From this perspective, dominant rule-making power for world order lies with surplus accumulation and its main agents, such as multinational corporations, core states (the G7/G20), global governance institutions, and orthodox think tanks. In contrast, neo-Gramscian theories locate world hegemony in global capitalism and a transnational capitalist class. Many liberals and realists also ponder whether China is destined to be the next hegemonic state. These approaches usually identify Britain and the US as hegemonic states in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, respectively. In this case a particular territorial government controls a preponderance of material resources, sponsors international regimes, and promotes values and visions that have deep appeal beyond its borders. For instance, liberal and realist theories of international relations argue that hegemony lies with a dominant state. When world ordering is achieved through legitimated rule by dominant power, we can say that international or global hegemony is in play.Р”Вifferent theories offer different propositions about what kind of dominant power can achieve hegemony in world politics. Like social relations within countries, transboundary connections attract governance: that is, regimes which aim to bring regularity, predictability, and controlled change to society. Much of modern society involves significant cross-border flows: for example, of goods, knowledge, money, people, pollutants, and violence. Hegemony is relevant to world politics as well as local and national arenas. So, crucially, hegemony involves legitimacy, whereby the dominated embrace their domination. Hegemony combines: (a) concentrated control of material resources (b) leadership in setting societal rules and (c) mindsets which convince people that the dominant power rules in their interests. It prevails when supreme force governs society РІР‚Вtop-downРІР‚в„ў in ways that affected people positively endorse. Hegemony, as understood here, entails legitimated rule by dominant power.

Each of the four is illustrated with examples from the Berlin meeting. I then identify four types of practices for enacting (or opposing) hegemony: material discursive institutional and performative. To set the context, I start with some general remarks about the concept of hegemony, as well as a review of competing ideas about who or what exercises hegemony in world politics. What follows are my personal reflections on this discussion. How can hegemony be established and sustained in world politics today? This intriguing question occupied a searching conversation among scholars from four continents at the Dialogue of Civilizations Research Institute in Berlin on 27 August 2018.

World politics definition