Power and Strategies of Rule - Liberal Leviathan: The Origins, Crisis, and Transformation of the American World Order - page 77

more powerful relative to the other states, and it wanted less from these states—and so it was
less willing to entangle itself in multilateral pacts with them.
At the same time, bilateral and multilateral agreements can work together. A leading
state's client-based relations with weaker and secondary states can provide mechanisms to
channel resources and signal commit and restraint. The leading state may use these bilateral
relations as a way to make side payments for cooperation by these states in multilateral set-
tings.
In all these ways, the hegemon is confronted with crosscutting incentives. There are
powerful incentives for a hegemonic state to establish and operate within a system of rules
and institutions: efficiency, legitimacy, and investment in future advantages. The central in-
sight here is that powerful states do have incentives to commit themselves to rules and in-
stitutions. Rules and institutions can project and preserve hegemonic power as much as limit
and reduce it. But the hegemonic state also has incentives—as do other states—to protect
its policy autonomy and freedom of action. The specific incentives, trade-offs, and choices
shape the extent to which the hegemon makes commitments and binds itself to other states
through rules and institutions—driven by attempts to get the benefits of multilateralism while
minimizing the costs.
Conclusion
When powerful states rise up to shape the rules and institutions of the global system, they
face choices. The most basic choice is how to make trade-offs between sovereignty and rule-
based order. A leading state has incentives to use its position of dominance to shape its en-
vironment—and the most efficient, legitimate, and enduring way to do this is through a bar-
gained system of rules and institutions. But to establish such an order—to build hegemonic
rule around institutionalized cooperation—the leading state must give up some of its own
policy autonomy.
This way of looking at the problem of hegemonic order emphasizes the pragmatic and in-
strumental character of state choice. The implication is that the dominant state can pick and
choose between strategies of rule—that is, between rule through rules and rule through rela-
tionships. The choices will be driven by costs and benefits. The leading state will seek to get
the most rulership “bang” for the sovereignty- and policy-autonomy-limiting “buck.” It will
seek to preserve its predominant position—its power and sovereignty—and the advantages
that flow from its superordinate position in the global hierarchy. But it will exchange some
of this power—or more precisely, discretion over the exercise of power—in various ways to
get the long-term advantages of a global system with rules and institutions that facilitate the
pursuit of its interests. Efficiency, legitimacy, and durability—these are features of an inter-