Ian Clark Hegemony and Ir Theory

1

Hegemony and IR Theory

This chapter situates hegemony in the wider context of theories of Interna-tional Relations (IR), and shows how hegemony can potentially address whatremains as a major gap in those theories, namely how international orderis best sustained when there is a concentration of power in one actor. It hasbeen suggested that ‘as the concentration of power in a state increases beyonda certain threshold, systemic constraints on its security policy become gener-ally inoperative’ (Brooks and Wohlforth 2008: 4–5; Waltz 2009: 31). If so, thisis liberating indeed for the dominant state. However, the converse is that itpresents a serious dilemma for everyone else about how, in turn, it mightthen contribute to international order. How can an unconstrained preponder-ant state be relied upon by the remainder of international society, and is therenot a danger that hegemony presages a type of hierarchy that challenges thefundamental ethos of international society (Clark 2009c)?Why should hegemony appear incompatible in this way with international

society? There is a widely held, and deeply ingrained, view within IR thatinternational stability is best attained in a relative dispersal of power. In manyof these accounts, outcomes result simply from the structural and quasi-mechanistic consequences of self-help and the balance of power. Those arenot the principal focus of this book. Instead, its interest lies in those theoriesthat make a yet further connection between a relative dispersal of power andthe practice of international legitimacy, and accordingly present the height-ened prospects of stability in terms of the latter. Most famously, perhaps, this‘realist’ view is found in Kissinger’s association of consensus amongst thegreat powers, and the emergence of stability within the framework of alegitimate order (Kissinger 1977). Unhappily, when international legitimacyis itself understood as a product of a limited consensus amongst otherwisecompetitive great powers, and hence inherently related to a dispersal of power,the door appears to close on any viable practice of legitimacy should aconcentration of power emerge. If legitimacy resides in a consensus amongstrough equals, does this deny the possibility of its attainment in conditions ofpreponderance (Lee 2010: 4–5)? Is there any escape from this seemingly

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 4/2/2011, SPi

remorseless conclusion, and the dark shadow it casts over the prospects forpresent international order?

There is, of course, another possibility where the contribution of hegemonyhas indeed been presented in a much more positive light. This is within thatpackage of theoretical insights, generally referred to as Hegemonic StabilityTheory (HST). This theoretical cluster offers a view of hegemony as themost likely condition for international stability, and reached the zenith of itsappeal in the 1980s (Eichengreen 1987; Gowa 1989; Grunberg 1990; Lake1993; Milner 1998; Snidal 1985; Webb and Krasner 1989). HST was directlyassociated with stability in the international economic order, and grew fromCharles Kindleberger’s analysis of the causes of the Great Depression (Kin-dleberger 1986a, 1986b). However, by extension, it has been applied to thewider political and security order as well, particularly through the notion ofhegemonic wars developed in the work of Robert Gilpin (1981).

This idea of hegemonic stability had, of course, already been around forsome time. Carr was convinced that the ‘working hypothesis of an interna-tional order was created by a superior power’ (Carr 1939: 298). Even moreto the point—in acknowledging Britain’s nineteenth-century role in guaran-teeing freedom of the seas, encouraging commerce, and providing a singlecurrency—he avowed generally that ‘every approach in the past to a worldsociety has been the product of the ascendancy of a single Power’ (Carr 1939:297). A related precursor can be found also in the work of A. F. K. Organski(1958). He held that an international order led by one predominant state was anormal historical condition: ‘At any given moment’, he affirmed, ‘the singlemost powerful nation on earth heads an international order’ (Organski 1958:322). Furthermore, contra the conventional wisdom, Organski suggested thatbalance was associated with warfare, whilst ‘the periods of known preponder-ance are periods of peace’ (Organski 1958: 292; Levy 2008: 12).

Nonetheless, any suggestion that HST thereby renders hegemony compat-ible with international society is unconvincing (Lee 2010: 8–10). HST issuffused by a rationalist perception of international relations as made up ofself-interested actors trying to overcome their collective action problems: theirinterests precede their social interaction, and remain unaffected by it. Thisviewpoint makes no allowance for any extant international society, nor forthe interests of the member states being shaped by their belonging to, andbeing bound by, that society. It may well be the case, as the theory posits, thatHST does address some key problems of collective action, and prescribesconditions that facilitate it, but this does not by itself rescue hegemony forinternational society. The conception found in HST may incidentally resultin the hegemon furthering the interests of the other, and lesser, states in thesystem (Brawley 2003/4: 347). However, it does not embed hegemonic leader-ship in the society of states, and hegemony is not constituted by that society:hegemony remains exogenous to international society, and is a function of


16 Hegemony in International Society

material resources, and of the willingness to use them. This says nothing abouthow international society chooses to view that leadership, or about the basisof any acceptance of it. Accordingly, it is the potential for a much morefundamental project than is on offer through HST that will be examinedduring the remainder of this study.Another way of expressing this central dilemma is to ask whether interna-

tional order can support both hegemony and anarchy at the same time.Waltzian neorealism and international-society approaches are both equallycommitted to anarchy as their starting point: the former issues in a systemictheory, the latter in a social theory. Also noteworthy is that each facesproblems in theorizing what is to be done about unusual concentrations ofpower. The reason is that, if a concentration of power were indeed to resultin authoritative decision-making, this would herald an incipient hierarchy.In turn, this might be taken to undermine the anarchical nature of the systemor society. This is relevant to the present argument insofar as hegemony isroutinely depicted as a type of hierarchy. Accordingly, this chapter asks howfar international society can travel down the road of hierarchy (towardshegemony), while still remaining basically anarchical (Dunne 2003). We hadalready been encouraged to reclaim ‘hierarchy as an interesting and variablecharacteristic of international relations’ (Lake 1996: 30). What had made itseem so specifically was the onset of unipolarity after the Cold War, as a resultof which, we were told, ‘international hierarchy is once again in the news’(Lake 2007: 48). Does a concentration of power signal a move to hierarchy,and is this the reason that international society has such a profound distastefor hegemony?Specifically, this chapter asks whether the recent degree of concentration

is still capable of supporting practices of international legitimacy. It focusesupon hegemony as one potential such practice, and thereby contributes tohow IR theory thinks about concentrations of power. With the exception ofHST, IR theory has so far not actively engaged with this topic. In fact, bothWaltzian neorealism and international-society approaches have been striking-ly evasive on this very issue: a concentration of power is to be avoided, and, ifit occurs, represents an unnatural condition, a ‘system’ or a ‘society’ failure.Neither troubles to say anything very interesting about how best to cope withsuch an outcome, should one eventuate. Each offers a theory for avoidingconcentration; neither develops a theory of hegemonic management. This is amajor gap.The following argument is presented principally through a structured oppos-

ition between primacy and hegemony (Berger 1999; Betts 2005; Chomsky2003; Ikenberry 2002b, 2008a; Kupchan 2002, 2004; Lake 2006; Layne 2002/3,2006a; Lebow 2003: 314; Lebow andKelly 2001: 593; Lind 2007;Nye 2002, 2004;Walt 2005). IR thinking about the concentration of power has been expressedalmost exclusively through the language of material distributions of power, and


Hegemony and IR Theory 17

this has been its main shortcoming (Hurrell 2007a: 38). In fact, theories aboutthe concentration of power need also to bring out the complex constitution ofpower: they must not treat it as a given, nor dwell solely on its distributionalconsequences. Ideas of legitimacy and hegemony are two interconnected waysof enriching our understanding of power, and hence also of its distribution.

There is, however, a possible tension between anarchy and hegemony, giventhat any hierarchical ordering principle might be thought incompatible withan anarchical society. This prompts the wider question whether practices oflegitimacy are at all sustainable in conditions of exceptional predominance. Ifnot, hegemony scarcely warrants further theoretical attention. We must beginwith a fuller analysis of the nature of the hegemony that is under consider-ation. Its starting point, it must be clearly stated at the outset, is that no suchhegemony presently exists.

HEGEMONY

Hegemony, we are told, lacks ‘settled definition’, but its terms of debate haverevolved largely around two principal meanings—‘domination and leadership’(Lentner 2006: 107–8). There are interesting differences about the supposedrelationship between these two conditions: are they opposed conceptualiza-tions, giving rise to two separate accounts of hegemony—each equally valid,but one resting on material predominance, and the other constituted bynormative cohesion (Dent 2008c: 280; Lee 2010: 2)? Or does one give rise toa condition of hegemony, and the other to something else?

The first idea is relatively straightforward, and is found at the core of mostconceptions of hegemony. It refers to ‘the predominance of one state overits peers’ (Stiles 2009: 2–3), the ‘dominance of one state over others’ (Cox1993: 264), ‘preponderance of military and economic capabilities’ (Ikenberryand Kupchan 1990: 49), or ‘the hierarchical order among rival great powers’(Vitalis 2006: 26). Its focus is upon domination, as measured both by theaggregate resources possessed by a single actor across a wide range of cap-abilities, and also by the degree of concentration of these resources in terms oftheir international distribution. As far as HST is concerned, Keohane tells us,hegemony is ‘preponderance of material resources’ (Keohane 1984: 32).

This resulting dominance, however, is not to be understood in purely bilat-eral or relational terms, but can be expressed also through systemic rules.Accordingly, a hegemonic power is defined as one ‘powerful enough to main-tain the essential rules governing interstate relations, and willing to do so’(Keohane 1989: 234; O’Brien 2002: 3–4). Hegemony therefore manifests itselfthrough these rules, and their successful creation is subject to two conditionsonly: sufficiency of power, and willingness to exercise it.



What then is the scope for any second meaning of hegemony, such asleadership (Rapkin 1990b)? One answer requires us to identify what it is that isunusual about such a condition in the first place. For Brilmayer, hegemonygives rise to a need for ‘political morality’, for the very reason that ‘thedominance of one actor in the system violates the cardinal expectation thatall actors should be treated equally’ (Brilmayer 1994: 224). What is intriguingabout this suggestion is that it represents a clear shift away from an exclusivefocus on the hegemon, and towards the needs and expectations of the otheractors (Crawford 2004; Lee 2010: 23). Leadership, in this perspective, is notjust something that the hegemon ‘does’ or ‘has’, but something that interna-tional society ‘sees’. This implies that hegemony requires something extra,beyond the capability and willingness of the would-be hegemon. In theseterms, material preponderance is understood as a necessary, but not sufficient,condition of hegemony, and cannot amount to a self-contained concept ofhegemony in its own right.It is at this point that various IR theories, and wider social theories, compete

for our attention. Waltzian neorealism, for instance, derives its account of theleadership of the great powers directly from the capabilities possessed by them.International politics is the realm of coordination, not superordination, and so‘[n]one is entitled to command; none is required to obey’ (Waltz 1979: 88).The consequence is that such ‘authority’ as there is derives immediately fromthe capability underlying the claim to it:

Whatever elements of authority emerge internationally are barely once removedfrom the capability that provides the foundation for the appearance of thoseelements. Authority quickly reduces to a particular expression of capability.(Waltz 1979: 88)

The underlying logic here is that, in the absence of deployment of the capabil-ities of the strongest powers, ‘no enforcement mechanism would exist’ (Bril-mayer 1994: 100–1), and the system would lack any authority at all. Leadershipis defined by capability, and by the absence of any alternative to it.Others start from a similar dilemma, but develop the analysis in a different

direction. ‘If we take hegemony as a specific form of power’, it has beensuggested, ‘what we wish to theorize is how power has a consensual aspectthat facilitates relations of domination’ (Haugaard 2006b: 50). The main formsof neo-Gramscian discussion notably develop this particular perspective.In other words, while there is certainly domination in the relationship, theremust also be an element of consent. ‘Hegemony is a relation’, when viewed thisway, ‘not of domination by means of force, but of consent by means of politicaland ideological leadership’ (Simon 1982: 21). How might that be so?This confronts directly the relationship between legitimacy and hegemony

(Brooks and Wohlforth 2008: 207; Griffiths 2004: 65; Ikenberry and Kupchan1990: 51; Paupp 2009: 46–67; Rapkin and Braaten 2009: 119). For much



social science, the idea of hegemony already comprehends that of legitimacy.‘The concept of hegemony’, it is typically observed, ‘is normally understoodas emphasising consent in contrast to reliance on the use of force’ (Joseph2002: 1). For example, Keohane—despite his materialist definition of hegem-ony—had been mindful also that theories of hegemony needed to ‘explore whysecondary states defer to the leadership of the hegemon. That is, they need toaccount for the legitimacy of hegemonic regimes’ (Keohane 1984: 39). Otherstoo restrict the term hegemony specifically to a situation where a substantialelement of legitimacy is present (Mastanduno 2002: 181–3). Does hegemony,conceived in this way, then hold any possible attraction for the anarchicalsociety?

The core problem raised by this question is whether or not the hegemon canserve as a source of order, or only as a threat to it (Hinnebusch 2006: 284). Thedanger of unbalanced power, as Hurrell reminds us, is that it ‘will permit thepowerful to “lay down the law” to the less powerful’ (Hurrell 2006: 16). Inshort, it poses the pressing question ‘[h]ow is it possible to make a hegemonaccountable to weaker states?’ (Brilmayer 1994: 221). This question hasadded force when the hegemon is not otherwise subject to external con-straints, and much therefore hinges upon its own degree of self-restraint(Lebow 2003: 283–4).

How reliable a safeguard self-restraint might be depends largely, in turn, onhow the hegemony works. Ian Hurd suggests two alternative possibilities. Thefirst sees hegemony as entrenching the dominant position of the already mostpowerful, and therefore as objectively ‘entirely in the favour of the strong’.This view is represented in the suggestion that US hegemony is ‘self-interested,not altruistic’, and that what underpins its stability is the ‘disproportionategains’ that the USA derives from it (Norrlof 2010: 3, 56). This is quite differentfrom Hurd’s other model, where legitimacy functions as a constraint alsoon the strong, not simply on the weak. In this case, successful maintenanceof hegemony ‘requires that the strong subscribe to a minimum standard ofcompliance with the legitimized rule or institution’. The result is that ‘thestrong . . .may be induced to alter their behaviour by the effects of legitimatedrules’ (Hurd 2007a: 78–9). The outcome, in this second version, is ‘to increasethe autonomy of all parties, not to compromise the autonomy of the lesspowerful in order to increase the autonomy of the more powerful’ (Haugaard2006a: 4). What is distinctive in this approach is the emphasis on the institu-tional dimension—the empowerment of the institution of hegemony—ratherthan any simple enhancement of the power of the hegemon.

At the heart of these debates is exactly what it is that merits the complianceof the followers. On this, there remains a deep-seated ambiguity, even whenhegemony is regarded as necessarily rooted in legitimacy. This ambiguity ispuzzling, because it seems to leave us with a notion of legitimacy derived solelyfrom self-interest. The puzzle then is that legitimacy is normally understood to



constitute a ground for compliance different, in principle, from self-interest,just as it is taken to be different from one predicated upon coercion (Hurd1999). And yet when it comes to discussions of hegemony, the most common-ly identified source of legitimacy is satisfaction of self-interest, particularly inthe ‘favorable-outcomes model’, which ‘provides a hypothesis about why thosewho benefit from a system might see it as legitimate’ (Hurd 2007a: 69). This isdemonstrably so in the case of HST, where the other actors are thought tobenefit from the public goods provided by the hegemon, and presumablyto accept its rules for that very reason. The hegemon, in this interpretation,delivers ‘a sufficient flow of benefits to small and middle powers to persuadethem to acquiesce’ (Keohane 1989: 78). According to HST, ‘other states willcooperate with a benign hegemon because they benefit strategically andeconomically’ (Layne 2006b: 17). Is this provision of benefits sufficient on itsown to fashion an institution of hegemony, based in social legitimacy?This question is equally problematic for neo-Gramscian accounts, al-

though here the issue is even more complex, given the considerable rangeof interpretation (Adamson 1980; Burnham 1991; Cafruny 1990; Cox 1996;Fontana 1993, 2006; Gill 1993a; Rapkin 1990a; Sassoon 1982). Hegemoniclegitimacy is a construct of the powerful, and the ruled are somehowseduced into the belief that their interests are thereby served. This followsfrom Lukes’s diagnosis that ‘the most effective and insidious use of power isto prevent such conflict from arising in the first place’ (Lukes 2005: 27). Inthis event, the question of what gives rise to the hegemon’s legitimacy stillremains. Frequently, the implicit answer scarcely reaches beyond the as-sumed satisfaction of self-interests. ‘To become hegemonic’, Cox proposes,‘a state would have to found and protect a world order which was universalin conception . . . an order which most other states . . . could find compatiblewith their interests’ (Cox 1996: 136). The principal characteristic here isthen the consensual nature of the resulting order. ‘It means dominance of aparticular kind’, Cox elaborates, ‘where the dominant state creates an orderbased ideologically on a broad measure of consent, functioning according togeneral principles that in fact ensure the continuing supremacy of theleading state . . . but at the same time offer some measure or prospect ofsatisfaction to the less powerful’ (Cox 1987: 7).What emerges then in HST, as in much neo-Gramscian analysis, is a view of

hegemony as based in the ‘consent’ of the ruled (and hence in voluntarycompliance), but in which this consent derives purely from self-interestand benefit (Lee 2010: 8–10). In these schemes, there is no separate logic ofappropriateness extending beyond those interests, and this is their principalomission (March and Olsen 1998: 949). At the very least, there must besome acknowledgement of the possibility that those interests can come to beredefined in the context of such a legitimate order (Hurd 2007a: 73–4):interests do not only shape legitimacy, but in turn can be reshaped by it.



One sophisticated attempt to address this problem has been provided byNed Lebow, in his elaboration of the Greek notion of hegemonia (Lebow2003). His central claim is that successful hegemonia ‘requires acquiescenceby allies or subject states, and this in turn rests on some combination oflegitimacy and self-interest’ (Lebow and Kelly 2001: 595). In this version,legitimacy is indeed separated out from self-interest, albeit that its source isthen still left indeterminate. What might it then be?

At this point, attention is drawn to the quality of leadership (Augelli andMurphy 1993: 130; Cox 1993: 264; Fontana 1993: 140; Gill and Law 1993: 93;Stiles 2009: 10). In these neo-Gramscian treatments, the motif is lessthe provision of benefits, and more the moral quality of leadership itself.Hegemony is a creation of ‘a specific intellectual and moral dimension’(Buci-Glucksman 1982: 120), or the exercise of ‘political and moral direction’(Augelli and Murphy 1993: 130). This edges analysis away from satisfaction ofself-interests, narrowly construed.

In his own account of hegemonia, Lebow had indeed specified just this needfor agreed principles going beyond the distribution of benefits to subordinates.Of equal importance, he had stipulated, was that the hegemon behave in waysconsonant with its own principles. Those principles impose constraints onwhat would otherwise be unrestrained behaviour, since the most powerfulstates are not externally bound. Hence, there is great need for self-restraint:‘Internal restraint and external influence are thus closely related. Self-restraintthat prompts behaviour in accord with the acknowledged principles . . . bothearns and sustains the hegemonia that makes efficient influence possible’(Lebow 2003: 283–4; Walt 2002: 153). If the hegemon sets the rules, it isobliged also to abide by them. For example, Pericles had understood that,to maintain Athenian hegemonia, ‘Athens had to act in accord with theprinciples and values that it espoused’ (Lebow 2003: 126). When the workingdefinition of hegemony deployed in this book then makes reference to ‘thestate (or states) with the resources to lead’, this condition should be under-stood to encompass more than material resources alone, and to include alsoqualities of leadership of this kind.

At this point, it is helpful to adapt insights derived from the neo-Gramscianliterature, and to rework them in an English School (ES) direction. Why is thisnecessary? As we have seen, the problem left over from this neo-Gramscianposition, as it mostly itself acknowledges, is a ‘negative’ side to the resultinghegemonic order: it continues to be characterized by ‘domination’, despiteany ‘false consciousness’ it engenders to conceal it (Lee 2010: 13). While thehallmark is that hegemony is sustained by socialization into ideas and values,rather than by material coercion alone, there remains some degree of seemingdeception in the relationship. Positively expressed, the process can be de-scribed as one whereby ‘states internalize these new norms and become



socialized in the community formed by the hegemon and those states thataccept its leadership position’ (Ikenberry and Kupchan 1990: 55).But this lends itself just as well to the more negative reading: Lukes notes

generally, with regard to power as ‘securing the consent to domination ofwilling subjects’, that this raises important issues about ‘real interests’ and‘false consciousness’ (Lukes 2005: 108–9). The implication is that any apparentconsent may be misplaced, insofar as hegemonic ideological structures limitthe capacity of the ruled to ‘imagine alternatives’ (Onuf and Klink 1989: 160).This much is candidly admitted in Cox’s own account when he insists thatthe ‘consensual element distinguishes hegemonic from nonhegemonic worldorders’, but, at the same time, concedes that this ‘also tends to mystify thepower relations upon which the order ultimately rests’ (Cox 1996: 55–6).One possible way out of this bind is to repackage the consensual dimensions

of hegemony in an ES version (Chapter 2). Such a move is already implicit inCox’s analysis. This must be prefaced with the reminder that, for Cox, ahegemonic order reaches far beyond any purely interstate construct, and hasdeeper global civil society dimensions: hegemonic orders are world orders, notsimply international orders (Cox 1996: 136; see Gill 1993b: 39–40; Worth2009: 21). That said, although Cox is resistant to the idea that hegemony canbe reduced to institutions, he does go so far as to suggest that there ‘is a closeconnection between institutionalization and what Gramsci called hegemony’,in that ‘institutions provide ways of dealing with conflicts so as to minimizethe use of force’ (Cox 1996: 99). This is fully compatible with an ES position.Viewed from this perspective, it is shared societal norms that ‘constitutehegemonic power by defining the range of legitimate behaviour that willcause other actors to recognise a state’s identity as a leader’ (Lee 2010: 16).

PRIMACY AND HEGEMONY

This begins to set out the core elements of hegemony. To develop this further,however, requires a very clear delineation between primacy grounded inmaterial resources only, and hegemony grounded also in legitimacy (Brooksand Wohlforth 2002; Haas 1999). This has been sadly lacking in most IRcommentary. Specifically, what we have witnessed over the past two decadesis an unhelpful conflation of the two concepts. Too often, the United Statesis described as the current hegemon, when nothing is intended beyond itsenjoyment of degrees of material primacy. Thus whereas some distinguishbetween two competing theories of hegemony (one resting on material power,and the other on norms) (Lee 2010: 154), the claim of this book is instead thatonly a normative account provides a convincing concept of hegemony in



international society, and this requires a sharp distinction be made betweenprimacy and hegemony.

The conflation is readily apparent in the many claims to the hegemonicstatus of the United States in recent times. For example, there are broadlythree types of story commonly told about US hegemony since 1945: the talefrom continuity; the tale from structural discontinuity in 1990; and the tale fromagential discontinuity at the beginning of the 2000s (Clark 2009a). Accordingto the first of these, US hegemony stretches back unbroken to 1945 (Cumings1999). Having emerged as a hegemon in waiting in the early decades ofthe twentieth century, it then fully embraced this role after 1945, and hascontinued to play it ever since (Subacchi 2008). ‘For the US power elite, beingon top of the world has been a habit for 60 years. Hegemony has been a wayof life’ (Golub 2007). From this perspective, the United States remains ahegemon still, whatever the future may now hold. The second position con-trasts sharply, in some fundamental respects: as against continuity, it attests todiscontinuity. At some finite point around the early 1970s, the United Statesceased to be the hegemon (Hippler 1994). The argument then focuses uponthe restoration of US hegemony after 1990. Whatever became of that earlierhegemony during the 1970s and 1980s, it was the end of the Cold War thatcreated the opportunity for its renewal (Bacevich 2002; Cox 2001; Parchami2009: 184–5): under the new conditions of unipolarity after 1990, it waspossible for that role to be resumed, or a new phase to be initiated. Finally,those accounts that trace the origins of a new American hegemony post-2001simply extend the same logic: the incoming Bush administration exploitedthe potential of the new distribution of power to a much greater degree thanhad been attempted during the 1990s (David and Grondin 2006; Gaddis 2002;Jentleson 2007; Jervis 2005; Nuechterlein 2005). However, the emphasis nowshifts away from hegemony as a structural outcome, and towards hegemony asan agential design.

In the specific terms advanced in this book, little of this history refers to anykind of hegemony at all, but simply to stages in primacy—its quest, realization,and possible loss. This is made fully explicit in Posen’s remark that those ‘whorecommended a policy of “primacy”—essentially hegemony . . . have carriedthe day’ (Posen 2003: 5). Likewise, the conflation is apparent in the suggestionthat ‘US hegemony is the result of objective material conditions’, while ‘theperpetuation of US primacy is a matter of policy’ (Layne 2006b: 12). Anyunderstanding of the wider theoretical significance of US predominance needsfirst to disentangle these two concepts of primacy and hegemony.

This distinction can be further underlined in the ambivalent accounts of thetwo pivotal years of 1971 and 2001. Understood simply as exercises of materialpower, both demonstrated considerable leverage on the part of the leadingstate, inasmuch as the United States on both occasions was able to reinterpretthe international rules in ways that favoured its own interests: it was able to



revise, unilaterally, its own preferred international order. In 1971, the UnitedStates challenged and overturned its own Bretton Woods creation (Cohen1977; Hirsch and Doyle 1977); in 2001, it began to revise the multilateralpolitical and security order of which it had long been the foremost champion.If hegemony is interpreted to mean no more than the wide scope for theunilateral exercise of national power, then both cases represented the apogeeof US hegemony, rather than any evidence for its dissipation.Looked at through the other end of the telescope, however, the events

appear strikingly different. Hence, both periods have been associated alsowith decline, or demise, of that hegemony. In 1971 Washington breached theeconomic rules, but arguably at considerable cost to the international eco-nomic order. What we were left with was a system operating ‘after hegemony’(Keohane 1984). In similar vein, the response to US unilateralism after 9/11suggested a collapse in confidence in the benevolence and reliability of theleading state. Both, to that extent, have been associated with hegemonic crisesof legitimacy. To have the capacity to exercise such revisionism was testi-mony to the continuing material powers of the United States; it was theresponse to those exercises that left the future prospects of American hege-mony in doubt.The Bush Doctrine, as a further example, was widely depicted as falling

short of the requirements of successful legitimation (Harries 2004; Jervis2004). In consequence, as even Robert Kagan conceded at the time, Americafaced a crisis of international legitimacy (Kagan 2004). This judgement waswidespread (Brooks and Wohlforth 2008: Ch. 6). The notable deficit was that‘the key ingredients of consent and legitimacy are missing from US nationalsecurity policy’ (Griffiths 2004: 72). International society, on the face of it, hadnot been persuaded by US demands to recognize its ‘exceptionalism’, or togrant it ‘special privileges’ (Wheeler 2003: 211; Dunne 2005: 76). If we definehegemony such that a consensual legitimacy is an essential element—ratherthan just an optional extra—then this phase of US strategy amounted to nokind of hegemony at all. At best, it was a tale of hegemony lost. In terms ofa social theory of hegemony—whereby hegemony becomes an accepted insti-tution of international society—there has then been no recent Americanhegemony, its material-power primacy notwithstanding. The focus mustnow shift from the attributes of the putative hegemon, and the resources atits command, towards the perceptions and responses of the ‘followers’.These debates reflect the confused usages of the concept of hegemony.

Stretching the conceptual spectrum in this way is highly problematic. Adopt-ing a stricter concept allows us to see that there has been no recent Americanhegemony. Indeed, it was precisely the attempt to push through a materiallybased policy of primacy that did most to impede its realization. Paradoxically,those supporters who consider 2001 to represent a ‘new hegemony’, and thosewho see it instead as a ‘collapse of hegemony’, both point equally to the very



same conjuncture in support of their respective positions: those new featuresthat marked the ascendancy of hegemony also contributed to its collapse. Thesymptom of this failure was the ensuing ‘crisis of legitimacy of US hegemony’(Bello 2005). More specifically, the problem this highlighted was that ‘thereis no formal institution of “hegemony” which exists independently of the statethat exercises world leadership’ (Brilmayer 1994: 19), and the challengingquestion is what would be necessary to create one. Issues of legitimacy arecentral to any answer (Brilmayer 1994: 14).

Even so, this basic understanding is quite contrary to the prescriptions ofmany neorealists. For them, concentration of power is the problem, and can beaddressed only by its reduction: there is no possibility of its being institution-alized in any other acceptable way. Surprisingly, even those who have heldwholly opposing views on the likely durability of US primacy nonethelessagree on this conclusion. Those who have seen primacy as unstable, and likelyto be short-lived, insist that the problem is not a behavioural one. ‘The UnitedStates has a hegemony problem because it wields hegemonic power. To reducethe fear of US power, the United States must accept some reduction in itsrelative hard power’ (Layne 2006b: 40). Those, on the other hand, mostconfident about the durability of US primacy tend nonetheless to concur,suggesting that there will be unease ‘no matter what Washington does’:‘Nothing the United States could do short of abdicating its power wouldsolve the problem completely’ (Brooks and Wohlforth 2002: 28–9). Primacy,along with its resulting discontents, is evidently a function of capabilities,not of diplomatic behaviour. ‘Prophylactic multilateralism’, we are thereforewarned, ‘cannot inoculate the United States from counter-hegemonic balan-cing’ (Layne 2006b: 24). This again, however, brings out the conflation betweenprimacy, and the quite different social relationship of hegemony. In Walt’sterms, the hegemon’s problem is not simply what it ‘has’, but what othersthink it will ‘do’ (Walt 2002: 136). Hegemony offers a distinctive strategy foraddressing the problems engendered by primacy, going beyond any solutionthat relies simply upon the USA divesting itself of some of its materialcapabilities, or in which other states manage to balance successfully against it.

This shift of perspective to hegemony as a social institution—rather than assomething structurally determined by the distribution of power alone—opensup a series of related analytical questions. Specifically, how does this enable usto impose limits on the concept? Dismissing the suggestion that hegemony is‘simply the exercise of raw military, economic and political power’, Agnewpresents it instead as a new form of power, resting on ‘the enrolment of othersin the exercise of your power by convincing, cajoling, and coercing them thatthey should want what you want’ (Agnew 2005: 1–2). While this takes us partof the way towards the narrowing of the concept, it nonetheless still encom-passes a very broad range of types of influence: does it then make no differencewhat is the resulting balance between the elements of ‘convincing, cajoling,



and coercing’ in that outcome? What this implies is that hegemony is suffi-ciently broad to include this entire spectrum.In the same way, Posen (2003) had identified a debate about ‘which variant

of a hegemonic strategy the United States should pursue’. One version, heconsidered as leaning towards ‘unilateral’, ‘nationalistic’, and military means;the other was marked by a greater tendency to be ‘multilateral and liberal’, andto demonstrate more concern with ‘international legitimacy’ (Posen 2003: 6).However, both were presented as equally hegemonic, even though their stylescontrasted so profoundly. Within such a framework, the policies chosen bythe George W. Bush administrations were deemed to represent simply a shiftfrom one type of hegemony to another, rather than any shift to or fromhegemony, and in relation to something else (Persaud 2003/4). This is farfrom persuasive: rather than denote two types of hegemony, it surely makesfor greater clarity to see this as confirming the distinction already drawnbetween primacy and hegemony.These concerns, in turn, relate to more fundamental accounts of power, the

material, and the social. The materialist viewpoint regards primacy as based ona substantive power that is possessed, rather than as something that is socialand bestowed by others. In one such formulation, ‘hegemony is about raw,hard power . . .US hegemony is the result of objective material conditions’(Layne 2006b: 11–12). There is on this view no distinction to be made betweenhegemony and primacy, as both describe the same material distributions.According to John Mearsheimer, ‘a hegemon is a state that is so powerfulthat it dominates all other states in the system’ (Mearsheimer 2001: 40).Such material accounts of primacy stand in sharp contrast to those that

emphasize the essentially social, or recognized, status of hegemony. Even if thisrests on material power, that alone is not sufficient. ‘The brute materialcondition of having one state holding a preponderance of military resourcesmay produce great influence and strength for that state’, observes Hurd, ‘butwithout a successful strategy of legitimation the social relation of hegemony or“Great Power” status is not created’ (Hurd 2007b: 204). Simpson goes further:‘hegemony is a juridical category dependent on the “recognition” of “rightsand duties” and the consent of other states in the system’ (Simpson 2004: 70).It is this understanding of hegemony as socially bestowed, not unilaterallypossessed, that is critical, and the concept of hegemony is best confined to thisusage alone. Only on the basis of this distinction can we begin to appreciatethat a whole range of current international problems resides exactly in thewidening divergence, in recent years, between US primacy and any possibleUS hegemony, since this ‘disjuncture between the power structure andthe social order is becoming rather stark’ (Buzan 2004b: 148).Accordingly, we must take seriously those two contrasting readings

of power. One regards primacy as an attribute of the leading state, and denoteswhat it ‘has’; the other treats hegemony, and the power of which it is



constituted, as something acknowledged by others, and with reference to howit is socially regarded. Otherwise expressed, in the latter view, ‘hegemony is astate or condition of the system itself, and not a property belonging to thehegemon’ (Cerny 2006: 68). In order further to anchor this distinction, thisbook makes appeal to the underlying logic of ES theory, and invites theconclusion that hegemony be treated as one possible institution of interna-tional society.

ANARCHY AND HIERARCHY ININTERNATIONAL SOCIETY

Hegemony is arguably the ultimate litmus test for international legitimacy. Itis the very hard case. Practices of legitimacy take place within an internationalsociety and successful legitimation, so it would seem, has been most likelywhen there has existed some semblance of equilibrium (Clark 2005: Ch. 12).To the extent that legitimacy rests upon an acquired consensus, this hasbeen most readily attainable within a relatively even distribution of powerthat respects checks and balances—what early nineteenth-century practi-tioners called a ‘just equilibrium’. To regard hegemony as a possibly legitimatestatus may then appear paradoxical or self-contradictory. How, in short, is thelegitimacy that arises within equilibrium to be replicated in conditions that,by definition, are its antithesis? Can the ‘anarchical society’ (Bull 1977) tolerateany legitimate hegemony? This unease is driven by the perception of hegem-ony as an expression of hierarchy, and hence as potentially inconsistent withanarchy. Hegemony, so it might seem, necessarily erodes both legitimacy andanarchy, as traditionally conceived within international society. This chapterrejects both of these conclusions.

In order to flesh out this initial theoretical statement, the following sectionsystematically traces a series of linkages between some principal concepts:anarchy, hierarchy, and hegemony. Its ultimate question is about the compati-bility of hegemony and international society. To get there, we need to poseintermediate questions about the compatibility of hierarchy with internationalsociety, and whether hegemony—if it is indeed a form of hierarchy (and notanarchy)—is beyond international society’s pale. In Dunne’s words, ‘how far isan international society composed of a plurality of sovereign states compatiblewith hierarchy?’ (Dunne 2003: 304).

Dunne had given voice to the worry that trends in the early 2000s mightportend a form of hierarchy that was threatening to international society.While acknowledging that, in the past, ‘the sovereign states system hashistorically admitted many formal and informal hierarchies’, he remained



concerned that those recent developments might have a more disruptivesignificance (Dunne 2003: 304). One way of expressing this is that he feareda US-imposed hierarchy might be emerging exogenously to threaten interna-tional society. The alternative perspective, addressed here, is whether alegitimate hegemony could be developed endogenously, and without such‘anti-social’ implications.The standard objection is that hegemony is ab initio incompatible with

international society. This rests upon the syllogism that hierarchy is a differentordering principle from anarchy, hegemony is an expression of hierarchy,and therefore hegemony cannot be a form of anarchy. Waltz had famouslyassociated hierarchy with domestic politics, and anarchy with the internation-al. ‘The ordering principles of the two structures are distinctly different’, hemaintained, ‘indeed, contrary to each other’ (Waltz 1979: 81, 88). It followedthen that to ‘move from an anarchic to a hierarchic realm is to move from onesystem to another’ (Waltz 1979: 100).These categorical separations have been regularly questioned, and often

presented as forming a continuum rather than a dichotomy (Lake 1996: 7,Fig. 1; Wendt and Friedheim 1995: 696). Some have challenged the validity ofanarchy as a general representation of all international politics in the firstplace, pointing out that it has not been empirically tested, simply assumed(Hurd 2007a: 185–7; Cronin and Hurd 2008a). Others again have offeredthe more fundamental challenge that anarchy and hierarchy do not amountto organizing principles at all (Donnelly 2009). Waltz, of course, had clearlystressed that these ordering principles are ideal-types and, in practice, all‘societies are mixed. Elements in them represent both of the ordering prin-ciples’ (Waltz 1979: 114–16). There are very few ‘pure’ cases (Lake 1996: 10).Part of the problem, it has been suggested, is IR’s enduring fixation withformal-legal conceptions of authority, and the rigid definitions of anarchythat result from them (Lake 2007: 53).It is now generally accepted that these two principles can indeed be ‘mixed’,

and that many political systems are effectively hybrids. Accordingly, we havebeen encouraged to think instead of ‘hierarchy under anarchy’ (Wendt andFriedheim 1995: 689) or ‘hierarchy in anarchy’ (Donnelly 2006: 141), while yetothers urge us to explore the ‘social logics of hierarchy that exist alongside, butcannot be explained by, the logic of anarchy’ (Hobson and Sharman 2005: 92).It is precisely such a social logic of hierarchy that is potentially illuminatingwith respect to hegemony. This requires us to think of hierarchy in itsconsensual form, and as issuing from ‘relational authority’ that ‘rests on abargain between the ruler and the ruled premised on the former’s provision ofa social order of value sufficient to offset the latter’s loss of freedom’ (Lake2007: 54). If this is once accepted, it gets us over any absolutist rejection ofhierarchy as inconsistent with international society. A focus upon legitimacy



opens up the possibility of ‘genuine hierarchy’, and not simply ‘inequalityunder anarchy’ (Wendt and Friedheim 1995: 698).

The challenging questions to emerge from these conceptual schemes arejust how much hierarchy the anarchical society can tolerate, and how muchhierarchy does hegemony actually entail. There is no doubt that some seehegemony amounting to a new organizing principle, and hence as a structuralchange (Layne 2006b: 4). It denotes a shift from anarchy. This is becausehegemony, we are told, ‘is a hierarchical political arrangement’ (Brilmayer1994: 19). Ikenberry concurs: in a hegemonic order, ‘the relations of powerand authority are defined by the organizing principle of hierarchy’ (Ikenberry2001: 26–7). This appears to place hegemony beyond the pale of the anarchicalinternational society. Others are more flexible, and end by viewing a hege-monic order as ‘a particular configuration of anarchy and hierarchy’ (Nexonand Wright 2007: 256).

On this latter reading, the anarchical society can evidently persist, even inconditions of hegemony. It is this version that will carry forward into theremainder of this discussion: even if a form of hierarchy, hegemony remainsconsistent with the overall anarchical ordering of international society. Al-though the formal principles of anarchy and hierarchy remain distinct, theirembodiment within a particular political system needs not be mutually exclu-sive, but can be ‘mixed’, as Waltz had already suggested. This echoes the claimthat ‘in some areas of international politics, international authority andinternational anarchy do coexist’ (Cronin and Hurd 2008b: 4). Even if hegem-ony does indeed denote an element of hierarchy, it is no more inconsistentwith international society than are those many other institutions historicallydeveloped within it. As Bull had accepted, the general ‘idea of the special rightsand duties of the great powers’ itself had already embodied a ‘principle ofhierarchy’ (Bull 1979/80: 438). On those grounds, there can be no principledobjection to hegemony, as a form of hierarchy, as necessarily incompatiblewith an otherwise anarchical society.

BEYOND PRIMACY: LEGITIMACY AND HEGEMONY

How then do legitimacy and hegemony help us to think about concentrationsof power? It is highly revealing that general theoretical disagreements aboutwhich material distribution of power is more conducive to stability havecome to be largely replicated in the literatures on international legitimacyand hegemony. Over the past half century, there have developed two disparateclusters of theory that address stability from the seemingly distinct routes oflegitimacy and hegemony. These express similarly contested judgementsabout which distributions best foster stability. At a glance, they appear



downright contradictory. The first emphasizes a relatively even dispersal ofpower as a precondition of (consensual) legitimacy, and hence of stability. Theother, especially in its variant of HST, is committed instead to the benefits ofa concentration of power in the single hegemon.This is a puzzle. Can both be right? Tellingly, despite initial appearances to

the contrary, neither is exclusively a theory of international distribution. Thusfar, too much of the ongoing debate about the post-Cold War structure ofpower has been about its distributional pattern, and the likely durabilityof United States primacy. Its conflation of primacy and hegemony has led toother significant dimensions of power becoming squeezed out. Once we bringthem back in, the interesting question is how a legitimate order, normallyassociated with consensus amongst a number of states in relative equilibrium,might possibly be replicated in conditions of predominance. Legitimacy andhegemony, it then transpires, have much more in common with each other,despite their opposed preferences about distributions of power, and bothinvite reflections on our ‘anarchical’ understanding of international society.To date, those arguments that focus upon legitimacy assume that sta-

bility arises where power is dispersed in a roughly equal manner. Theyunderstand legitimacy to pertain to agreement and consensus, at the veryleast amongst the major powers, and thus to require some acknowledgementof the equal status of those powers. The first cluster includes those manypolitical theorists who have long claimed a direct correlation between legit-imacy and stability. This is because legitimacy denotes an acceptable, orauthoritative, set of political conditions, and is less likely to meet resistance, orto require maintenance by coercive or other means of inducement. Such a viewhas been prevalent since Max Weber’s seminal discussion (Weber 1968: II, 31;Beetham 1991; Bukovansky 2002; Clark 2005; Hurd 2007a).This relationship was imported into IR most famously via the work of

Henry Kissinger (1977). Historically, that relationship was demonstrated inthe post-1815 period: ‘the period of stability which ensued was the best proofthat a “legitimate” order had been constructed’ (Kissinger 1977: 5). Thisconnection between legitimacy and stability has since been further exploredby various international historians and theorists (Holsti 1991; Osiander 1994;Schroeder 1994; Watson 1992). On these views, international stability derivesfrom more than the material distribution of power alone: the critical inter-vening variable is the attainment, or otherwise, of a shared conception ofinternational legitimacy.Those arguments that dwell on hegemony, by contrast, consider stability

as derivative of the concentration of power. The second cluster dwellsinstead upon hegemony as the most likely condition for international stability,and HST is the best known of its sub-theories. HST’s core proposition isthat ‘hegemonic structures of power, dominated by a single country, aremost conducive to the development of strong international regimes whose



rules are relatively precise and well obeyed’ (Keohane 1989: 75). HSTevidently starts from the concentration of power. This was most readilydiscernible in the interest shown in any putative American decline, as likelyto impact adversely on future stability, because ‘as the distribution of tangibleresources . . . becomes more equal, international regimes should weaken’(Keohane 1989: 78). ‘Fragmentation of power . . . leads to fragmentation ofthe international economic regime’, insisted Keohane, and this is the logicalcorollary of HST’s premise that ‘concentration of power contributes to stabil-ity’ (Keohane 1989: 78). Stability, so it would appear, is most likely when thereis available a hegemon, both able and willing to play this role.

How is it that two theories, both concerned with distributions of power,have reached such diametrically opposed conclusions? One answer is that,while interested in distributions of power, neither theory sees these as the soledeterminant of international stability. The former introduces one interveningvariable—legitimacy—between material power and stability. The latter injectsan alternative variable—hegemony—that is again distinct from purely distrib-utional concepts. Despite the sharp disagreement between them as to theirrespective preferences for dispersal or concentration of power, they in factshare a highly significant common belief that stability is a function not ofmaterial distributions alone, but also of degrees of acceptance within therelevant social constituency. It is this common feature that offers the prospectof a theory of international society—applicable to conditions of primacy—combining the virtues of both legitimacy and hegemony.

Although HST starts from material distributions of power, it does not endexclusively there. The concentration of power is necessary, but not sufficient.Gilpin himself had insisted that ‘hegemony . . . is based on a general belief inits legitimacy’ (Gilpin 1987: 73). What this suggests is that legitimacy-basedand hegemony-based theories of stability are not as radically opposed as theirinitially differing assumptions about preferable distributions of power. Indeed,if both distributional accounts were equally valid, we might reasonably con-clude that legitimacy has the potential to trump any specific balance of power.In itself, this helps to open the door to an institutional view of hegemony, inconditions otherwise characterized by primacy.

CONCLUSION

Legitimacy-based and hegemony-based accounts share much in common,even if traditionally pulled apart by divergent prescriptions about the mostdesirable distribution of power. Both provide additional insight into the kindof power that characterizes anarchy. Neither hierarchy, nor hegemony as aninstance of it, is incompatible with an anarchical society. What is more likely



incompatible with international society is any unchecked primacy. One majorproblem at the moment is then the tension between the seeming ‘fact’ ofUS primacy, and its (in)ability to translate this into a socially acceptablehegemony. This rejects that view of hegemony, criticized by Reus-Smit, as‘simply the material capacity of a dominant state to dictate the rules of theinternational system’ (Reus-Smit 2004: 63–4). Instead, it argues that the mostappropriate theoretical departure point is that already provided by the ES,precisely because of its potential to view hegemony as a social institution.Within such a conception, the advantages of hierarchy need to be calibratedwith the demands of anarchy, in the exceptional conditions of primacy.Historically, tolerable degrees of consensus have most readily been attained

in conditions of relative equilibrium. The challenge, in a situation of primacy,is to reconcile the particular needs and interests of the leading powerwith those of international society at large. If, as ES theorists believe, thegreat powers traditionally have been allowed to enjoy special rights andresponsibilities within international society, what follows likewise is the needto negotiate special rights and responsibilities for the hegemon as well. Thecentral puzzle is how to develop this analogous role of great-power manage-ment, given the simultaneous absence of equilibrium, and in a setting corres-pondingly more redolent of the unacceptable face of hierarchy.This involves dealing with two interconnected conceptual, and political,

problems. Firstly, since international society has always manifested sometendency to resist the emergence of a ‘hegemon’, how is this concern bestallayed in present conditions? This can come only from the social expectationsgenerated by the institution of hegemony, and the manner in which thehegemon’s behaviour manages to satisfy them. Secondly, while internationalsociety has shown past willingness to accept the special role of a group of greatpowers, how is it to be persuaded to accord this role to a single great power?The answer, in this case, must presumably include a shared acceptance of theneed to work from the distribution of power we have, rather than from one wemight otherwise prefer. An ES appreciation of hegemony as an institutionof international society allows for the possibility of hierarchy in anarchy,responding to a social logic, unaccountable in terms of anarchy alone. It isto a fuller development of such a theoretical perspective that the next chapterwill turn.



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Ian Clark Hegemony and Ir Theory

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