Published online by Cambridge University Press: 09 January 2004
In the post–Cold War world, the last remaining superpower is almost hegemonic. Almost, but not quite. The United States cannot act entirely on its own. It needs—or thinks it needs, or pretends it needs—the support of at least a few other countries in almost anything it does. But it only needs a few, and many could serve equally well.An earlier version of this article was presented to the International Sociological Association World Congress, Brisbane, in August 2002. The author is grateful for comments, then and later, from Mattei Dogan, Christina Fong, Gerry Mackie, Claus Offe, Wlodek Rabinowicz, Dave Schmidtz, Duncan Snidal, and this journal's editors and referees