Page 106 - Global Political Economy_Understanding The International Economic Order

INT ERNAT IONAL POLIT ICAL E CONOM Y
struggle. As a consequence, if a regime is to be effective and its rules
are to be enforced, it must also rest on a strong political base. Due to
the central importance of distribution and autonomy issues to most
nations, the compliance problem is unlikely to be resolved, and re-
gime rules are unlikely to be enforced unless there is strong interna-
tional leadership.

Theory of Hegemonic Stability
The theory of hegemonic stability, discussed below, in both its liberal
and its realist versions, encountered a critical reception from a num-
35
ber of scholars. The theory was attacked on theoretical, historical,
and political grounds. The theoretical criticisms emphasized the pos-
sibility of a cooperative solution among nonhegemonic nations to the
problems associated with creating and maintaining a liberal interna-
36
tional economy. Although it may be possible to create a stable lib-
eral international order through cooperation but without a hegemon,
this has never happened, and with no counterfactual example neither
the theory nor its critics can be proved wrong. This problem, of
course, is endemic in many areas of the social sciences. Some critics
of the theory have tested it against late-nineteenth-century experience
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and found weaknesses in the theory. Political criticisms have ranged
from denunciations of the theory as a defense of or rationale for
American policies to the opposite idea that the theory predicted the
absolute decline of the United States. No proponent of hegemonic
stability theory, at least to my knowledge, has been motivated to jus-
tify American behavior; to the contrary, most were very critical of the
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Several of the most important criticisms of the theory are John A. C. Conybeare,
“Public Goods, Prisoner’s Dilemmas and the International Political Economy,” Inter-
national Studies Quarterly 28, no. 1 (March 1984): 5–22; David A. Lake, “Leadership,
Hegemony, and the International Economy: Naked Emperor or Tattered Monarch
with Potential?” International Studies Quarterly 37, no. 4 (December 1993): 459–89;
Duncan Snidel, “The Limits of Hegemonic Stability Theory,” International Organiza-
tion 39, no. 4 (autumn 1985): 579–614; and Helen V. Milner, Interests, Institutions,
and Information: Domestic Politics and International Relations (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1997), 24–25.
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For example, as I acknowledge above, the critics may be correct that significant
international economic cooperation is possible without a hegemon provided that cer-
tain conditions exist, such as the number of players is small, international regimes
exist, and “the shadow of the future” is long enough. However, this solution to the
problem of international cooperation has never been tried.
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An example is Timothy J. McKeown, “Hegemonic Stability Theory and 19th Cen-
tury Tariff Levels in Europe” International Organization 37, no. 1 (winter 1983):
73–91.
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