Hegemonic Globalisation

U.S. Centrality and Global Strategy in the Emerging World Order

Thanh Duong

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2017
• eBook ISBN: 9781351763554
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This title was first published in 2002. This innovative work analyses how the United States has laid down the foundations for global power. It reassesses and re-evaluates the declinist-renewal argument and challenges conventional balance of power theories, demonstrating how the United States is attempting to 'hegemonically globalise' the entire international system. To evaluate the success of hegemonic globalisation, the book analyses four major powers and regions - Russia, the People's Republic of China (PRC), the European Union (EU), and Japan - and their historical, political, economic, cultural and geopolitical relations with the United States. Each study examines the tangible and intangible sources of their relationship, and the possible tensions and resistance towards United States hegemony therein. Providing much-needed insight and a fresh perspective, this book makes a worthwhile contribution to our understanding of contemporary international power.

Part I
Theory and Methodology

Chapter 1
A Conceptual Framework and Principles of Inquiry

Do not believe what you have heard.

Do not believe in tradition because it is handed down many generations.

Do not believe in anything that has been spoken of many times.

Do not believe because the written statements come from some old sage.

Do not believe in conjecture.
Do not believe in authority or teachers or elders.
But after careful observation and analysis, when it agrees
with reason and it will benefit one and all, then accept it and live by it.
The Buddha (563 BC-483 BC)

. . . have courage to use your own reason.
What is Enlightenment? Immanuel Kant

Each master has his own footstep(s).
Anonymous proverb.

Problems for Inquiry: The Limits of ‘Theory’

Before this work may commence, there are several inherent issues and problems in the International Relations' tradition which need brief clarification. Firstly, the interactions and tensions between theory and practice. For instance, in what order should these two concepts come; should practice determine theory, or does theory determine practice, or are they both completely separate from each other, and/or should they both be in a condominium of importance?

A second problem is what Chas W. Freeman, a career officer in the U.S. Foreign Service, wrote, 'Scholarships . . . are often narrowly focused within a single discipline and intent on proving a thesis, theory, or methodology. Their perspectives and the subject they research are therefore seldom congruent with the practical issues and decisions before policy makers' (1997: 24). This left Susan Strange to argue that 'a lot of "theoretical work" . . . is not really theory at all' (1988: 11). This may be so, but Strange goes on to state that 'policy-making . . . involves value judgements and risk assessment that are exogenous to theory that are better made by practical policy-makers. . . Whilst [the] academic that follow[s] how policy-makers proceed with their prescript risk becoming [an] "irresponsible academic theorist"' (1988: 12, emphasis added). This opens a conflict between the academic and the practitioner on what constitutes the 'responsible' and what is congruent with the actual practice of politics. However, the roles of the academic and the decision-maker are different, because 'the academic' is in the job of 'investigating', 'analysing', and 'explaining' the role of states and their agents. How can academic work thus be deemed 'responsible', let alone adequate or accurate for/with the policies outlined by the decision-makers, if it is not in parallel or in recognition of what practitioners are doing? Attempting to neutralise these difficulties, John Ikenberry commented,

. . . what academics and what decision-makers do are very different. . . Policy-makers are trying to pursue interests and sometimes respond to different kinds of pressure. Whilst academics try to develop theories that explain something that they find puzzling, but not necessarily everything.¹

Thirdly, what (and/or in whose) interests are involved in determining the theory and the mode of inquiry, especially on who decides what constitutes an appropriate approach or method of inquiry? Michael Cox states that:

[Academic disciplines are] discouraged, or not inclined, to ask big questions. They are deterred from doing so. . . Those who stray outside the narrow channel do so at some professional risk (1998: 16; see also T. Kuhn, 1962/1996 3^rd edit.).

He continues:

. . . [L]arge-scale problems about the dynamics or contradictions of this or that social system ... are simply pushed off the agenda. . . . [First] the very nature of conventional social sciences would [make] it extraordinarily difficult for the student. . . In fact, they are literally invoked not to, with the result that most academics were almost incapable of examining the large picture historically. Indeed, in terms of training, the large picture was precisely what they were not supposed to look at (1998: 16).

Again:

The proper object of study was the very specific and the highly detailed; parts of the whole but not the whole itself. . . Large issues [were ignored or] were best left to the speculator or the journalist; [or] to the Toynbee or the Marx, neither of whom would have felt very much at home in an academic department in the post-war period . . . [Second] It is quite extraordinary, in fact, how much effort seems to have gone into educating otherwise intelligent people into believing that prediction was for fools and crystal-ball gazers and not serious intellectuals-. . . Accurate prediction, it was argued, could only take place under conditions of perfect knowledge: and because that was impossible to achieve, prediction in any form was clearly a waste of time (1998: 16-17, emphasis added).

Finally, Reinhard Drifte states that, 'What has failed is not social sciences but rather our application of social science approaches and the damage of focusing too narrowly on one single academic discipline' (1996: 6). The snare and application of narrowness in the discipline has not only seen failure to anticipate change, such as the 'systemic' collapse of the entire Soviet empire, but also failed to analyse why that 'great' power did not respond to preventing its total collapse. The scholarship of rise and decline of great powers, thus needs serious re-evaluation if it is to escape the 'ambush' set by the methods and application used by academics. Moreover, the so-called 'declinist-renewal' debate (such as the U.S. failure in Vietnam, the collapse of the Bretton Woods fixed exchange system, and the 'newhegemonic' challengers of Japan, and the European Union) have failed to understand the extent and continuity of U.S. power position and its relationship with the international community. These failures are by no means 'small', the inability to 'understand' let alone 'explain', if one is to be honest, has been abysmal. If the discipline is to continue its value and relevance to anticipate change and continuity, we need to have to study history properly, and not to be confined by a 'self-imposed prison' set by 'Cold War' scholars, where restrictions and the creation of 'mythical', 'scientific', myopic methods were set to cloud our ability to see the 'real' events of international affairs.

What I am arguing here is that analysts must reconsider their position in the context of current international climate. This can be done without abandoning core principles, but by recapturing traditional axioms, which 'have been sacrificed over the past several decades in a futile endeavour to construct [ultra-parsimonious theories]' (R.L. Schweller in E.B. Kapstein and M. Mastanduno, 1999: 32; emphasis added).

Fourthly, precisely because of the inherent problems outlined in point three, a mode of inquiry immediately faces difficulties in analysing the division of interpretation of historical facts and empirical evidence, especially when espousing questions of legitimacy, morality, value, and change, in a practical and theoretical framework. This problem involves the nature and technique of inquiry into the search for knowledge (and possibly truth). Christopher Norris wrote: 'Modes and categories inherited from the past no longer seem to fit the reality experienced by a new generation' (1982/1991 rev. edit: vii). In this perspective, it is important to recall an old proverb, 'in war as it is in politics, the first casualty is truth' (Vietnamese proverb). As such, can an analyst reflect history from a value-free perspective or is s/he entrapped by the society of which s/he is part? Furthermore, 'How can history have truth if truth has a history? Truth is not something external to social settings, but is instead part of them' (M. Foucault in J. Baylis and S. Smith, 1997: 181).

Mode of Analysis

In the complexity and diversity of world affairs, the above questions, problems and warnings may not hold any definitive answers, nor would an immediate analysis be able to command the sufficient layers involved to answer the questions and problems. In addition:

. . . the concept of absolute truth² is also not appropriate to the world of history. . . . At a more sophisticated level, the historian who contests, say, the verdict of one of his predecessors will normally condemn it, not as absolutely false, but as inadequate or one-sided or misleading, or the product of a point of view which has been rendered obsolete or irrelevant by later evidence (E.H. Carr, 1961/1986 2^nd edit: 114).

This complexity leads my inquiry of international relations (to follow) with a set of simple assertions. First, there is no self-evident reading of any theory (M. Wight, in H. Butterfield and M. Wight, 1966: 17-34), whether scientific or otherwise, that can claim to or give a complete picture of the complexity of the dynamics of society. There are conflicting interpretations and concepts, and my work is another interpretation, which attempts to add a grain of sand in the search for the 'truth'. It attempts to plant another seed of knowledge into the rich garden of international relations.

Second, this book is not an attempt to create a new axiom or as argued to deny other theories their 'rightful' places in the discipline. My inquiry is a seed that has been germinated from the lessons of knowledge. Thence, since some of my knowledge is based around some of the scholarly works, to condemn them would be just like condemning my own work. In another old proverb: 'when drinking water one should always remember the source'. For this very important reason, scholarly works of the past offer us a particular compass for our mode of inquiry. It might be inappropriate for a specific configuration, but it does give the analyser a basic understanding. E.H. Carr correctly reminds us that:

[First]. . . you cannot fully understand or appreciate the work of the historian unless you have first grasped the standpoint from which he himself approaches it; secondly, that that standpoint is itself rooted in a social and historical background . . . The historian, before he begins to write history, is the product of history (1961/1986 2^nd edit: 34).

Moreover, 'if everything is a social construction and nothing is permanently true, then how can a view of the world and history as a set of social constructions be anything but a social construction?' (J.A. Vasquez, 1998: 224, emphasis added). From this perspective, our understanding of inquiry into knowledge is likely to be reflected in our experiences, beliefs, and interpretations. It is as Michael Doyle correctly argued: 'Understanding history requires an epistemological foundation, for without a teleology . . . the complexity of history would overwhelm human understanding' (1997: 278). What I am offering is a reconsideration of the known techniques and methods used to understand history.

Notwithstanding these reflective modes of epistemic complexity, the interest of this inquiry is to attempt to analyse the way in which scholars have used certain data, conceptual tools, and empirical evidence to frame certain theoretical approaches that help to explain certain conditions in time and space. My inquiry attempts to ask whether some of them are applicable to the conceptualisation of realities of contemporary international affairs and actions taken by states and their agents. Obviously, the difficulties in framing any theory to the 'real' world stem from the fact that the 'actual reality' does not always correspond to any theory perfectly. Barry Gills points out that 'no one has ever been able to come up with an analytical framework that can claim to be truly encompassing of all social reality'.³ No one mind (or even a great number of minds) can possibly conceive of a way to solve this (see also T. Kuhn, 1962/1996 3^rd edit: 145). The first difficulty is that the world is full of contradictory and 'irrational' forces and the human mind is infinite in thought and nature (see also S. Strange, 1988: 11). It would be false to claim that the world can be conceptualised or conformed (summarised or contained) in a simple set of axioms.⁴ Because human behaviour, unlike objects of physics 'interpret their own behaviour' (M. Nicholson and P. Bennett in A.J.R. Groom and M. Light, 1994: 199), it constantly shifts with different time and circumstance (contrast this with Waltz, 1979). This set of analysis leaves Thomas Kuhn to state that, 'no theory ever solves all the puzzles with which it is confronted at a given time; nor are the solutions already achieved often perfect' (T. Kuhn, 1962/1996 3^rd edit: 146). He argues that: 'a theory must seem better than its competitors, but it need not, and in fact never does, explain all the facts with which it can be confronted' (1962/1996 3^rd edit: 17-18). The danger of trying to do so would leave serious contentious questions from surrounding theories and disciplines. According to E.H. Carr, 'to give one priority over the other, you fall into one of two heresies. Either you write scissors-and-paste history without meaning or significance; or you write propaganda or historical fiction, and merely use facts of the past to embroider a kind of writing which has nothing to do with history' (1961, 1986 2^nd edit: 23). Finally, Robert Cox emphasised that 'theory [the structuration of knowledge] is always for someone and for some purpose. All theories [structuration of knowledge] have a perspective. Perspective(s) derives from a position in time and space' (1981: 128, emphasis added).

Absorbing these warnings, what I attempt to do is to carefully select case studies on important questions which are appropriate for a certain time and space. Unlike Waltz (1979), this analysis is not an attempt to understand the entire history of the global system through time and space (see below) in a single formal theory. My book attempts to investigate theory(ies) and their concepts which I believe to offer the ability to provide a succinct and a logical picture of understanding contemporary events, and possibly to guide practice. Thus, this study follows the criteria to appraise 'the adequacy of . . . theories, explanations, and prescriptions: empirical accuracy, theoretical fertility (progressive vs. degenerating research programs), empirical soundness, explanatory power, and relevance (J.A. Vasquez, 1998: 9) to explain contemporary international relations.

The methodological approach that I aim to apply attempts to offer a more accurate picture for understanding international affairs (i.e., the 'large scale problem' of the whole rather than part of the whole (M. Cox, 1998: 16) following partly what Richard Higgot calls 'large-scale historical change' (in A.J.R. Groom and M. Light, 1994: 9-26) in my systemic analysis of the United States, its hegemonic position in the relations with the four major powers/regions in the world (i.e., Russia, the EU, Japan, and the PRC). This approach aims to look at the five major powers in international affairs that I believe are and will be the determining factor in global hegemonic power distribution. The focus on these major powers does not mean that I will lose sight of lesser ones or of non-state actors. However, I contend that the fate of the latter requires attention on the former. Although I disagree with Waltz's theoretical approach on the understanding of the 'international system', I agree with Waltz on what he called 'the states that make the most difference in the international system' (1979: 73) which must be analysed with great care and attention. Thus, the book will analyse the four major powers in relation to the United States (the hegemonic power) and question the possibility of any one of them attempting to challenge the position of the hegemonic structure of the United States and possibly move away from the current system. If there is no such challenge, then this book can safely suggest that there is indeed 'globalisation' directed by the hegemonic power, the United States.

The 'large-scale historical change approach' has, however, been attacked especially by Karl Popper (1957/1960) in his Poverty of Historicism on the ground that the big system builders in history (such as Marx) seek to predict grand patterns of the system rather than offering more limited explanation (M. Nicholson, and P. Bennett in A.J.R. Groom and M. Light, 1994. 200). With Sir Karl Popper's warning, my work offers case studies of five parts (or jigsaw pieces) that attempt to offer a framework to build a greater systemic picture. In defence of my systemic approach, I contend that if the whole framework is not clear, it is reasonable to suggest therefore that the parts in the whole used for analysis would not be accurate either. Obviously, large-scale analysis cannot cover every aspect of societal behaviour. To alleviate the 'Popperian problem' (for a critique on P...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Dedication
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Tables and Appendices
• Abstract
• Acknowledgements
• INTRODUCTION
• PART I: THEORY AND METHODOLOGY
• PART II: THE DEBATE AND THE CHALLENGE
• PART III: THE CONTENDERS IN THE EMERGING WORLD ORDER
• Appendices
• Bibliography
• Index