Revisiting the fallacies in Hegemonic Stability Theory in light of the 2007–2008 crisis: the theory’s hollow conceptualization of hegemony

Abstract

In light of the renewed popularity of Hegemonic Stability Theory (HST) in the context of governance debates in the aftermath of the 2007–2008 crisis, this paper revisits, from a conceptual angle, the shaky basis upon which the theory draws a causal link between hegemony and stability. The paper is a critique of HST as a theory of hegemony that contains an underdeveloped concept of hegemony only defined ex post, highlighting that it is precisely this hollow conceptualization that has allowed for the perceived compatibility between US power and stability at a point in time (the Bretton Woods years) to be erroneously generalized into a causal relationship. The paper also shows, via the example of Germany in the European Economic and Monetary Union (EMU), how inattention to the conceptual content of HST has permitted the heedless extension of a problematic understanding of hegemony through stability to cases of regional hegemony.

Keywords:

• Hegemonic stability theory
• hegemony
• US
• Bretton Woods
• Germany
• EMU

Acknowledgements

I am very grateful to the journal’s editors and referees for their very helpful and detailed comments. I would also like to thank Dan Coffey, Deborah Dean, Gary Dymski, Manuela Galetto, Jason Heyes, Nina Kaltenbrunner, Stefan Kesting and Magnus Ryner for their suggestions on earlier versions of this paper and for their support.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 From the sentence ‘it was the rise of Athens and the fear that this instilled in Sparta that made war inevitable’ in Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War, Allison (2017, xv) derived the proposition—labelled ‘Thucydides’s Trap’— that ‘when a rising power threatens to displace a ruling power, the resulting structural stress makes a violent clash the rule’. Critics have pointed out that ‘the rise of Athens’ in Thucydides’ text actually refers to the change in the nature of (established) Athenian hegemony rather than a sudden shift in the distribution of capabilities between Athens and Sparta, and also highlighted the limits of generalizing such a quote into a universal law of international relations (see, e.g. Lee, 2019).

2 This is reminiscent of Susan Strange’s intervention against the ‘declinists’ of the 1980s. Strange (1987) had argued that the indicators chosen by the ‘declinists’ were misleading, and that the US in fact maintained its supremacy in all four main areas of structural power (security, production, finance, knowledge).

3 The latter two are not explicitly mentioned in The World in Depression (Kindleberger, 1973) but were added subsequently (Kindleberger, 1986).

4 Keohane’s form of institutionalism has been termed ‘neoliberal institutionalism’ or ‘rational choice institutionalism’ (Routledge Encyclopedia of International Political Economy, 2002a), to reflect a preoccupation with institutions as a means through which rational actors (predominantly states) can maximize utility, rather than a preoccupation with institutions in socio-historical perspective (Brawley, 1998). Building on this, some sources now refer to HST as a ‘hybrid’ neorealist-neoliberal institutionalist theory (Routledge Encyclopedia of International Political Economy, 2002a; Oxford Companion to Politics of the World, 2004).

5 Agnew and Corbridge (1995) had made this point about ‘conventional IPE’ more widely.

6 Eichengreen (1987) was one of the earliest critics of HST; his perspective appears to have changed in more recent years, however (see, e.g. DeLong and Eichengreen, 2013, where the authors appear to be in favor of hegemony as a way of reorganizing the world economy towards greater stability).

7 Eichengreen (1987) himself acknowledged the need to go beyond game theory and take into account historical realities. He continued his analysis by examining the concrete cases of Britain during the Gold Standard and the US during Bretton Woods, and concluded that, in terms of stability and adjustment mechanisms, collective (e.g.: of the European centre), rather than singular, hegemony proved more effective.

8 Control over raw materials being the missing element.

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Notes on contributors

Maria Gavris

Maria Gavris is a Research Fellow in the Industrial Relations Research Unit at the University of Warwick, where she is currently conducting research on the multilevel governance of employment relations in the European Union. Her research interests relate to European political economy, theories of hegemony, and labor governance.