Because transition wars are hype and institutions are resilient

In this essay I look at the evolving encounters between rising states and the post-war Western international order. My starting point is the classic “power transition” perspective. Power transition theories see a tight link between international order—its emergence, stability, and decline—and the rise and fall of great powers. It is a perspective that sees history as a sequence of cycles in which powerful or hegemonic states rise up and build order and dominate the global system until their power declines, leading to a new cycle of crisis and order building. In contrast, I offer a more evolutionary perspective, emphasizing the lineages and continuities in modern international order. More specifically, I argue that although America’s hegemonic position may be declining, the liberal international characteristics of order—openness, rules, multilateral cooperation—are deeply rooted and likely to persist. This is true even though the orientation and actions of the Trump administration have raised serious questions about the U.S. commitment to liberal internationalism. Just as importantly, rising states (led by China) are not engaged in a frontal attack on the American-led order. While struggles do exist over orientations, agendas, and leadership, the non-Western developing countries remain tied to the architecture and principles of a liberal-oriented global order. And even as China seeks in various ways to build rival regional institutions, there are stubborn limits on what it can do. Power Transitions and International Order There is wide agreement that the world is witnessing a long-term global power transition. Wealth and power is diffusing, spreading outward and away from Europe and the United States. The rapid growth that marked the non-Western rising states in the last decade may have ended, and even China’s rapid economic ascendency has slowed. But the overall pattern of change remains: the “rest” are gaining ground on the “West.” While there is wide agreement that the world is witnessing a global power transition, there is less agreement on the consequences of power shifts for international order. The classic view is advanced by realist scholars, such as E. H. Carr, Robert Gilpin, Paul Kennedy, and William Wohlforth, who make sweeping arguments about power and order. These hegemonic realists argue that international order is a by-product of the concentration of power. Order is created by a powerful state, and when that state declines and power diffuses, international order weakens or breaks apart. Out of these dynamic circumstances, a rising state emerges as the new dominant state, and it seeks to reorganize the international system to suit its own purposes. In this view, world politics from ancient times to the modern era can be seen as a series of repeated cycles of rise and decline. War, protectionism, depression, political upheaval—various sorts of crises and disruptions may push the cycle forward. This narrative of hegemonic rise and decline draws on the European and, more broadly, Western experience. Since the early modern era, Europe has been organized and reorganized by a succession of leading states and would-be hegemons: the Spanish Hapsburgs, France of Louis XIV and Napoleon, and post-Bismarck Germany. The logic of hegemonic order comes even more clearly into view with Pax Britannica, the nineteenth-century hegemonic order based on British naval and mercantile dominance. The decline of Britain was followed by decades of war and economic instability, which ended only with the rise of Pax Americana. For hegemonic realists, the debate today is about where the world is along this cyclical pathway of rise and decline. Has the United States finally lost the ability or willingness to underwrite and lead the post-war order? Are we in the midst of a hegemonic crisis and the breakdown of the old order? And are rising states, led by China, beginning to step forward in efforts to establish their own hegemonic dominance of their regions and the world? These are the lurking questions of the power transition perspective. But does this vision of power transition truly illuminate the struggles going on today over international order? Some might argue no—that the United States is still in a position, despite its travails, to provide hegemonic leadership. Here one would note that there is a durable infrastructure (or what Susan Strange has called “structural power”) that undergirds the existing American-led order. Far-flung security alliances, market relations, liberal democratic solidarity, deeply rooted geopolitical alignments—there are many possible sources of American hegemonic power that remain intact. But there may be even deeper sources of continuity in the existing system. This would be true if the existence of a liberal-oriented international order does not in fact require hegemonic domination. It might be that the power transition theory is wrong: the stability and persistence of the existing post-war international order does not depend on the concentration of American power. In fact, international order is not simply an artifact of concentrations of power. The rules and institutions that make up international order have a more complex and contingent relationship with the rise and fall of state power. This is true in two respects. First, international order itself is complex: multilayered, multifaceted, and not simply a political formation imposed by the leading state. International order is not “one thing” that states either join or resist. It is an aggregation of various sorts of ordering rules and institutions. There are the deep rules and norms of sovereignty. There are governing institutions, starting with the United Nations. There is a sprawling array of international institutions, regimes, treaties, agreements, protocols, and so forth. These governing arrangements cut across diverse realms, including security and arms control, the world economy, the environment and global commons, human rights, and political relations. Some of these domains of governance may have rules and institutions that narrowly reflect the interests of the hegemonic state, but most reflect negotiated outcomes based on a much broader set of interests. As rising states continue to rise, they do not simply confront an American-led order; they face a wider conglomeration of ordering rules, institutions, and arrangements; many of which they have long embraced. By separating “American hegemony” from “the existing international order,” we can see a more complex set of relationships. The United States does not embody the international order; it has a relationship with it, as do rising states. The United States embraces many of the core global rules and institutions, such as the United Nations, International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank, and World Trade Organization. But it also has resisted ratification of the Law of the Sea Convention and the Convention on the Rights of the Child (it being the only country not to have ratified the latter) as well as various arms control and disarmament agreements. China also embraces many of the same global rules and institutions, and resists ratification of others. Generally speaking, the more fundamental or core the norms and institutions are—beginning with the Westphalian norms of sovereignty and the United Nations system—the more agreement there is between the United States and China as well as other states. Disagreements are most salient where human rights and political principles are in play, such as in the Responsibility to Protect. Second, there is also diversity in what rising states “want” from the international order. The struggles over international order take many different forms. In some instances, what rising states want is more influence and control of territory and geopolitical space beyond their borders. One can see this in China’s efforts to expand its maritime and political influence in the South China Sea and other neighboring areas. This is an age-old type of struggle captured in realist accounts of security competition and geopolitical rivalry. Another type of struggle is over the norms and values that are enshrined in global governance rules and institutions. These may be about how open and rule-based the system should be. They may also be about the way human rights and political principles are defined and brought to bear in relations among states. Finally, the struggles over international order may be focused on the distribution of authority. That is, rising states may seek a greater role in the governance of existing institutions. This is a struggle over the position of states within the global political hierarchy: voting shares, leadership rights, and authority relations. These observations cut against the realist hegemonic perspective and cyclical theories of power transition. Rising states do not confront a single, coherent, hegemonic order. The international order offers a buffet of options and choices. They can embrace some rules and institutions and not others. Moreover, stepping back, the international orders that rising states have faced in different historical eras have not all been the same order. The British-led order that Germany faced at the turn of the twentieth century is different from the international order that China faces today. The contemporary international order is much more complex and wide-ranging than past orders. It has a much denser array of rules, institutions, and governance realms. There are also both regional and global domains of governance. This makes it hard to imagine an epic moment when the international order goes into crisis and rising states step forward—either China alone or rising states as a bloc—to reorganize and reshape its rules and institutions. Rather than a cyclical dynamic of rise and decline, change in the existing American-led order might best be captured by terms such as continuity, evolution, adaptation, and negotiation. The struggles over international order today are growing, but it is not a drama best told in terms of the rise and decline of American hegemony.