Week 15-Pre Class

Professor Jackson mentioned in his lectures the various methods of hegemonic transitions and raised the questions of what would be the most likely outcomes, and the most desirable outcomes. Given these are two of the most significant questions looming in the field of international relations and one of the final blog posts, I will provide my own prognosis to the question of what is the most desired outcome based on the material we have covered in class to date.

I believe that the most desirable of the scenario's which Professor Jackson mentioned would be the creation of hegemonic institutions which would create certain boundaries for state actors to operate within. I believe that this the current liberal hegemonic world order which the United States has created and fostered since World War II is the most ideal from the perspective of preserving the fundamental human rights valued by the Western liberal order. Preserving this type of order in some capacity as the dominant order helps maintain unipolarity or at the very least offers a balance to the rising Asian powers, which helps preserves some global balance of powers. The type of liberal world order I suggest is not necessarily led by the United States, which has long been the military and economic might of the Western world, but could be the result of some resurgence in Europe or a revival of the ideals for liberal democracy globally.

The current direction of the world order currently however is that with the decline in strength of the liberal hegemonic world order (note that this is not exclusively the US) appears to favour a more multi-polar world where there is no clear hegemonic power. A multipolar world is tantamount to a Hobbsian state of nature, making an already anarchic global system of interstate relations even less bound to the few rules and norms set in place. A bipolar world at least provides states with clarity of goals and interests, either support one of the global hegemons in China, or the old guard of the liberal hegemonic world order. It is highly unlikely that China will emerge as a great power on the international stage, and historically has preferred to exercise it's great power status in the regional context rather than the global stage, however Chairman Xi Jinping has made known his global ambitions with the One Belt One Road projects and could assert China's power on a more global level.

Ultimately, the most desirable transition of hegemonic power away from the US would see the liberal hegemonic world order preserved in some capacity. The institutions which it has created such as NATO or the IMF would help preserve the legacy of the US's world order, as would a rise of European significance, or the re-emergence of liberal democracy globally. At the very least, an avoidance of creating a multipolar world would be highly undesirable, and should be avoided if possible.