Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
gest a strengthening of incentives for this sort of strategy of rule. One is the feature that ex-
isted in postwar East Asia. Intensified power disparities create opportunities to exert control
bilaterally while minimizing binding institutional constraints. The unipolar state can more
fully translate its power advantages into immediate and tangible concessions from other
states—and do so without giving up as much policy autonomy. Second, the rise of unipolar-
ity entails the disappearance of rival poles—and, as noted earlier, this reduces the sense of
shared and common threat that was so important for multilateral security cooperation during
the Cold War. Operating in a security environment where threats are more differentiated and
fragmented, the unipolar state will have incentives to negotiate separate security deals with
individual states. Finally, to the extent that unipolarity creates added worries among states in
the willingness and ability of the leading state to restrain its power, bilateral deals can be a
tool of reassurance. Bilateral partnerships provide a mechanism to signal strategic restraint
and commitment.
But what is also apparent is that multilateral strategies of rule remain useful as well. If uni-
polarity has an impact on the overall system of governance—if it alters the character of post-
war liberal hegemonic order—it will do so by influencing the mix of strategies. Unipolarity
itself as a distinctive international distribution of power does not in itself generate a particu-
lar strategy of rule. More circumstantial factors will also matter in the shaping of the choices
of unipolar strategies of rule, driven by how the unipolar state calculates its interests and de-
termines costs and benefits of alternative types of governance arrangements.
Legitimacy, Anticipated Power Shifts, and Credible Restraint
To what extent will a unipolar state seek to break out of or renegotiate its old institutional
bargains? The argument developed here is that the shift from bipolarity to unipolarity does
generate incentives for the leading state to renegotiate old bargains and alter its strategies of
rule. Under conditions of Cold War bipolarity, the United States pursued a mix of rule-based
and client-state strategies of rule. The rise of unipolarity creates new opportunities for it to
step back from formal, rule-based strategies of governance. But, as we have seen, the incent-
ives cut both ways. In this regard, three factors are most important is determining the degree
to which the leading state will continue to rely on rule-based strategies—legitimacy pres-
sures, calculations about future power shifts, and the ability to establish credible restraints on
power without resort to balancing.
The shift from bipolarity to unipolarity does appear to generate legitimacy problems for
the leading state. Under conditions of bipolarity, the leading state is actively providing se-
curity and public goods as it engages in balancing against the other pole. The functional role
of the leading state as a system balancer makes it easier for other states to see its power as
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