Declining hegemony and rising international trade: Moving beyond hegemonic stability theory

Abstract

In recent years, scholars have recognized some of the problems concerning the predictions of hegemonic stability theory and the trade practices of states. Whereas it had been believed that following the failure in the early 1970s of the U.S. to support important elements of the international monetary and trade regimes, international trade would soon decline. This has not happened. On the contrary, international trade not only remains strong, but is rising faster than the growth of the world's GNP. The argument is put forth in this paper that the primary weakness of hegemonic stability theory is that it attempts to account for international trade by examining only variables of relative state power at the level of the international system. Explanations which concentrate only on domestic political struggles between the state and society share a similar weakness. This paper attempts to move beyond hegemonic stability theory by showing that measures of both international and domestic politics can be used to account for the trade practices of particular states. Further, the integration of measures of both international and domestic politics appears to be more promising than hegemonic stability theory as avenue of research for explaining the continued rise in international trade.

Key words:

• international trade
• U.S. hegemony