Hegemony in International Law

Introduction

In international politics, hegemony refers to dominance or authority exercised by one state or group of states over others. Hegemony is simultaneously material, ideational, and relational. Hegemonic states typically enjoy a preponderance of material capabilities, both military and economic. They also establish the legitimacy of a particular type of international order, regional or global, that reflects and reinforces their national values and interests. Hegemonic states establish and maintain the rules of the international game. But hegemony is not simply coercive; it also implies a meaningful degree of acquiescence on the part of other major states in the system. Hegemony involves authority; the dominant state exercises it and other states at least to some degree accept it. Leaders need followers or collaborators. Hegemony works best when other states accept the leading role of the hegemonic state and view the order it has created as beneficial and desirable. Hegemony should be distinguished analytically from unipolarity. The latter term refers to a distribution of material capabilities in which one state is unambiguously superior to any others. Unipolarity does not imply anything in particular about relationships among states in the system. Hegemony should also be distinguished from empire. Empire refers to a formal relationship of dominance and dependence. Hegemonic relationships are likely to be more informal than formal, although they are typically institutionalized in ways that reflect the authority of the dominant power. The scholarly literature on hegemony is broad and deep. It includes analyses and comparisons of different hegemonic orders, in particular the 19th-century order associated with British hegemony and the post–World War II order of American hegemony. A lively debate continues over whether the latter order is stable and enduring or fading away. Some scholars focus on hegemony as a means to organize international economic relations; others focus primarily on military or security relationships. Some work within a mainstream perspective; others take a critical, including Gramscian and neo-Gramscian, approach. Some scholars devote attention to regional hegemony, examining, for example, the contemporary role of Germany in the European Union or China in East Asia. Across these literatures scholars struggle with an array of conceptual questions, such as “Is hegemonic decline inevitable?” “Do hegemonic transitions cause war and under what conditions can they take place peacefully?” “Do hegemonic orders disproportionately benefit the dominant state or do hegemonic states take on responsibilities and obligations that undermine their own power and benefit other states?” Scholars are also interested in the types of political bargains that are struck between leading and supporting states, the institutionalization of hegemony, and how crises are managed within hegemonic systems. Finally, literature explores the domestic politics of hegemony. Especially in democracies, the activist foreign policies associated with hegemony require the support of interest groups, political coalitions, and the general public.

General and Conceptual Approaches

Scholarship in this category explores the meaning of hegemony as a form of and mechanism for international order. Clark 2009 views hegemony as a legitimate institution of international society. Wilkinson 1999 and Ikenberry, et al. 2011 explore the relationship between hegemony and unipolarity. Nexon and Wright 2007 analyzes the differences between hegemony and empire. Lake 2011 develops the underlying logic of hierarchy and authority in hegemonic relationships. Ikenberry 2014 offers critical reflections and extensions of the arguments of Gilpin 1981 (cited under Hegemony and International Relations Theories). Cox 1983 applies the concept of hegemony in Gramsci 2014 (cited under Gramscian and Neo-Gramscian Approaches to Hegemony) to international relations. Williams, et al. 2012 focuses not on the hegemonic state but on the calculations and behavior of secondary states in a hegemonic order.

Clark, Ian. “Bringing Hegemony Back In: The United States and International Order.” International Affairs 85.1 (2009): 23–36.
DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-2346.2009.00778.xSave Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Clark views hegemony not simply as a term for American primacy but as a legitimate institution of international society in which rights and obligations are conferred on the hegemonic state. Shows that historically hegemony has taken a variety of forms, including that of a single state and of a coalition of states.
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Cox, Robert W. “Gramsci, Hegemony, and International Relations: An Essay in Method.” Millennium 12.2 (1983): 162–175.
DOI: 10.1177/03058298830120020701Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Cox takes Gramsci’s concept of hegemony, as developed in the Italian thinker’s Prison Notebooks (Gramsci 2014 [cited under Gramscian and Neo-Gramscian Approaches to Hegemony]), and explores how the concept can be applied most usefully to the study of international relations.
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Ikenberry, G. John, ed. Power, Order, and Change in World Politics. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2014.
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Brings together leading international relations scholars to reflect on the enduring contributions of Robert Gilpin’s War and Change (Gilpin 1981 [cited under Hegemony and International Relations Theories]). Essays on different types of international order, strategies for hegemonic rule, the dynamics of power transition, and the relationship between hegemony and nuclear weapons.
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Ikenberry, G. John, Michael Mastanduno, and William Wohlforth. International Relations Theory and the Consequences of Unipolarity. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2011.
DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511996337Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Based on a special issue of World Politics (January 2009) with additional articles by Daniel Duedney, Barry Posen, and Jeff Legro. The contributors explore the sources and meaning of unipolarity and its consequences for American hegemony, American domestic politics, alliance behavior, unilateralism and multilateralism, and international order.
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Lake, David A. Hierarchy in International Relations. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2011.
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Contrasts hierarchy with anarchy as organizing principles in international relations. Hierarchy is an arena in which dominant and subordinate states form binding social contracts, which provide mutual benefits based on mutual acceptance of the dominant state’s authority. An important contribution in developing the social dimension of hegemonic power.
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Nexon, Daniel, and Thomas Wright. “What’s at Stake in the American Empire Debate.” American Political Science Review 101.2 (2007): 253–271.
DOI: 10.1017/S0003055407070220Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
The authors argue that empires have a distinctive network-structure when compared to hegemonic or unipolar orders. In imperial relations, the politics of divide and rule replaces the balance of power and the imperial power faces special problems in legitimizing its authority across multiple actors.
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Wilkinson, David. “Unipolarity without Hegemony.” International Studies Review 1.2 (1999): 141–172.
DOI: 10.1111/1521-9488.00158Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Wilkinson views the post–Cold War global order as unipolar but not hegemonic. Argues “non-hegemonic unipolarity” is a global systemic condition worthy of study and begins the task by arguing that unipolarity is not necessarily unstable and may offer a means to resolve conflicts that are not available in more decentralized international orders.
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Williams, Kristin, Steven Lobell, and Neal Jesse. Beyond Great Powers and Hegemons: Why Secondary States Support, Follow, or Challenge. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2012.
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Case studies illuminate the strategies available to secondary states in response to global or regional hegemons. Some states choose binding or “bandwagon” strategies; others favor hard or soft balancing. Domestic politics in the secondary states is key in shaping the varied responses.
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Hegemony and International Relations Theories

Studies of hegemony may be grounded more or less self-consciously in the major theoretical traditions of international relations. Thucydides, generally understood as a realist, finds the causes of the great Peloponnesian War in the hegemonic challenge Athens posed to Sparta during the 5th century BCE. Carr 2001 (originally published in 1939) attributes the collapse of international order to the neglect of core realist principles. Gilpin 1981 draws on Carr and Thucydides (and Lenin) to argue that the law of uneven development undermines hegemonic power and sets up conflicts to redistribute international authority and prestige. Keohane 1984 draws on liberal international relations theory to argue that international order can persist after hegemony, while in the same tradition Ikenberry 2001 views both institutionalization and the ability of hegemonic states to exercise self-restraint as key determinants of the durability of hegemonic orders. Kupchan and Ikenberry 1990 offers a constructivist take, arguing that hegemony involves the promotion of ideas and the manipulation of elite beliefs. Cox 1987 and Wallerstein 1976 fall within the Marxist political tradition in emphasizing the economic division of labor and its political consequences both domestically and internationally.

Carr, E. H. The Twenty Years’ Crisis, 1919–1939: An Introduction to the Study of International Relations. Reissued with an introduction by Michael Cox. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2001.
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Originally published in 1939. Classic account of the breakdown of international order following the era of British hegemony. Argues that Western states were captivated by idealism in the 1930s and failed to recognize that ideas were derivative of the power relationships at the foundation of international relations.
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Cox, Robert W. Production, Power, and World Order: Social Forces in the Making of History. New York: Columbia University Press, 1987.
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Explores the interplay of modes of production, the role of the state, and the structure of world order. Develops an ambitious theoretical framework to interpret the era of liberal hegemony associated with Great Britain, the “era of rival imperialisms” (1873–1945), and the postwar international system centered on the United States.
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Gilpin, Robert. War and Change in World Politics. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1981.
DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511664267Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Draws on economic and sociological theories to account for the rise and decline of hegemonic powers through history. Focuses on how the law of uneven development sets the stage for hegemonic change and the conditions under which international change might be peaceful rather than conflictual.
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Ikenberry, G. John. After Victory: Institutions, Strategic Restraint, and the Rebuilding of Order after Major Wars. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001.
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Argues, with attention to the settlements of 1815, 1919, and 1945, that postwar orders are likely to endure to the extent leading powers can both institutionalize those orders and set limits on their own power so that other states might find the hegemonic order more acceptable.
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Keohane, Robert O. After Hegemony: Cooperation and Discord in the World Political Economy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1984.
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Develops a liberal and functional argument to suggest that international cooperation can persist in the absence of a hegemonic power. Institutions created during the hegemonic era take on, in effect, a life of their own and substitute for hegemonic power in the maintenance of international cooperation.
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Kupchan, Charles, and G. John Ikenberry. “Socialization and Hegemonic Power.” International Organization 44.3 (1990): 283–315.
DOI: 10.1017/S002081830003530XSave Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Focuses on the ideational face of hegemony. Hegemonic states exercise power as much by altering the substantive beliefs of elites in other nations as by manipulating their material incentives. The authors develop and test hypotheses in a set of historical cases.
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Thucydides. The Peloponnesion War. Translated by Rex Warner. New York: Penguin, 1954.
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This classic by whom many consider to be the “father” of international relations documents the struggle for hegemony in 5th century BCE Greece between Athens and Sparta. Thucydides foreshadows modern arguments about hegemonic transition by finding the root causes of this great war in the rise of Athenian power and the fear it caused in Sparta.
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Wallerstein, Immanuel. The Modern World System. Vol. 1, Capitalist Agriculture and the Origins of the World Economy in the Sixteenth Century. New York: Academic Press, 1976.
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To be read in conjunction with Vol. 2, Mercantilism and the Consolidation of the European World-Economy, 1600–1750 (New York: Academic Press, 1980), and Vol. 3, The Second Era of Great Expansion of the Capitalist World-Economy, 1730–1840s (New York: Academic Press, 1988). Ambitious trilogy interprets global history by focusing on the expansion and stagnation of the capitalist world economy. Core states of the world economy depend upon and exploit the weaker actors of the periphery and semi-periphery. The ability of one state to dominate materially coincides with periods of expansion in the world economy.
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Historical Evolution and Future Prospects

Scholarship in this category compares different examples of hegemony across time, with some attention to the transition from one hegemonic order to another. Kennedy 1987 analyzes the rise and fall of hegemonic powers since 1500. Watson 2007 reflects on the relationship between hegemony and international order in a variety of historical contexts. Brawley 1993 compares Dutch, British, and American variants of liberal hegemony. Parchami 2009 focuses comparatively on how Rome, Britain, and the United States justified their respective hegemonic positions in different eras. Kupchan 2012 questions the durability of Western hegemony and anticipates a transition to a non-hegemonic world.

Brawley, Mark. Liberal Leadership: Great Powers and their Challengers in Peace and War. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1993.
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Brawly analyzes efforts by states to establish liberal hegemonic systems, with detailed attention to the Dutch, British, and American cases. Highlights the key role of war in generating the origins of liberal economic orders.
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Kennedy, Paul. The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers: Economic Change and Military Conflict from 1500 to 2000. New York: Random House, 1987.
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Focuses on the extent to which leading powers over the centuries managed the tension between economic wealth and military commitments. Great powers face “military overstretch” and subsequent decline when external commitments outstrip national resources. Book had public policy impact in the debate in the late 1980s over the perception among some of the hegemonic decline of the United States.
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Kupchan, Charles. No One’s World: The West, the Rising Rest, and the Coming Global Turn. New York: Oxford University Press, 2012.
DOI: 10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199739394.001.0001Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Kupchan foresees the decline of Western hegemony and a transition to a global order in which no country or political model will dominate. Anticipates an interdependent world without a center in which alternative conceptions of domestic and international order coexist and compete.
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Parchami, Ali. Hegemonic Peace and Empire: The Pax Romana, Britannica, and Americana. New York: Routledge, 2009.
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The author provides comparisons of hegemonic international orders in three different historical settings. Focus is on how hegemonic powers use the idea of peace to motivate and justify hegemonic foreign policies.
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Watson, Adam. Hegemony and History. New York: Routledge, 2007.
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Written by a founding member of the English School of international relations pulls together a series of his essays and reflections over fifty years. A central theme is how hegemonic systems have functioned as a mechanism for international order.
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Postwar American Hegemony

Works in this section analyze the origins, maintenance, and impact of the US-centered international order that emerged after World War II. Ikenberry 1989 argues that even at the peak of its material dominance, the United States had to compromise with other states to create a new international order. Gilpin 1975 emphasizes that political hegemony created the foundation for postwar international economic exchange. Norrlof 2014 explores the special role of the dollar in sustaining US hegemony, while Oatley 2015 shows how America’s hegemonic foreign policy has affected its domestic economy. Foot, et al. 2003 examines the reciprocal relationship between US hegemony and international organizations, while Woods 2006 explores how the hegemonic idea of globalization has been transmitted through international organizations such as the International Monetary Fund and World Bank to borrowing countries. Ferguson 2004 views US hegemony as a positive force in world politics, while Lieven 2012, tracing its argument to American domestic politics, finds the United States to be a malign force in world politics. Mastanduno 2009 demonstrates how the United States both contributes positively to international economic order and exploits its privileged position in the process. Walt 2005 examines the strategies secondary states use to resist the more unilateral and coercive aspects of US hegemony.

Ferguson, Niall. Colossus: The Price of American Empire. New York: Penguin, 2004.
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Ferguson views the United States as a global imperial power. Yet sees the American empire as a distinctively liberal one, shaped by America’s largely anti-imperialist history. Considers the United States a benign force in world politics and urges it to recognize and embrace more fully its American-style imperial order.
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Foot, Rosemary, S. Neil MacFarlane, and Michael Mastanduno. U.S. Hegemony and International Organizations. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003.
DOI: 10.1093/0199261431.001.0001Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
The contributors explain US behavior toward international organizations and the impact of US behavior on the ability of different organizations to achieve their objectives. They examine regional and global institutions across economic, security, and environmental issue areas.
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Gilpin, Robert. U.S. Power and the Multinational Corporation: The Political Economy of Foreign Direct Investment. New York: Basic Books, 1975.
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Gilpin argues that US hegemonic power enabled US-based companies to expand their reach across the globe. Politics established the foundation for international economic exchange. Yet, by establishing direct investments in foreign countries, American multinationals diffused America’s relative economic advantages and risked undermining the overall power position of the United States.
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Ikenberry, G. John. “Rethinking the Origins of American Hegemony.” Political Science Quarterly 104.3 (Fall 1989): 375–400.
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Ikenberry revisits the creation of the US-centered Western order after World War II and finds that, despite America’s overwhelming advantage in material capabilities, US policymakers still had to compromise and make concessions in the construction of the new postwar order.
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Lieven, Anatol. America Right or Wrong: An Anatomy of American Nationalism. 2d ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012.
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Lieven probes what he considers the dysfunction in American political culture: the combination of inward-looking militant nationalism and the outward-looking, messianic impulse of liberal internationalism. These two tendencies lead to aggressive and unilateral foreign policies, such as the war on terrorism. The author views the American form of nationalism as an unstable basis for hegemony.
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Mastanduno, Michael. “System Maker and Privilege Taker: U.S. Power and the International Political Economy.” World Politics 61.1 (January 2009): 121–154.
DOI: 10.1017/S0043887109000057Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
The author argues that the United States has both sustained the postwar international political economy and taken advantage of it to serve its particularistic interests. Its main collaborators in Europe and Asia have tolerated US privilege taking in order to reap the benefits of an open and growing world economy. With the end of the Cold War, paradoxically, US hegemonic influence has diminished.
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Norrlof, Carla. “Dollar Hegemony: A Power Analysis.” Review of International Political Economy 21.5 (2014): 1042–1070.
DOI: 10.1080/09692290.2014.895773Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Norrlof challenges the notion of US hegemonic decline by providing a quantitative assessment of US monetary capabilities. She argues that US monetary hegemony, in the form of dollar dominance, will persist.
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Oatley, Thomas. A Political Economy of American Hegemony: Buildups, Booms, and Busts. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015.
DOI: 10.1017/CBO9781316109199Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Oatley demonstrates how the US political system, American military strategy, and the special role of the dollar combine to send the domestic economy into “boom and bust” cycles. Hegemony both tempts and enables the United States to fall into this pattern.
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Walt, Stephen M. Taming American Power: The Global Response to U.S. Primacy. New York: Norton, 2005.
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Walt analyzes the strategies secondary states employ to resist American power in the unipolar world. Highlights the importance of the hegemonic state’s own foreign policy behavior. Hegemony is more likely to endure when the dominant state reassures, rather than frightens, secondary states.
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Woods, Ngaire. The Globalizers: The IMF, the World Bank, and their Borrowers. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2006.
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Woods traces the postwar role of the two leading international economic institutions as hegemonic instruments promoting the idea of globalization and policies associated with it. Woods questions whether the “globalizing mission” of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank necessarily serves the interests of recipient countries.
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The Future of American Hegemony

Some scholars view US hegemony as self-reinforcing while others anticipate a diffusion of power and influence away from the United States and the West more generally. Zakaria 2008 foresees the “rise of the rest” and the concurrent decline of US hegemony. Acharya 2014 similarly anticipates a diffusion of power with the United States increasingly unable to shape world politics to its liking. Kirshner 2014 argues that the financial crisis that began in 2008 seriously weakened the ideological dimension of US hegemony. Nye 1990, written during an earlier cycle of the debate over US hegemonic decline, views the United States as continuing to possess the requisite material and ideological components of hegemony; domestic politics will determine whether the United States exercises hegemony effectively. Brooks and Wohlforth 2008 sees America’s dominant position as stable and self-reinforcing. Helleiner and Kirshner 2009 disagrees over the future prospects and American monetary hegemony. Layne 2009 reviews several books and highlights key arguments driving authors to different positions on the future prospects for US hegemony.

Acharya, Amitav. The End of American World Order. Cambridge, UK: Polity, 2014.
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The author argues that the era of Western hegemony is over because the United States has lost its ability to shape world politics according to its particular values and interests. Looking ahead, Acharya predicts the United States will become one of multiple actors shaping a more uncertain world order.
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Brooks, Stephen, and William Wohlforth. World Out of Balance: International Relations and the Challenge of American Primacy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2008.
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The authors argue that unipolarity has left the United States unconstrained, either by the balance of power mechanism emphasized by realists or by the international institutions emphasized by liberals. Unipolarity is durable and self-reinforcing; no power transition is on the horizon. Whether an unconstrained United States is also hegemonic is a key question not fully addressed.
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Helleiner, Eric, and Jonathan Kirshner. The Future of the Dollar. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2009.
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The authors assembled a group of distinguished scholars of international monetary politics to assess the future international role of the dollar. The resulting volume documents a lively disagreement, with some viewing dollar hegemony as persisting while others expect a gradual and steady decline in the dollar’s global role.
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Kirshner, Jonathan. American Power after the Financial Crisis. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2014.
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Contends that the great financial crisis that began in 2008 undermined one of the key ideological elements of American hegemony, namely that financial deregulation was desirable for both national economies and the world economy. The overall impact of the crisis will be to diminish America’s hegemonic position.
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Layne, Christopher. “The Waning of U.S. Hegemony: Myth or Reality?” International Security 34.1 (2009): 147–172.
DOI: 10.1162/isec.2009.34.1.147Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Review essay that juxtaposes the works of Kishore Muhbabani, Fareed Zakaria, and Parog Khanna, each of whom foresee the decline of US hegemony and the diffusion of power to Asian states, to that of Stephen Brooks and William Wohlforth, who emphasize the durability of the unipolar distribution of power and thus the opportunity for continued US hegemony. Layne views the future as uncertain but the stakes for international stability as high.
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Nye, Joseph. Bound to Lead: The Changing Nature of American Power. New York: Basic Books, 1990.
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Written just as the Cold War ended, Nye argues that America still possessed the material and ideational capabilities to remain the international system’s hegemonic power. The key questions for Nye involve the extent to which the United States could cope with the diffusion of power to transnational actors and would be able to employ “soft” as opposed to hard power in pursuit of its objectives.
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Zakaria, Fareed. The Post-American World: Release 2.0. New York: Norton, 2008.
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Written for a more popular audience and emphasizes the decline of the United States and the “rise of the rest” in terms of international power and influence. Traces the power shifts of the last 500 years and focuses attention on how the United States might continue to thrive in the absence of its privileged position.
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British Hegemony in the 19th Century

Works in this section analyze the origins and mechanics of the hegemonic order created and maintained by Great Britain in the 19th century. Great Britain emerged after the Napoleonic wars of the early 19th century as the world’s dominant naval and industrial power. Scholars trace the origins of British hegemony to the domestic shift from mercantilism to free trade, beginning with the ideas of Adam Smith and culminating in the repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846. Schoenhardt-Bailey 2006 focuses on the influence of private economic actors to explain Britain’s repeal of the Corn Laws. Howe 1997 begins with the Corn Laws and surveys the interplay of domestic and foreign policies in the evolution of British hegemony. James and Lake 1989 analyzes how the repeal of the Corn Laws affected domestic politics and eventually trade policy in the United States. Lake 1988 provides a structural theory to account for both British trade policy and that of a key secondary state, the United States, between 1887 and 1934. A famous article, Gallagher and Robinson 1953 argues that Britain used free trade as an alternative to formal empire as a means to dominate states on the periphery of the world economy. Gallarotti 1995 questions the generally assumed connection between British hegemony, the Bank of England, and the key monetary instrument of the era, the gold standard. Spiezio 1990 uses correlates of war data to test whether the Pax Brittanica was indeed peaceful.

Gallagher, John, and Ronald Robinson. “The Imperialism of Free Trade.” Economic History Review 6.1 (1953): 1–15.
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This famous article highlighted Great Britain’s “informal empire” and argued that Britain exercised political influence over countries on its periphery through its domination of free trade. This insight has been critical to scholars seeking to understand noncoercive mechanisms of hegemonic control.
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Gallarotti, Giulio. The Anatomy of an International Monetary Regime: The Classical Gold Standard, 1880–1914. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995.
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The author provides a challenge to the standard narrative of 19th-century British hegemony in arguing that neither the British state nor the Bank of England were the prime movers behind the key international economic mechanism of the era, the gold standard.
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Howe, Anthony. Free Trade and Liberal England, 1846–1946. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997.
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A thoughtful survey of the domestic politics and international challenges British leaders faced from the rise of British hegemony with the repeal of the Corn Laws through the world wars and depression of the 20th century.
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James, Scott, and David Lake. “The Second Face of Hegemony: Britain’s Repeal of the Corn Laws and the American Walker Tariff of 1846.” International Organization 43.1 (Winter 1989): 1–29.
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The authors analyze the different “faces” of hegemony, or ways that a hegemonic power might alter the preferences of its trading partners. They emphasize the use of market power. By opening its market for agriculture, Britain in the 19th century created the political space for a societal coalition to form in the United States in favor of free trade.
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Lake, David. Power, Protection and Free Trade: International Sources of U.S. Commercial Strategy, 1887–1934. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1988.
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Lake provides a theory of international economic structures that explains a country’s trade policy preferences based on that country’s relative size and productivity. Explains America’s trade policy during the latter stages of British hegemony and is sensitive throughout to how domestic political interests intersect with national interests derived from external position.
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Schoenhardt-Bailey, Cheryl. From the Corn Laws to Free Trade: Interests, Ideas, and Institutions in Historical Perspective. Boston: MIT, 2006.
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The author seeks to explain what most view as the seminal event in Britain’s turn to free trade—the repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846. The answer, based on exhaustive analysis of primary sources, focuses on the power of private economic interests, but with appreciation for how interests interact with ideas and institutions.
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Spiezio, K. Edward. “British Hegemony and Major Power War, 1815–1939: An Empirical Test of Gilpin’s Model of Hegemonic Governance.” International Studies Quarterly 34.2 (1990): 165–181.
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Spiezio uses the correlates of war data set and finds qualified support for theories of hegemony. During the era of British hegemony, the incidence of major war was inversely related to the concentration of international economic and military capabilities. Also finds that British hegemony does not account for variation in the levels of interstate conflict.
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Britain’s Decline and Germany’s Challenge

The German challenge to British hegemony in the late 19th century was both material and ideological and has prompted scholarly debated over the causes of Britain’s decline and whether it was inevitable or reversible. Friedberg 1988 explains why British leaders were slow to recognize their country’s relative decline. Gilpin 1975 finds the sources of British decline in the country’s inability to renew its economic vitality at home in the face of rising competition from Germany and the United States. Hoffman 1983 traces World War I back to the German commercial challenge to Great Britain. Feis 1974 documents the interplay of German, British, and French foreign investments and the great power diplomacy and rivalry that eventually culminated in war. Lake 1991, like Gilpin 1975, provides both lessons and caveats in comparing the relative hegemonic decline of 19th-century Britain and 20th-century America.

Feis, Herbert. Europe: The World’s Banker, 1870–1914. Reprint. Clifton, NJ: Augustus M. Kelley, 1974.
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Originally published in 1930. Feis documents, in this classic account, the scope and magnitude of British, French, and German foreign investments during the late 19th century. Explores the links across these investments, great power diplomacy, and the British-German struggle for hegemony that led to World War I.
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Friedberg, Aaron L. The Weary Titan: Britain and the Experience of Relative Decline, 1895–1905. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1988.
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Friedberg explains how and why Britain’s leaders were slow to recognize their country’s declining hegemonic position, despite evidence of erosion in Britain’s industrial, financial, and military capability. The larger lesson is that a hegemon’s response to relative decline is likely to be partial and uncoordinated.
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Gilpin, Robert. U.S. Power and the Multinational Corporation: The Political Economy of Foreign Direct Investment. New York: Basic Books, 1975.
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Gilpin argues that the comparative advantage of 19th-century Great Britain gradually eroded in the face of competition from new economic powers such as the United States and Germany. Britain failed to adjust its economic strategy and revitalize its domestic economy. Gilpin finds in this experience a warning to late-20th-century America.
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Hoffman, Ross. Great Britain and the German Trade Rivalry, 1875–1914. New York: Garland, 1983.
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Originally published in 1933. Documents the rise of post-unification German commercial power and the fear and anxiety it caused in Great Britain. Avoids economic determinism yet does find the sources of World War I in Britain’s recognition of Germany’s rivalry in commerce—a rivalry as much about ideas (free trade versus protectionist strategies) as about national wealth and power.
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Lake, David. “British and American Hegemony Compared: Lessons for the Current Era of Decline.” In History, the White House and the Kremlin: Statesmen as Historians. Edited by Michael Fry, 106–122. London: Pinter, 1991.
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Lake traces both the parallels and, more importantly, the key differences between Britain’s position after 1870 and that of the United States one century later. He finds that the American-centered economic order will not follow the same path as the British order due to key differences in international economic structures and political processes.
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Regional Hegemony

Hegemony in international relations may be exercised regionally as well as globally. Scholars are interested in how hegemony operates within and across regional subsystems, and in how regional hegemony coexists or conflicts with global hegemony. This section includes both historical and contemporary analyses of regional hegemony. Destradi 2010 provides conceptual clarity by distinguishing operationally regional hegemony from regional empire. Hui 2005 explains why regional hegemony emerged in ancient China while a balance-of-power system came about in Europe in the Early Modern period. Kang 2010 explains the norms and behavior patterns that characterized China’s historical hegemonic order in East Asia. Hirschman 1980?, a classic work, examines how Nazi Germany used asymmetric economic relations to reorient the foreign policies of Germany’s weaker neighbors. Crawford 2007 explains contemporary Germany’s strategy of pursuing regional hegemony by embedding German foreign policy within European institutions. Stone 1996, using the case of postwar relations between the Soviet Union and eastern European states, shows how weaker states can sometimes outmaneuver the regional hegemon. The rise of China has led to a substantial literature on the struggle for hegemony in East Asia. Friedberg 1993–1994, a classic article, anticipates rivalry and conflict in East Asia in the aftermath of the Cold War and US regional hegemony. Mastanduno 2003 explains why US hegemony in East Asia is partial and incomplete. Friedberg 2011 describes the emerging hegemonic struggle between the United States and China, while Beeson 2009 questions the likelihood of a struggle or a hegemonic transition in East Asia.

Beeson, Mark. “Hegemonic Transition in East Asia? The Dynamics of Chinese and American Power.” Review of International Studies 35.1 (2009): 95–112.
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Beeson questions the inevitability of hegemonic transition from United States to China in East Asia. Argues that US-China relations and competition are complex and cannot be captured by standard models of transition.
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Crawford, Beverly. Power and German Foreign Policy: Embedded Hegemony in Europe. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007.
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Crawford contends that post-unification Germany has come to play the role of regional hegemon in Europe. Germany’s position is based on the material power of its economy and its willingness to embed its foreign policy in European institutions. The latter strategy confers legitimacy on Germany and reassures its neighbors.
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Destradi, Sandra. “Regional Powers and Their Strategies: Empire, Hegemony, and Leadership.” Review of International Studies 36.4 (2010): 903–930.
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Destradi offers a conceptual clarification of key international relations terms. Distinguishes among empire, hegemony, and leadership based on the goals regional powers pursue, the means they adopt, and the extent to which their behavior is represented and perceived as legitimate.
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Friedberg, Aaron L. “Ripe for Rivalry: Prospects for Peace in a Multipolar Asia.” International Security 18.3 (Winter 1993–1994): 5–33.
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Friedberg compares the prospects for peace in Europe and Asia after the Cold War. He assumed that in the absence of American hegemony, regional dynamics, rather than global competition, would become more prominent. Asia was more prone to conflict than Europe given its diversity of regime types, weak regional institutions, and inability to cope with historical antagonisms.
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Friedberg, Aaron L. A Contest for Supremacy: China, America, and the Struggle for Mastery in Asia. New York: Norton, 2011.
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Friedberg analyzes what he views as an emerging hegemonic struggle for control in East Asia. He sees the Chinese as attempting to “win without fighting” and worries that American policymakers may not be adequately prepared to meet the challenge.
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Hirschman, Albert O. National Power and the Structure of Foreign Trade. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980.
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Originally published in 1945. In one of the great classics of international political economy, Hirschman develops a theory of how dominant states exercise power over their weaker neighbors. Dominant states can create sufficient, asymmetrical trade dependence in weaker states such that the weaker states reorient their foreign policies to conform to the needs of the dominant state. The empirical case is Germany’s dominance of its central European neighbors during the 1930s.
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Hui, Victoria Tin-bor. War and State Formation in Ancient China and Early Modern Europe. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2005.
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Hui seeks to explain how and why state struggles in ancient China (656–215 BCE) led to the consolidated hegemony of a single state, the Kingdom of Qin, while similar struggles in Europe from the 15th to 18th centuries led to a different outcome, the Westphalian balance of power system. Her answer focuses on variation in state-strengthening and state-weakening factors in the economic and military realms.
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Kang, David C. East Asia Before the West: Five Centuries of Trade and Tribute. New York: Columbia University Press, 2010.
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Kang examines relations among China, Japan, Korea, and Vietnam between the 14th and 19th centuries and finds an East Asian regional order based on Chinese hegemony. China enjoyed both a preponderance of material capabilities and normative authority. Other states recognized China’s leadership by paying tribute to it.
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Mastanduno, Michael. “Incomplete Hegemony: The United States and Security Order in Asia.” In Asian Security Order: Instrumental and Normative Features. Edited by Muthiah Alagappa, 141–170. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2003.
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The author argues that the United States constructed a partial hegemonic order in East Asia during the Cold War era and hoped to complete that order after the Cold War. The order remains partial due to Chinese and Indian ambivalence regarding America’s dominant regional role. Hegemonic order is preferable to a balance-of-power order in light of East Asia’s troubled history.
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Stone, Randall. Satellites and Commissars: Strategy and Conflict in the Politics of Soviet-Bloc Trade. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1996.
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The puzzle is why the dominant Soviet Union seemed incapable of turning the subsidies it provided to eastern European states into political leverage and influence. Draws upon bargaining and principal-agent theories to show how and why East European elites outmaneuvered their Soviet counterparts and managed to maintain their economic benefits while resisting, at least to some extent, Soviet foreign policy overtures.
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Hegemonic Stability Theory

This theory emerged during the 1970s to explain variations in the stability and openness of the world economy over time. The key independent variable is the existence or absence of a dominant state. The most stylized narrative suggested that an open world economy emerged only during the 19th century due to British leadership, collapsed during the interwar period due to the absence of hegemonic leadership, and reemerged after World War II due to the hegemony of the United States. Gilpin 1977 provides a succinct statement of this historical narrative, linking the rise and fall of hegemonic states to stability or instability in the world economy. Kindleberger 1973 interprets the collapse of international economic exchange during the Great Depression to the lack of hegemonic leadership and, in particular, the failure of any state to provide collective goods to the world economy. Krasner 1976 makes a theoretically self-conscious effort to link causally a hegemonic distribution of power and international economic openness, with attention to domestic interests in the hegemonic state as a key intervening variable. Stein 1984 explores the mechanics of hegemony, specifically the bargains hegemonic states make to advance free trade. Webb and Krasner 1989 employs aggregate data to support the basic arguments of the theory. Pahre 1999 uses formal models to explain the conditions under which hegemonic leadership brings benefits to the global economy, and Norrlof 2010 argues that hegemonic states enjoy those benefits disproportionately, thereby providing incentives for them to continue playing that role.

Gilpin, Robert G. “Economic Interdependence and National Security in Historical Perspective.” In Economic Issues and National Security. Edited by Klaus Knorr and Frank Trager, 19–66. Lawrence: Regents Press of Kansas, 1977.
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Gilpin traces the rise and fall of the liberal world economy from the mercantilist era to the postwar era, focusing on the links among hegemonic leadership, liberalism, and international economic stability. The main point is that international political stability is a precondition for international economic openness.
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Kindleberger, Charles P. The World in Depression, 1929–1939. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973.
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Many scholars associate this book with the origins of hegemonic stability theory. Kindleberger argues that hegemonic states are needed to supply important collective goods to the liberal world economy. He finds that, during the 1930s, both Britain and the United States were unwilling to undertake this critical role.
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Krasner, Stephen. “State Power and the Structure of International Trade.” World Politics 28.3 (1976): 317–347.
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Krasner provides one of the classic early statements of hegemonic stability theory. He explains the degree of openness in international trade in terms of the changing distribution of international economic power. Hegemonic states have a structural interest in open trade, though the power of domestic interests sometimes prevents or constrains those states from pursuing that structural interest at home and abroad.
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Norrlof, Carla. America’s Global Advantage: US Hegemony and International Cooperation. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2010.
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American hegemony will persist due to the structural advantages the United States enjoys in trade, finance, and security. Norrlof also contends that the United States benefits more than other states do from US hegemony, thereby providing incentives for the United States to continue in its hegemonic role.
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Pahre, Robert. Leading Questions: How Hegemony Affects the International Political Economy. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1999.
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Pahre uses formal models to explore under what conditions leadership will prove beneficial to the world economy. His central finding, based on testing models across the 19th and 20th centuries, is that leaders provide more benefits to the world economy when they have allies. He also finds that leaders are less likely than other states to engage in multilateral cooperation.
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Stein, Arthur. “The Hegemon’s Dilemma: Great Britain, the United States, and International Economic Order.” International Organization 38.2 (1984): 355–386.
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Stein explores how hegemonic states actually bring about free trade regimes. Focuses on the key role of political and economic bargains resulting from strategic interaction among major powers. The hegemonic state is willing to make asymmetrical bargains; it opens its markets to a greater extent than do its partners.
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Webb, Michael, and Stephen Krasner. “Hegemonic Stability Theory: An Empirical Assessment.” Review of International Studies 15.2 (1989): 183–198.
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Webb and Krasner’s assessment of the theory takes place at a high level of data aggregation. They find that, as of the late 1980s, the United States, despite some deterioration in its position, still enjoyed favorable relative power, and that the world economy remained relatively open and stable.
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Critical Reflections

Since its inception, hegemonic stability theory has been the subject of extensive scholarly debate conceptually and empirically. Snidal 1985 challenges both the presumption that hegemonic states are needed to provide public goods and that international cooperation requires a single leader. McKeown 1983 finds that Great Britain did not behave in a manner consistent with the expectations of the theory during its era of hegemonic leadership. Morrison 2012 argues that Britain began to pursue free trade well before it became a hegemonic power. Strange 1987 argues that the theory mis-specifies the power resources needed to exercise hegemony and therefore overemphasizes the tendency of hegemons to decline. Russett 1985 makes a similar argument in focusing on the ability of hegemonic states to control important international outcomes despite changes in their relative power capabilities. Lake 1993 provides a comprehensive assessment of both the theory and its critics, concluding with a call for further theoretical refinement and empirical specification.

Lake, David A. “Leadership, Hegemony, and the International Economy: Naked Emperor or Tattered Monarch with Potential?” International Studies Quarterly 37.4 (1993): 459–489.
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Lake provides an authoritative review of the hegemonic stability research program. Untangles leadership theory, based on public goods assumptions, from hegemony theory, based on the distribution of international economic power. Finds it premature to discard hegemonic stability theories without further theoretical refinement and empirical specification.
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McKeown, Timothy J. “Hegemonic Stability Theory and 19th Century Tariff Levels in Europe.” International Organization 37.1 (1983): 73–91.
DOI: 10.1017/S0020818300004203Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
McKeown provides a critique of hegemonic stability theory by exploring how hegemonic states create and maintain international trade regimes. He finds Great Britain’s hegemonic behavior inconsistent with the expectations of the theory and proposes an alternative explanation based on the idea of a political business cycle.
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Morrison, James Ashley. “Before Hegemony: Adam Smith, American Independence, and the Origins of the First Era of Globalization.” International Organization 66.3 (2012): 395–428.
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In an empirical challenge to hegemonic stability theory, Morrison finds that Britain began pursuing open trade in the 1780s, well before the presumed emergence of Britain’s structural position of hegemony. His process tracing reveals the importance of intellectuals and ideas in shaping foreign policy preferences.
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Russett, Bruce. “The Mysterious Case of Vanishing Hegemony: Or, Is Mark Twain Really Dead?” International Organization 39.2 (1985): 207–231.
DOI: 10.1017/S0020818300026953Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Russett challenges the notion of US hegemonic decline (1980s version) by focusing less on relative power capabilities and more on the ability to control outcomes. He finds that the United States gets much of what it prefers in world politics, particularly if one considers outcomes in international security as well as the world economy and pays attention to the more subtle effects of US cultural hegemony.
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Snidal, Duncan. “The Limits of Hegemonic Stability Theory.” International Organization 39.4 (1985): 579–614.
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Snidal establishes the key distinction between benevolent and coercive forms of hegemonic leadership. He argues that the benevolent or public goods variant of hegemonic stability theory applies far more narrowly than its proponents claim and challenges the proposition that effective international cooperation requires a single leader.
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Strange, Susan. “The Persistent Myth of Lost Hegemony.” International Organization 41.4 (1987): 551–574.
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Strange, like Russett, questions the narrative of US hegemonic decline. She identifies four major international structures—security, finance, production, and knowledge—and finds that America remained dominant in all four as of the late 1980s.
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Power Transition Theory

Power transition theory, also called hegemonic (as opposed to balance of power) realism, finds a tendency for dominant powers to emerge and create international orders by developing rules and norms to govern state behavior. Within hegemonic realism, some scholars (see Gilpin 1981 [cited under Hegemony and International Relations Theories]) emphasize hegemonic rise and decline, some focus on power transitions, and some analyze the long historical cycles of hegemonic leadership and decline. Organski 1969 introduces power transition theory and notes that the chances for war are greatest near the point of transition between rising and declining powers. Organski and Kugler 1980 provides statistical tests of power transition theory and finds support for it. Levy 1991 argues that the theory does not pay sufficient attention to the dynamics of escalation and crisis management that define international politics in the nuclear age. DiCicco and Levy 1999 reviews the theory and criticisms of it over a period of forty years and concludes that power transition theory has made important contributions to our understanding of conflict and war. Modelski 1987 and Goldstein 1988 refine and extend power transition theory by illuminating the regularity of long cycles of hegemony and decline. Wohlforth 1999 and Brooks and Wohlforth 2008 challenge the notion of a forthcoming power transition, arguing that America’s dominant structural position in world politics is both robust and self-perpetuating.

Brooks, Stephen, and William Wohlforth. World Out of Balance: International Relations and the Challenge of American Primacy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2008.
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The authors challenge those who view the United States as constrained either by soft or hard balancing or by international institutions. Notwithstanding China’s rise, no power transition is on the horizon because the dominant structural position of the United States is self-reinforcing.
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DiCicco, Jonathan M., and Jack S. Levy. “Power Shifts and Problem Shifts: The Evolution of the Power Transition Research Program.” Journal of Conflict Resolution 43.6 (1999): 675–704.
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The authors provide a review of power transition literature over the forty years since Organski’s seminal work introduced the theory. The authors distinguish the balance-of-power and hegemonic variants of realism and find that the power transition version of hegemonic realism has made important contributions to our understanding of conflict and war, but needs to continue on a progressive research path.
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Goldstein, Joshua. Long Cycles: Prosperity and War in the Modern Age. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1988.
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Goldstein develops a theory of hegemony and war that focuses on fifty-year cycles of economic expansion and stagnation. He finds that the severity of great power war is highly correlated with upswings in the long economic cycle. War is more likely when hegemonic decline coexists with economic expansion because the latter increases the resources available to the military sectors of challenging states.
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Levy, Jack. “Long Cycles, Hegemonic Transitions, and the Long Peace.” In The Long Postwar Peace: Contending Explanations and Projections. Edited by Charles W. Kegley, 147–176. New York: HarperCollins, 1991.
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Levy finds that hegemonic explanations for the long peace—the absence of great power war since World War II—are either focused too narrowly or are insufficiently operational to test effectively. He argues that hegemonic theories do not pay sufficient attention to the dynamics of preemption, escalation, and crisis management that are critical to understanding war and war prevention in the nuclear era.
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Modelski, George. Long Cycles in World Politics. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1987.
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Modelski argues that modern international relations move in predictable long cycles of roughly seventy to one hundred years. Each cycle is associated with the dominance of a hegemonic state—Portugal, the Netherlands, Great Britain, and the United States have enjoyed that position. Hegemonic war does not reflect the breakdown of international order; rather, it is a natural part of the global cycle.
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Organski, A. F. K. World Politics. 2d ed. New York: Alfred Knopf, 1969.
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Originally published in 1958. Organski offers power transition theory as an alternative to balance-of-power theory as a means to explain international change and war. Introduces the now familiar argument that dominant powers emerge to shape international order, and subsequently face challenges from rising states that experience rapid industrial development. The chances for war are greatest near the point of power transition between rising and declining powers.
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Organski, A. F. K., and Jacek Kugler. The War Ledger. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980.
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The authors provide statistical tests of hypotheses derived from power transition theory. They find that, among major powers, no war takes place without a power transition, and power transitions lead to war in roughly half of the cases. This work sparked a lively debate regarding both research design and substantive findings.
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Wohlforth, William C. “The Stability of a Unipolar World.” International Security 24.1 (1999): 5–41.
DOI: 10.1162/016228899560031Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
The title plays off a famous article by Kenneth Waltz extolling the virtues of bipolarity in creating stable international orders. Wohlforth argues that after the Cold War unipolarity will prove enduring and stable because it will remain too difficult for challengers, individually or collectively, to balance the United States. His emphasis is more on material capabilities than on the interplay of capabilities and social relationships of interest to scholars of hegemony.
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Gramscian and Neo-Gramscian Approaches to Hegemony

Scholarship in this section draws on the influential work of the Italian social theorist Antonio Gramsci. Gramsci 2014 focuses attention on social relations as the basis for cultural hegemony, and, in particular, on how the dominant capitalist class maintained and legitimized through ideology its hegemonic position nationally and internationally. Cox 1987 emphasizes modes of production and social relations in an interpretation of international politics in the 19th and 20th centuries. Gill 1991 analyzes relations among the trilateral capitalist hegemons of the postwar world, the United States, western Europe, and Japan. Robinson 2004 stresses the importance of transnationalism as the defining feature of the contemporary era of hegemony and globalization. Cox 1983 is a succinct primer on how Gramsci’s key concepts might be applied to the study international relations, while the contributors to Gill 1993 apply Gramsci in particular to the economic, political, and cultural crises of capitalism at the end of the Cold War. Ayers 2013 extends this discussion in applying historical-material analysis to international political economy on the eve and in the aftermath of the great financial crisis that began in 2008.

Ayers, Alison, ed. Gramsci, Political Economy, and International Relations Theory: Modern Princes and Naked Emperors. Rev. ed. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013.
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The contributors direct historical-materialist analysis to two related challenges—the political crisis of early-21st-century liberal internationalism and the need to develop further and refine neo-Gramscian approaches to the study of international political economy.
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Cox, Robert W. “Gramsci, Hegemony, and International Relations: An Essay in Method.” Millennium 12 (1983): 162–175.
DOI: 10.1177/03058298830120020701Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Cox develops and applies Gramsci’s concept of hegemony to the study of contemporary international relations.
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Cox, Robert W. Production, Power, and World Order: Social Forces in the Making of History. New York: Columbia University Press, 1987.
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A seminal work that draws on Gramsci’s thinking to analyze how modes of production, social relations, and state behavior interact to generate the structure of the modern global political and economic order.
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Gill, Stephen. American Hegemony and the Trilateral Commission. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1991.
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Gill focuses on how the postwar, dominant capitalist states of North America, western Europe, and Japan in East Asia formed a trilateral alliance to promote and sustain a global economic and political order consistent with their shared interests.
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Gill, Stephen, ed. Gramsci, Historical Materialism, and International Relations. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1993.
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Gill brings together leading European and North American scholars who apply Gramsci’s insights to the “triple crisis” (economic, political, and cultural) of world politics during the 1980s and early 1990s. Contributors focus on regional contexts as well as the global system.
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Gramsci, Antonio. Selections from the Prison Notebooks of Antonio Gramsci. New York: International Publishers, 2014.
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Originally published in 1971. Gramsci, among the most influential Marxist thinkers of the 20th century, used the concept of cultural hegemony to understand how the ruling capitalist class established, maintained, and legitimized its societal control. He emphasized the importance of ideology, showing that capitalists developed a culture that became accepted as representing normal, or “common sense,” values for society as a whole.
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Robinson, William I. A Theory of Global Capitalism: Production, Class, and State in a Transnational World. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004.
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Argues that the key dimension of contemporary globalization—the fourth epoch of capitalism—is transnationalism, reflected in the rise of both a transnational capitalist class and transnational states that support it.
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Hegemony and Domestic Politics

Theories and arguments about hegemony are cast primarily at the level of the international system. But the extent to which hegemonic states behave in a manner predicted by theories of hegemony is frequently shaped by domestic political forces. Frieden 1988 traces the failure of the United States to lead during the interwar years to a domestic struggle and stalemate between nationalist and internationalist capitalist factions. Block 1978 similarly attributes the US shift after World War II to liberal internationalism to the decisive victory of the internationalist faction. Fordham 1998 shows how early postwar US presidents had to appeal to or undermine different domestic interests in order to mobilize support for a hegemonic US foreign policy. Lobell 2005 and Narizny 2007 examine, more broadly, the reciprocal interaction between domestic political coalitions and hegemonic grand strategies in different time periods. Brawley 1999 explains why domestic political interests frequently lock in extensive foreign policy commitments even after hegemonic power declines, while Kupchan and Trubowitz 2007 explores how and why domestic support for a hegemonic foreign policy has been eroding in the United States since the end of the Cold War. Finally, the concept of hegemony is often used to analyze domestic politics on its own terms. Cox 1977 applies Gramsci’s approach (see Gramsci 2014 [cited under Gramscian and Neo-Gramscian Approaches to Hegemony]) to the dominance that capitalist interest groups and the state apparatus exercise over labor in modern industrial societies.

Block, Fred. The Origins of International Economic Disorder. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978.
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Block, working within the Marxist tradition, finds the needs of American capitalism to be the driving force behind the creation of not only the liberal world economy, but also the security commitments made by the United States after World War II.
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Brawley, Mark. Afterglow or Adjustment? Domestic Institutions and Responses to Overstretch. New York: Columbia University Press, 1999.
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Brawley explains the difficulties leading states have in adjusting their prior, extensive international commitments when they face an era of hegemonic decline. He examines the British and American cases with particular attention to military overcommitments and financial interests and policies.
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Cox, Robert W. “Labor and Hegemony.” International Organization 31.3 (1977): 385–424.
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Cox takes aim at the idea that organized labor, nationally and internationally, is an independent and equal actor alongside business and the state in tripartite governing arrangements. He argues instead that a particular form of corporate hegemony places labor in a subordinate position to a business-state alliance, both in national capitalist economies and in the global system.
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Fordham, Benjamin. Building the Cold War Consensus: The Political Economic of U.S. National Security Policy, 1949–51. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1998.
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Fordham provides a domestic political explanation for the major change in US national security strategy after World War II. To gain support for US internationalism, the Truman administration not only had to appeal to internationally oriented business interests, but also had to sacrifice much of its domestic agenda and initiate a crusade against domestic communism and radicals in the labor movement and elsewhere.
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Frieden, Jeffrey. “Sectoral Conflict and U.S. Foreign Economic Policy, 1914–1940.” International Organization 42.1 (1988): 59–90.
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Frieden poses a puzzle of the interwar era: the United States had preponderant material power but did not assume a hegemonic role in leading the world economy. He resolves the puzzle by focusing on domestic politics. National-oriented and international-oriented capitalist factions each captured part of the US government, leading to stalemate in American foreign policy, which was resolved only by the decisive victory of international capital after World War II.
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Kupchan, Charles, and Peter Trubowitz. “Dead Center: The Demise of Liberal Internationalism in the United States.” International Security 32.2 (Fall 2007): 7–44.
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The authors suggest that the foreign policy of George W. Bush reflects the erosion of the liberal internationalist consensus that, within the nation, supported US hegemonic strategy for fifty years. The absence of that bipartisan consensus will channel US foreign policy in a more nationalist and parochial direction.
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Lobell, Steven. The Challenge of Hegemony: Grand Strategy, Trade, and Domestic Politics. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2005.
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Lobell argues that grand strategy results from the interaction of a state’s international position and domestic political coalitions. The economic policies of rising states alter the balance of power among domestic coalitions in the hegemonic state, and those shifting domestic coalitions, in turn, reshape the hegemon’s grand strategy.
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Narizny, Kevin. The Political Economy of Grand Strategy. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2007.
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Narizny argues that the grand strategies of hegemonic and other major powers are determined by the interests and efforts of domestic political coalitions. He demonstrates the argument with detailed empirical studies of British and American grand strategy between 1860 and the beginning of World War II.
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