Hegemonic Ossification

I am more worried these days than I have been in the recent past about the potential decline of the American empire. A lot of people begrudge America this position, and from time to time, I do as well. Their leadership and electorate often frustrates and infuriates me, but when I think about the other options, they suddenly seem less bad. For all the failings, I would pick even the leadership of Dubbya’s USA over that of China or Russia.

The seeming inability of America to move forward on pressing problems has gotten me thinking of late about how the hegemonic position imposes constraints on domestic policy changes, and how that could lead to the eventual decline of the hegemon.

As the hegemon, you are on top. You are expected to offer global leadership, and pay for global public goods. For as much as people complain about the massive amount of spending by the American military industrial complex, it does in fact provide valuable services to the world. Who is there at the drop of a hat when there is a catastrophe anywhere in the world? It’s the Americans because they are the only ones with the capacity to respond in force with the resources necessary to mitigate at least some of the damage. Who much worse would piracy off Somalia be if there were no US naval vessels patrolling the seas? What about anywhere else that the US navy patrols? Just think of how much better off America could be if they spent those hundreds of billions of dollars at home instead of providing global public goods.

But this gets to the root of the problem. You can’t be the hegemon without the military power to back it up. If the Americans were to decrease their spending, this would weaken their position at the top, and it doesn’t seem that anyone on top is ever inclined to willingly cede that position. Thus, America must continue to spend vast sums on its military which with the cold war over, could probably be better spent elsewhere. Being the hegemon traps that cash. If Russia or China wants to allocate their funding away from the military, it does not threaten their positions as regional powers, and thus they have a much greater degree of flexibility.

This is related to another burden of being the hegemon. If you are on top, it is much harder to incorporate positive lessons which may be evident in other countries. Why should you adopt their systems while you are on top? Doesn’t being on top imply that you already have a better way of doing things? If not, how were you able to get to the top, and maintain your place there? This gives an even more powerful bias to the status quo. Non hegemonic countries do not have this problem, and may even have an advantage in this respect. Since they are not at the top, their governments are more open to incorporating successful ideas from elsewhere. They are obviously superior because they come from a more successful country, and it is easier for them to gain political traction.

Even international organizations lose their influence on the hegemon. The world bank, or IMF will never be able to impose conditions on America because the Americans in effect control those organizations as they do with any other international actor of consequence. Because only America has the means to enforce international law, it can ignore it when it sees fit. A lever for necessary reform in most other countries is thus removed from the toolkit of the leaders of the hegemon. While conditionality is often viewed as negative, it can often give political cover for governments to take necessary but unpopular political or economic measures. It would be impossible for the hegemon to use this reasoning, as the expectation of the electorate would be that they could simply ignore this decree and continue with business as usual. Even if the government were in favour of the reform, selling it becomes no easier with the endorsement of, or pressure from international organizations.

This constrains the hegemon’s potential for reform and raises twin dangers of internal inefficiency leading to a collapse, or alternatively allows would be usurpers to continue their progress while the hegemon ossifies.