Recalcitrance and initiative: US hegemony and regional powers in Asia and Europe after World War II

Confusion surrounds how best to describe today the architecture of the liberal international order, its challenges, and prospects. The Liberal Order’s various and changing configurations its distributions of power, as well as the variety of major actors, portend consequences for the operation of the international system. Although structural approaches remain dominant in international relations analysis, it is evident that there is an interaction of structure, the distribution, and redistribution of power, and agency—the diplomatic actions, norms, and rules of international politics. Historical and existing institutions, ongoing debates, and political efforts all point to the role of agency in global governance. The ongoing search for order was the basis for the Peace of Westphalia, the Concert of Europe, the effort to construct collective security following World War I, the Western liberal order of the Cold War, and global governance constructions of the post-Cold War era. The continuing existence and direction of the liberal international order are proving difficult to determine. There are rising powers and growing geopolitical rivalry. There are many new nonstate actors affecting international politics. And, there is current U.S. policy that puts in question its collaborative role and its continuing leadership. The many architectures of global governance, even competing ones, underline that structure alone is not determinative. In addition, debates over what course to take imply that the force of circumstance does not make one and only choice possible and inevitable, and that the search for order is ongoing and omnipresent.

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Network Connections and the Emergence of the Hub-and-Spokes Alliance System in East Asia

Izumikawa

2020

International Security

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Why did the so-called hub-and-spokes alliance system emerge in East Asia after World War II instead of a multilateral alliance? Realists and constructivists offer various explanations, pointing to such factors as the United States' preference for bilateral alliances, the absence of a collective identity, and historical memories of Japanese imperialism. None of these explanations is satisfactory, however. Indeed, the historical record reveals that the United States sought a multilateral alliance in East Asia until the early 1960s. A theoretical model based on a social exchange network approach explains how a specific form of network can develop among potential allies. In East Asia, three U.S. allies—Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan—contributed to the emergence and shape of the hub-and-spokes system, which came into being as an unintended consequence of their interactions. The preferences and behavior of these allies proved at least as consequential as those of the United States in shaping this system. The implications of this finding could be significant for alliance politics in contemporary East Asia.

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Recalcitrance and initiative: US hegemony and regional powers in Asia and Europe after World War II

Cited by 3 publications

References 45 publications

Competing External Multilateralisms and Central Asian Regionalism

Competing External Multilateralisms and Central Asian Regionalism

Structural Constraints and Human Agency in Global Summitry and the Liberal Order

Network Connections and the Emergence of the Hub-and-Spokes Alliance System in East Asia

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