In geopolitics, hegemony (, , ) is the political, economic and military predominance of one state over other states, either regional or global.
In Ancient Greece (ca. 8th BC – AD 6th c.), hegemony denotes the politico-military dominance of the hegemon city-state over other city-states. In the 19th century, hegemony denoted the "social or cultural predominance or ascendancy; predominance by one group within a society or milieu" and "a group or regime which exerts undue influence within a society." (Definitions 2a and 2b).
In international relations theories, hegemony is distinguished from empire as ruling only external but not internal affairs of other states.Snyder, Jack (2002) "The myths of empire and strategies of hegemony," Lessons of Empire: Imperial Histories and American Power, (eds. Craig Calhoun, Frederick Cooper and Kevin Moore, New York: The New Press), p. 270.
Etymology From the post-classical Latin word (1513 or earlier) from the Greek word , related to the word , , .Oxford English Dictionary. Leadership, translated into Greek, renders hegemony; an alternative translation is archia – Greek common word for empire. Many scholars use the term "hegemony" interchangeably or synonymously with "empire" or "domination" and they are referred in the respective articles.
In theories of imperialism, the hegemonic order dictates the internal politics and the societal character of the subordinate states that constitute the hegemonic sphere of influence, either by an internal, sponsored government or by an external, installed government.
The term hegemonism denoted the geopolitical and the cultural predominance of one country over other countries, e.g., the hegemony of the Great Powers established with European colonialism in Africa, Asia, and Latin America.
Political science
In the historical writing of the 19th century, the denotation of hegemony extended to describe the predominance of one country upon other countries; and, by extension, hegemonism denoted the Great Power politics (c.1880s–1914) for establishing hegemony (indirect imperial rule), that then leads to a definition of imperialism (direct foreign rule).
In the early 20th century, the Italian Marxist philosopher Antonio Gramsci used the idea of hegemony to talk about politics within a given society. He developed the theory of cultural hegemony, an analysis of economic class (including social class) and how the ruling class uses consent as well as force to maintain its power.
Following this, Marxists and social scientists use the concept of cultural hegemony to analyze the social norms that established the social structures to impose their Weltanschauung (world view)—justifying the social, political, and economic status quo—as natural, inevitable, and beneficial to every social class, rather than as artificial social constructs beneficial solely to the ruling class.
From the Gramsci analysis derived the political science denotation of hegemony as leadership; thus, the historical example of Prussia as the militarily and culturally predominant province of the German Empire (1871–1918); and the personal and intellectual predominance of Napoleon Bonaparte upon the French Consulate (1799–1804).
More recently, in Hegemony and Socialist Strategy (1985), Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe defined hegemony as a political relationship of power wherein a subordinate society (collectivity) perform social tasks that are culturally unnatural and not beneficial to them, but that are in exclusive benefit to the imperial interests of the hegemon, the superior, ordinate power; hegemony is a military, political, and economic relationship that occurs as an articulation within political discourse.
International relations In the field of international relations, hegemony generally refers to the ability of an actor to shape the international system. Usually this actor is a state, such as Britain in the 19th century or the United States in the 20th century. A hegemon may shape the international system through coercive and non-coercive means.Norrloff, Carla (2019). "Hegemony," Oxford Bibliographies, https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780199743292/obo-9780199743292-0122.xml#. According to Nuno Monteiro, hegemony is distinct from unipolarity. The latter refers to a preponderance of power within an anarchic system, whereas the former refers to a hierarchical system where the most powerful state has the ability to "control the external behavior of all other states."
The English school of international relations takes a broader view of history. The research of Adam Watson was world-historical in scope. For him, hegemony was the most common order in history (historical "optimum") because many provinces of "frank" empires were under hegemonic rather than imperial rule. Watson summarized his life-long research: There was a spectrum of political systems ranging between multiple independent states and universal empire. The further a political system evolved towards one of the extremes, the greater was the gravitational pull towards the hegemonic center of the spectrum.Watson, Adam (1992). The Evolution of International Society: A Comparative Historical Analysis, (London: Routledge), pp. 122–125, 131–132, 324. Paul W. Schroeder drew a similar generalization that most empires involve informal, indirect rule.Schroeder, Paul W. (10 February 2003). "Is the US an empire?" History News Network, https://www.hnn.us/article/is-the-us-an-empire.
Hegemony may take different forms. Benevolent hegemons provide public goods to the countries within their sphere of influence. Coercive hegemons exert their economic or military power to discipline unruly or free-riding countries in their sphere of influence. Exploitative hegemonies extract resources from other countries.See Snidal, Duncan (1985). "The Limits of Hegemonic Stability Theory." International Organization 39 (4): pp. 580–614.Grunberg, Isabelle (1990). "Exploring the ‘Myth' of Hegemonic Stability." International Organization 44 (4): 431–477.
A prominent theory in International Relations focusing on the role of hegemonies is hegemonic stability theory. Its premise is that a hegemonic power is necessary to develop and uphold a stable international political and economic order. The theory was developed in the 1970s by Robert Gilpin and Stephen D. Krasner, among others.Gilpin, Robert (1975). U.S. Power and the Multinational Corporation. New York: Basic Books.Krasner, Stephen D. (1976). "State Power and the Structure of International Trade." World Politics 28 (3): 317–347. It has been criticized on both conceptual and empirical grounds. For example, Robert Keohane has argued that the theory is not a proper theory because it amounts to a series of allegedly redundant claims that apparently could not be used predictively.Keohane, Robert O. (1984). After Hegemony: Cooperation and Discord in the World Political Economy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
A number of International Relations scholars have examined the decline of hegemons and their orders. For some, such decline tends to be disruptive because the stability that the hegemon provided gives way to a power vacuum.Kindleberger, Charles P. (1981). "Dominance and Leadership in the International Economy." International Studies Quarterly 25: 242–254.Gilpin, Robert (1981). War and Change in World Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Others have maintained that cooperation may persist in the face of hegemonic decline because of institutions or enhanced contributions from non-hegemonic powers.Snidal, Duncan (1985). "The Limits of Hegemonic Stability Theory." International Organization 39 (4): 580–614.
There has been a long debate in the field about whether American hegemony is in decline. As early as in the 1970s, Robert Gilpin suggested that the global order maintained by the United States would eventually decline as benefits from the public goods provided by Washington would diffuse to other states. In the 1980s, some scholars singled out Japan's economic growth and technological sophistication as a threat to U.S. primacy.Vogel, Ezra (1986). "Pax Nipponica." Foreign Affairs 64 (4): 752–767. More recently, analysts have focused on the economic and military rise of China and its challenge to U.S. hegemony.Schweller, Randall L., and Xiaoyu Pu (2011). "After Unipolarity: China's Vision of International Order in an Era of U.S. Decline." International Security 36 (1): 41–72.
Scholars differ as to whether bipolarity or unipolarity is likely to produce the most stable and peaceful outcomes. Kenneth Waltz and John Mearsheimer are among those who argue that bipolarity tends to generate relatively more stability, whereas John Ikenberry and William Wohlforth are among those arguing for the stabilizing impact of unipolarity. Some scholars, such as Karl Deutsch and J. David Singer argued that multipolarity was the most stable structure.
Scholars disagree about the sources and stability of U.S. unipolarity. Realist international relations scholars argue that unipolarity is rooted in the superiority of U.S. material power since the end of the Cold War. Liberal international relations scholar John Ikenberry attributes U.S. hegemony in part to what he says are commitments and self-restraint that the United States established through the creation of international institutions (such as the United Nations, International Monetary Fund, World Bank, and World Trade Organization). Constructivist scholar Martha Finnemore argues that legitimation and institutionalization are key components of unipolarity.
Anna Cornelia Beyer analysed the contemporary hegemony of the United States in the example of the Global War on Terrorism and presented the mechanisms and processes of American exercise of power in "hegemonic governance".
Media and communications studies Adopted from the work of Gramsci and Stuart Hall, in media studies and cultural studies hegemony refers to individuals or concepts that become most dominant in a culture. Building on Gramsci's ideas, Hall stated that the media is a critical institution for furthering or inhibiting hegemony.
Communications studies scholars have argued that in imperial dominance is established by means of cultural imperialism, whereby the leader state (hegemon) dictates the internal politics and the societal character of the subordinate states that constitute the hegemonic sphere of influence, either by an internal, sponsored government or by an external, installed government. The imposition of the hegemon's way of life—an imperial lingua franca and bureaucracies (social, economic, educational, governing)—transforms the concrete imperialism of direct military domination into the abstract power of the status quo, indirect imperial domination.Bush, B., Imperialism and Postcolonialism, Routledge, 2014, p. 123. J. Brutt-Griffler, a critic of this view, has described it as "deeply condescending" and "treats people ... as blank slates on which global capitalism's moving finger writes its message, leaving behind another cultural automaton as it moves on."Brutt-Griffler, J., in Karlfried Knapp, Barbara Seidlhofer, H. G. Widdowson, Handbook of Foreign Language Communication and Learning, Walter de Gruyter, 2009, p. 264.