Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
Six
The Great Transformation and the Failure of Illiberal Hegemony
The geopolitical foundations on which the United States built its postwar order are shifting.
Long-term change in the global system—in the distribution of power, the norms of sover-
eignty, and the scope and character of interdependence—is transforming the problem of or-
der. The United States emerged from the Cold War as a singular world power. Old threats
and insecurities associated with great-power competition have given way to new sources of
violence and insecurity. The world economy has expanded and deepened, and it has gone
through recession and financial crisis—including the recent world economic downturn, the
most severe since the Great Depression. The rise of developing countries such as China and
India has brought increasingly powerful non-Western states into the system. Long-standing
governance institutions dominated by Western powers, such as the G-7/G-8 grouping, have
started to give way to more inclusive groupings. Along the way, the old bargains and institu-
tions of the American-led liberal hegemonic order have weakened and eroded.
The most dramatic shift in the foundations of the postwar American-led order was the end
of the Cold War. One historical era ended and another opened. But it was a turning point unlike
others in the past, such as the great postwar junctions of 1815, 1919, and 1945. In this case,
the old bipolar system collapsed peacefully without great-power war. Moreover, unlike past
postwar moments, the global system—or at least the dominant core of that system led by the
United States—was not overturned. Quite the contrary. The world that the United States and
its allies created after World War II remained intact and stood squarely at the center of world
politics. The end of the Cold War simply consolidated and expanded that order. The Soviet
bloc—estranged from the West for half a century—collapsed and began a slow and uneven
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