Hegemony, institutionalism and US foreign policy: theory and practice in comparative historical perspective

Abstract

This paper explores the theoretical and policy implications of contemporary American hegemony. A key argument is that the development ofUS hegemony generally, and the distinctive turn in US foreign policy that has occurred in the wake of 11 September in particular, can best be understood by placing recent events in a comparative and historical framework. The immediate post-World War II order laid the foundations of a highly institutionalised multilateral system that provided key benefits for a number of countries while simultaneously constraining and enhancing US power. An historical reading of US hegemony suggests that its recent unilateralism is undermining the foundations of its power and influence.

Notes

1 AJ Bacevich, American Empire: The Realities and Consequences of US Diplomacy, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002; and M Cox, ‘The empire's back in town: of America's imperial temptation—again’, Millennium, 32 (1), 2003, pp 1 – 27.

2A Watson, The Evolution of International Society, London: Routledge, 1992, pp 15 – 16.

3 US Government, National Security Strategy of the USA, Washington, DC: The White House, 2002.

4 RW Cox, Production, Power, and World Order: Social Forces in the Making of History, New York: Columbia University Press, 1987.

5 CP Kindleberger, The World in Depression, 1929 – 1939, London: Allen Lane, 1973.

6 A Leiven, ‘Demon in the cellar’, Propsect, March 2004, pp 28 – 33.

7 Ibid, p 30.

8 JG Ruggie ‘Multilateralism: the anatomy of an institution’, in Ruggie (ed), Multilateralism Matters: The Theory and Praxis of an Institutional Form, New York: Columbia University Press, 1993, p 593, emphasis in the original.

9 GJ Ikenberry, After Victory: Institutions, Strategic Restraint, and the Rebuilding of Order After Major Wars, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001; and R Latham, The Liberal Moment: Modernity, Security, and the Making of Postwar International Order, New York: Columbia University Press, 1997.

10 J Kolko & G Kolko, The Limits to Power: The World and United States Foreign Policy, 1945 – 1954, New York: Harper & Row, 1972.

11 See J Caporaso & D Levine, Comparative Political Economy, New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992.

12 For a discussion, see R Higgott ‘Economics, politics and international political economy: the need for a balanced diet in an era of globalisation’, New Political Economy, 4 (1), 1999, pp 23 – 36; Higgott, ‘Taming economics, emboldening International Relations: the theory and practice of International Political Economy in an era of globalisation’, in S Lawson (ed), The New Agenda for International Relations, Cambridge: Polity, 2002.

13 R Dalton ‘We'll never run away, vows Bush’, The Australian, 5 November, 2003, p 8.

14 JL Gaddis, The United States and the Origins of the Cold War, 1941 – 1947, New York: Columbia University Press, 1972, p 31.

15 By the time George Marshall articulated the contours of the Marshall Plan in his celebrated speech at Harvard in 1947, George Kennan's analysis of the nature and ambitions of the USSR had become the accepted view of ‘virtually all the top policymakers’. MJ Hogan, The Marshall Plan: America, Britain, and the Reconstruction of Western Europe, 1947 – 1952, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987, p 44. For the content of Kennan's highly influential ‘long telegram’, see G Kennan, ‘The sources of Soviet conduct’, in JF Hoge & F Zakaria (eds), The American Encounter: The United States and the Making of the Modern World, New York: Basic Books, 1997, pp 155 – 169.

16 T Smith, America's Mission: The United States and the Worldwide Struggle for Democracy in the Twentieth Century, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994.

17 Hogan, The Marhsall Plan.

18 Walter A McDougall, Promised Land, Crusader State: The American Encounter with the World Since 1776, Boston, MA: Mariner Books, 1997, p 149.

19 A Burley, ‘Regulating the world: multilateralism, international law, and the projection of the New Deal regulatory state’, in Ruggie, Multilateralism Matters, p 125.

20 Kennan, ‘The sources of Soviet conduct’.

21 JL Gaddis, We Now Know: Rethinking Cold War History, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997, p38; and Smith, America's Mission, p 143.

22 Gaddis, The United States and the Origins of the Cold War, p 317.

23 Ikenberry, After Victory.

24 See Latham, The Liberal Moment; and DB Kunz, Butter and Guns: America's Cold War Economic Diplomacy, New York: Free Press, 1997.

25 L Martin, Multilateral Organisations after the US – Iraq War of 2003, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University, Weatherhead Centre for International Affairs, (Working Paper) 2004, pp 1 – 17.

26 GJ Ikenberry ‘State power and the institutional bargain: America's ambivalent economic and security multilateralism’, in R Foot et al (eds), US Hegemony and International Organizations, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003.

27 GJ Ikenberry, ‘A world economy restored: expert consensus and the post war Anglo-American settlement’, International Organization, 46 (1), 1992, pp 289 – 321.

28 Kunz, Butter and Guns, p 33. Significantly, the predominantly bilateral disbursement of aid in the postwar period actually established a general pattern for the next 30 years, one that reinforced the USA's position at the centre of a distinctive ‘hub and spokes’ security architecture that became the model for US engagement outside Western Europe. See AS Milward, The Reconstruction of Western Europe, 1945 – 51, Berkely, CA: University of California Press, 1984, pp 113 – 114.

29 CS Maier, ‘The two postwar eras and the conditions for stability in twentieth-century Western Europe’, American Historical Review, 86 (2), 1981, pp 327 – 352.

30 WK Tabb, The Postwar Japanese System: Cultural Economy and Economic Transformation, New York: Oxford University Press, 1995.

31 C Hemmer & PJ Katzenstein, ‘Why is there no nato in Asia? Collective identity, regionalism, and the origins of multilateralism’, International Organization, 56 (3), 2002, p 575.

32 M Beeson, ‘Re-thinking regionalism: Europe and East Asia in comparative historical perspective’, Journal of European Public Policy, forthcoming.

33 The Bretton Woods institutions were the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (later replaced by the World Trade Organization) is invariably lumped together with them. For an overview see B Eichengreen & PB Kenen, ‘Managing the world economy under the Bretton Woods system: an overview’, in PB Kenen (ed), Managing the World Economy: Fifty Years after Bretton Woods, Washington, DC: Institute for International Economics, 1994, pp 3 – 80.

34 JG Ruggie, ‘International regimes, transactions, and change: embedded liberalism in the postwar economic order’, International Organization, 36 (2), 1982, pp 379 – 415.

35 Kunz, Butter and Guns, p 331.

36 Bacevich, American Empire, p 88.

37 G Lundestad, ‘Empire by invitation? The United States and Western Europe, 1945 – 1952’, Journal of Peace Research, 23 (3), 1986, pp 263 – 277.

38 C Rice, ‘Remarks on terrorism and foreign policy’, Johns Hopkins University, 29 April 2002, at http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/04, p 3.

39 Cited in Bacevich, American Empire, p 227.

40 I Daalder & JM Lindsay, America Unbound: The Bush Revolution in Foreign Policy, Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 2003, p 13.

41 Nowhere is this better illustrated than in the relationship between negotiations on free trade arrangements and support for US foreign policy. For a detailed study, see R Higgott, ‘US foreign economic policy and the securitisation of globalisation’, International Politics, 41, 2004, pp 147 – 175; and Higgott, ‘After neo-liberal globalisation: the ‘securitisation’ of US foreign economic policy in East Asia’, Critical Asia Studies, 36 (3), 2004, pp 425 – 444. A clear example of this possibility can be seen in Thailand's crackdown on terrorism—something the Thai government hopes will win it a bilateral trade deal with the USA. See S Crispin, ‘Falling in step’, Far Eastern Economic Review, 26 June 2003, p 19.

42 P Hassner & J Vaisse, Washington et le Monde: Dilemmes d'un Superpuissance, Paris: ceri/Autrement. They are epitomised in the New American Century Project. See http://www.newamericancentury.org.

43 See R Skidelsky, ‘The American contract’, Prospect, July 2003, pp 30 – 35.

44 See O Waever, ‘Securitsation and desecuritisation’, in RD Lipschutz (ed), On Security, New York: Columbia University Press, 1995.

45 M Mastanduno, ‘Economics and security, statecraft and scholarship’, International Organization, 52 (4), 1998, p 827.

46 But see Higgott, ‘US foreign policy and the securitisation of globalisation’ and ‘After neo-liberal globalisation’.

47 US Government, National Security Strategy of the USA, p 15.

48 GW Bush, ‘Graduation speech’, Westpoint Academy, New York, 1 June 2002, at

49 US Government, National Security Strategy of the USA, p 6.

50 E Rhodes ‘The imperial logic of Bush's liberal agenda’, Survival, 45 (1), 2003, p 136.

51 Ruggie, Multilateralism Matters, p 11.

52 Ibid, p 8.

53 Higgott provides a detailed empirical discussion of US attitudes towards self-binding in the early years of both the imf and the gatt. See R Higgott, ‘Multilateral economic institutions and the limits to global governance’, paper prepared for the Task Force on Global Governance of the International Institute for Administrative Sciences, New York, 29 March 2004.

54 H Kissinger, Does America Need a Foreign Policy: Towards a New Diplomacy for the 21st Century, New York: Simon and Schuster, 2001.

55 J Nye, The Paradox of American Power, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002.

56 RB Hall & TJ Biersteker (eds), The Emergence of Private Authority in Global Governance, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002.

57 See T Dodge, ‘US interventions and possible Iraqi futures’, Survival, 45 (3), 2003, pp 103 – 122.

58 R Kagan, Of Paradise and Power: America and Europe in the New World Order, New York: Knopf, 2003.

59 See W Wallace, ‘US unilateralism: a European perspective’, in S Patrick & S Forman (eds), Multilateralism and US Foreign Policy: Ambivalent Engagement, Boulder, CO: Lynn Rienner, 2002, pp145 – 146.

60 I Daalder, ‘The end of Atlanticism’, Survival, 45 (2), 2003, pp 151 – 53.

61 Commission of the European Communities, The European Union and the United Nations: The Choice of Multilateralism, Communication from the Commission to the Council and the Parliament, Brussels, 10 September 2003, COM 526 final, p 10, emphasis in the original.

62 See M Beeson, ‘asean plus three and the rise of reactionary regionalism’, Contemporary Southeast Asia, 25 (2), 2003, pp 251 – 268; H Dieter & R Higgott, ‘Exploring alternative theories of economic regionalism: from trade to finance in Asian co-operation’, Review F:/TAYLOR_AND_FRANCIS/CTWQ/Article Files/CTWQ123560/CTWQ123560.3dof International Political Economy, 10 (3), 2003, pp 430 – 454.

63 See T Risse, ‘US power in a liberal security community’, in GJ Ikenberry (ed), America Unrivalled: The Future of the Balance of Power, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2002.

64 Ibid.

65 RW Tucker & DC Hendrickson, ‘The sources of American legitimacy’, Foreign Affairs, 83 (6), 2004, pp 18 – 32, p 26.

66 ‘A flood of red ink’, The Economist, 8 November 2003, pp 24 – 26.

67 PS Goodman, ‘US debt to Asia swelling’, Washington Post, 13 September 2003, p E01. China's unwillingness to be swayed by American pleas for it to revalue its currency indicates the potential vulnerabilities this generates.

68 Cited in AF Cooper, RA Higgott & KR Nossal, ‘Bound to follow? Leadership and followership in the Gulf conflict’, Political Science Quarterly, 106 (3), 1991, p 439.

69 Martin, Multilateral Organisations after the US – Iraq War of 2003.

70 Tucker & Hendrickson, ‘The sources of American legitimacy’, p 27.

71 Martin, Multilateral Organisations after the US – Iraq War of 2003, p 14.

72 Higgott, ‘Multilateral economic institutions and the limits to global governance’.

73 Kindleberger, The World in Depression.

74 S Strange, ‘The persistent myth of lost hegemony’, International Organization, 41 (4), 1987, pp551 – 574.

75 J Bhagwati & A Panagariya, ‘Bilateral treaties are a sham’, Financial Times, 14 July 2003, p 13.