Hegemony & History by J. H. Adam Watson

Author:J. H. Adam Watson [Watson, J. H. Adam]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: International Relations, Public Policy, Diplomacy, Political Science, General
ISBN: 9781136013188
Google: M0jyIZs7pb8C
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2013-01-11T09:50:40+00:00

Equality of member states

In our current international society all independent states, or at least all members of the United Nations are treated as juridically equal, in international law and in such minor matters as the precedence accorded to ambassadors. But in practical terms the familiar difference between the strongest and the weakest states is truly immense. We might discuss the following aspects.

The discrepancy between the power of the different members of any international system, and consequently their influence in it, is obvious and inevitable. The influence of a member state in the system is determined not only by its size (both area and population), wealth (a very different criterion, note Singapore and Saudi Arabia), degree of development etc., but also by its purposefulness, experience in statecraft, and more subjectively its reputation and tradition, and the way in which its capacities and intentions are perceived by others. Therefore, we find that in all known systems the effectiveness of the members, meaning all the above variables taken together, varies very widely. Moreover, the strongest and most effective members exercise a degree of hegemony, some sort of authority explicit or tacit in the system. Hegemonial authority may be exercised by one very powerful state (e.g. Louis XIV), by a diarchy of two collaborating states (e.g. the Athenians and Spartans after the Persian wars), or collectively by a group of great powers (e.g. the Concert of Europe after the Napoleonic wars). Hegemonial authority carries with it privileges but also responsibilities, and derives additional advantages by making the exercise of hegemony acceptable to other members of the society. This is what Butterfield and Wight meant by “the principles of prudence and moral obligation which have held together the international society of states throughout its history, and still hold it together.”1

In our present society, the discrepancy in power is unusually large. The process of decolonization not only re-established Asian and Mediterranean states with millennial traditions of civilization and statecraft, but also made a host of independent but small and undeveloped mini-states from what de Gaulle unkindly called “the dust of empires.” It is true that an analogous situation existed after Westphalia, when many of the basic principles of the European international society were established. At that time, a number of minor princelings in the Holy Roman Empire had become independent in practice if not yet absolutely in theory. But the analogy, though useful, is not very close: the princes of the Empire and governments of city states like Hamburg were on average as capable, and their realms as “developed”, as the larger members of the seventeenth-century European society, so that Voltaire could reasonably describe it as, “une grande république partagée entre plusieurs états”; whereas the same is manifestly not yet true of the inexperienced “dust of empire” states.

Consequently, the hegemony in our contemporary society is constitutionally tacit rather than explicit, and runs counter to a literal interpretation of the equality of member states; but it is generally acknowledged in practice. The pattern of two antagonistic superstates

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