The World Order Lifecycle and World Power Competition

Abstract

The world has passed through the initial phase of implementation of the primary policies of the American world order and the following phase of delegitimation of such policies, the trade, finance and security policy. Though many states have been socialized to the policies of the American hegemony, the delegitimation of the American order has been growing because especially the trade and finance world policies have not been apt to face the demands of individual states and to respond to the problems of the whole system. The world is now in the transition process that will run across the coalition reconfiguration and macro-decision phase. In the current transition, three world powers, the United States, China and Russia, have potentials to lead the process by proposing the revision of the existing order and by assembling countries into the coalition able to build the new order. Transition is an open process to go through and to observe carefully. The revisionism of the three world powers is confirmed by the analysis while they are still unable to assemble the demands of large groups of states and build the coalition of the next world order. Keywords Hegemonic order • Order life cycle • Leadership • Revisionism • Coalition powerThe political order of the present world was created by the coalition of the Western countries after the two world wars over the ruins of the Great Britain-led order. Its effectiveness and legitimacy have been declining during the last thirty years of the past century. Today, the world order is going through a period of transition that is characterized by conflict and a growing number of clashes between the world powers. Predictably, such order transition will go through two phases. In the first one, each world power will push ahead her preferred world order project and organize the coalition of the countries determined to bring such project into being. Transition will be completed after the second phase, the macro-decision phase in which two