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Hegemonic stability theory: an empirical assessment

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 October 2009

Michael C. Webb  and
Stephen D. Krasner
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Extract

Hegemonic stability theory, which argues that international economic openness and stability is most likely when there is a single dominant state, is the most prominent approach among American political scientists for explaining patterns of economic relations among the advanced capitalist countries since 1945. It has provided a research programme for scholars, both as a positive guide and as a foil against which to test alternative theoretical explanations.

Type
Research Article
Information
Review of International Studies , Volume 15 , Special Issue 2 , April 1989 , pp. 183 - 198
Copyright
Copyright © British International Studies Association 1989

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References

1. Although some analysts have argued that hegemonic stability asserts that openness is possible only with a hegemon, this is not the position taken by the original progenitors of the theory. Kindleberger was concerned not with the creation of openness but sustaining openness in the face of crisis. Krasner noted that other distributions of power, such as a system with many small states, could also produce an open system. See, for instance, Krasner, , ‘State Power and the Structure of International Trade’, World Politics, xxviii (1976), p. 321Google Scholar and Chart 1.

2. Kindleberger, Charles, The World in Depression (Berkeley, 1973);Google ScholarGilpin, Robert, U.S. Power and the Multinational Corporation (New York, 1975);CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Stephen D. Krasner, ‘State Power’.

3. Kindleberger, Charles P., ‘Dominance and Leadership in the International Economy: Exploitation, Public Goods, and Free Rides’, International Studies Quarterly, xxv (1981), pp. 247,Google Scholar 249–50.

4. Kindleberger, , The World in Depression, p. 205.Google Scholar

5. See especially Gilpin, , U.S. Power and the Multinational Corporation, p. 40.Google Scholar

6. These authors also focus more on liberalization than does Kindleberger, who focuses on stability. However, Kindieberger implicitly considers a substantial degree of liberalization as a defining characteristic of ‘stability’.

7. Krasner, , ‘State Power’, p. 322.Google Scholar

8. Gilpin, , U.S. Power and the Multinational Corporation, pp. 104–106.Google Scholar For an analysis emphasizing the way in which what we have called the collective goods version of the hegemonic stability thesis departs from the traditional realist analysis see Grieco, Joseph M., ‘Anarchy and the Limits of Cooperations: A Realist Critique of the Newest Liberal Institutionalism’, International Organization, xlii (1988).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

9. Krasner, , ‘State Power’, p. 337.Google Scholar

10. Keohane, Robert O., After Hegemony: Cooperation and Discord in the World Political Economy (Princeton, 1984).Google Scholar

11. Gilpin, , U.S. Power and the Multinational Corporation, p. 48;Google Scholar see also Kindleberger, , ‘Dominance and Leadership in the International Economy’, p. 247.Google Scholar

12. Gilpin, U.S. Power and the Multinational Corporation; and Krasner, ‘State Power’.

13. Kindleberger, , ‘Dominance and Leadership in the International Economy’, p. 247.Google Scholar

14. Gilpin, , U.S. Power and the Multinational Corporation, pp. 42,Google Scholar 46.

15. Kindleberger, Charles P., ‘Systems of International Economic Organization’, in Calleo, David (ed.), Money and the Coming World Order (New York, 1976), pp. 33–36;Google ScholarKindleberger, , ‘Dominance and Leadership in the International Economy’, pp. 248,Google Scholar 250, 252–3; Gilpin, , U.S. Power and the Multinational Corporation, pp. 42,Google Scholar 72–3, 255–62; and Krasner, , ‘State Power’, pp. 332,Google Scholar 340–3.

16. OECD, National Accounts 1960–1986. Volume I: Main Aggregates, p. 145.Google Scholar OECD data for 1987, which show that the US lead continues, are given in graphic form in Economist, 27 August 1988, p. 89.

17. The volume of foreign exchange and gold in many countries' monetary reserves has remained quite stable in the late 1970s and 1980s, with fluctuations accounted for in large part by fluctuations in gold prices and exchange rates for various reserve currencies. This raises doubts about the validity of share of world monetary reserves as an indicator of power resources additional to that raised in the text.

18. Strange, Susan, ‘The Persistent Myth of Lost Hegemony’, International Organization, xli (1987), pp. 568–569.Google Scholar

19. The shares for individual countries varied around these averages (for example, FDI inflows accounted for 0.5 per cent, and outflows for 4.1 per cent, of gross fixed capital formation in the US in 1970–71, and for 4.1 and 2.6 per cent respectively in 1980–81), but the averages do appear to reflect broad trends accurately. See: UN Centre on Transnational Corporations, Trends and Issues in Foreign Direct Investment and Related Flows (1985), pp. 19–20.Google Scholar

20. World figures exclude Soviet bloc, and all figures are based on current prices and exchange rates (i.e., they are not adjusted for inflation). ‘Net’ international bank credit means net of interbank lending. Source: BIS and IMF data reported by Bryant, Ralph C., International Financial intermediation (Washington, 1987), p. 22.Google Scholar

21. Calculated from Bryant, International Financial Intermediation, Tables 3–7, 3–9, 3–10, 3–12.

22. BIS, Recent Innovations in International Banking (04 1986), p. 152.Google Scholar

23. IMF, International Capital Markets: Developments and Prospects (1981), p. 52Google Scholar and (1988), p. 73.

24. Gilpin, The Political Economy of International Relations (Princeton, 1987), p. 252.Google Scholar

25. Krasner, , ‘State Power’, pp. 329–331.Google Scholar

26. OECD, ‘Costs and Benefits of Protection’, OECD Observer, No. 134 (05 1985), pp. 18–23.Google Scholar

27. Ibid., p. 17.

28. Dunn, James, ‘Automobiles in International Trade: Regime Change or Persistence?’ International Organization, xli (1987), pp. 225–253.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

29. The argument that the United States is still a hegemon is forcefully made by Russett, Bruce, ‘The Mysterious Case of Vanishing Hegemony: Or, Is Mark Twain Really Dead?’ International Organization, xxxix (1985).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

30. Lake, David A., ‘Beneath the Commerce of Nations: A Theory of International Economic Structures’, International Studies Quarterly, xxviii (1984)CrossRefGoogle Scholar and ‘International Economic Structures and American Foreign Economic Policy, 1887–1934’, World Politics, xxxv (1983).