Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
In the case of the American postwar order, as we shall see, there are several features
that—at least in its ideal form—give it a more consensual and agreed-upon character than
imperial systems. One is the sponsorship and support of a loose system of rules and insti-
tutions that it has itself operated within. Another is its leadership in the provision of public
goods—including security and maintenance of an open economic system. As an open system
organized around leading liberal democratic states, states that operated within it have oppor-
tunities to consult, bargain, and negotiate with the United States. In effect, subordinate states
have access to decision making at the center. Institutions for joint or concerted leadership
span the liberal hegemonic landscape. These features of the American-led order do not elim-
inate hierarchy or the exercise of power, but they mute the imperial form of hierarchy and
infuse it with liberal characteristics.
To be sure, variations in hierarchy exist across the various regional realms of American
domination. Liberal characteristics of hegemonic order are most extensive within the ad-
vanced liberal democratic world, particularly in U.S. relations with Western Europe and
Japan. In other parts of East Asia and across the developing world, American-led order is
hierarchical but with much fainter liberal characteristics. 34 While American hegemony with-
in the Western world tends to be organized around agreed-upon multilateral rules and insti-
tutions, American hegemony in East Asia is organized around a “hub-and-spoke” security
system of client states. In some parts of the developing world—including in Latin America
and the Middle East—American involvement has often been crudely imperial. 35
If this liberal hegemonic order is in crisis, can the bargains and institutions that support
it be renegotiated and reestablished? This is in part a question about American willingness
and capacity to continue to operate within a liberal hegemonic framework—providing public
goods, supporting and abiding by agreed-upon rules and institutions, and adjusting policies
within an ongoing system of political bargaining and reciprocity. It is also a question of the
interests and ambitions of other established and rising states in the system. Was the American
liberal hegemonic order a historical artifact of the long postwar era, now breaking down and
giving way to a different type of international order? Or can it be reorganized and renegoti-
ated for the next era of world politics?
Plan for the Topic
This topic explores the long “arc” of the American liberal order-building experience—its ori-
gins, logic, growth, crisis, and coming transformation.
Chapter 2 takes up the issues of anarchy, hierarchy, and constitutionalism in international
relations. It looks at the three major mechanisms through which order is established and per-
petuated, namely, balance, command, and consent. To understand the logic and character of
 
 
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