Cold war and international relations in the post-bipolar world in the light of hegemonic stability theory
https://doi.org/10.28995/2073-6339-2020-2-22-36
Abstract
According to the hegemonic stability theory (HST), the change of world orders takes place as a result of wars for world leadership. Immediately after the end of such wars, world order becomes temporarily stable. Then the hegemonic power erodes; the “phase of challenge” comes when the other world powers start making plans about replacing the hegemon. At this stage a multipolar world political system emerges, consisting of the hegemon and its challengers who wage the next world war. HST suggests that in 1945 the USA became the world hegemon and the USSR played the role of its rival. The war for world leadership became “cold” due to both parties having nuclear weapons. The article suggests that the USSR – US confrontation was not so much geopolitical, as ideological. This fact made impossible a “normal” hegemonic competition of the superpowers. The 1945–1991 system was not hegemonic in the full sense. It was a pseudo-bipolar system (“pseudo” – because there was no mutual dependence between the capitalist and the socialist camps): the USA was an unequivocal hegemon for the capitalist part; the socialist part, headed by the USSR, has never participated in the geopolitical struggle for world leadership.
About the Author
A. V. Mitrofanova
Russian State University for the Humanities;
Institute of Sociology, Federal Center of Theoretical and Applied Sociology of the Russian Academy of Sciences
Russian Federation
Anastasiya V. Mitrofanova, Dr. of Sci. (Political Science)
Russian Federation
Anastasiya V. Mitrofanova, Dr. of Sci. (Political Science)
bld. 6, Miusskaya Square, Moscow, Russia, 125993;
bldg. 5, bld. 24/35, Krzhyzhanovskii Street, Moscow, Russia, 117218
References
1. Brown, S. (1992), International Relations in a Changing Global System: Toward a Theory of the World Polity, Westview Press, Boulder, Co.
2. Burchill, S. (1996), “Realism and Neo-realism”, in Burchill S., Linklater A. (eds.), Theories of International Relations, Macmillian Press, Houndmills, etc., UK, pp. 68-93.
3. Gilpin, R. (1981), War and Change in World Politics, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK.
4. Glinkina, S. and Orlik, I. (eds.) (2005), Rossiya i Tsentral’no-Vostochnaya Evropa. Transformatsii v kontse XX – nachale XXI v. [Russia and Central East Europe. Transformation at the end of the 20th – beginning of 21st century], in 2 vols., Nauka, Moscow, Russia.
5. Hopkins, T.K. and Wallerstein, I. (1983), “Cyclical rhythms and secular trends of the capitalist world-economy: some premises, hypotheses, and questions”, in Hopkins, T.K., Wallerstein, I. and associates, World-systems Analysis: Theory and Methodology, Sage, Beverly Hills, USA, pp. 104-120.
6. Kennedy, P. (1987), The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, Random House, New York, USA.
7. Modelski, G. (1987), Long Cycles in World Politics, Macmillan Press, London, UK.
8. Morgenthau, H. (1962), The Decline of Democratic Politics, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, USA.
9. Pozdnyakov, E.А. (1976), Sistemny i podkhod i mezhdunarodnye otnosheniya [Systemic Approach and International Relations], Nauka, Moscow, Russia.
10. Tilly, Ch. (ed.) (1975), The Formation of National States in Western Europe, Princeton
11. University Press, Princeton, USA.Wallerstein, I. (2011), The Modern World-System I: Capitalist Agriculture and the Origins of the European World-Economy in the Sixteenth Century. University of California Press, Berkeley, USA.
12. Waltz, K. (1979), Theory of International Politics, McGraw-Hill, New York, USA.
Review
For citations:
Mitrofanova A.V. Cold war and international relations in the post-bipolar world in the light of hegemonic stability theory. RSUH/RGGU Bulletin Series "Political Science. History. International Relations". 2020;(2):22-36. (In Russ.) https://doi.org/10.28995/2073-6339-2020-2-22-36
Views:
409
Email this article 