist demo-
cratic great powers. The shift from a multipolar—and most recently bipolar—distribution of
power has effects on the patterns of domination and rule. This is because the oldest and most
classical mechanism for constraining and disciplining power—a counterbalancing power co-
alition—is not present in the current international order.
Second, I explore the impact that the postwar American-led liberal international order has
had on the rise of unipolarity. Unipolarity—defined broadly as a one-pole global system—is
itself an effect of liberal international order. Unipolarity is created by a distinctive distribu-
tion of material capabilities, but it is also created by the absence of other poles. Poles have
characteristics that go beyond their material power capabilities. They also have institution-
al characteristics. In this sense, they can be described as hubs to which other states connect.
They provide the organizing infrastructure around which states operate. The United States is
not just unipolar in the sense of possessing disproportionate material capabilities. It is also
a singularly important hub in the sense that it is the organizational center of a wider system
of order. Other countries have connected themselves to the United States and the wider rules
and institutions that make up the liberal international order. Unipolarity emerged in the post-
Cold War era as alternative hubs fell away or failed to emerge.
In this sense, the unipolar order—a one-pole international system—is an artifact of the
American-led political formation. The United States led in the creation of an open and loosely
rule-based postwar order. It provided public goods in support of economic openness, sta-
bility, and security. More generally, the liberal international order has provided benefits
and services for states that operate within it. This order also has institutional characterist-
ics—compared with other types of order—that make it expandable and relatively easy to in-
tegrate states into it. The liberal characteristics of the American-led order make it “easy to
join and hard to overturn.” This has put other states seeking to establish rival poles at a dis-
advantage, thereby reinforcing and perpetuating unipolarity.
Third, I argue that the rise of unipolarity does, however, generate new dilemmas of rule for
the leading state. The shift from bipolarity to unipolarity has implications for the strategies of
rule discussed in the previous chapter. It has implications for the incentives that the leading
state has to provide public goods, compromise its policy autonomy, and use rules and insti-
tutions as strategies of rule. The shift from a bipolar to a unipolar distribution of power has
triggered reassessment of the costs and benefits of a wide range of bargains and institutions
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