eminence in material capabilities has been undisputable, US global influence has been
increasingly challenged. Discuss with reference to actors and events that constrained the US
ability to get its way in international affairs.
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238.
17. Zhang, X 2017, "Chinese Capitalism and the Maritime Silk Road: A World-Systems
Perspective", Geopolitics, vol. 22, no. 2, pp. 310-331
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and Near Eastern Studies, vol. 15, no. 2, pp. 175-188.
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1, no. 1, pp. 79-88.
21. Layne, C 2012, "This Time It’s Real: The End of Unipolarity and the Pax Americana",
International Studies Quarterly, vol. 56, no. 1, pp. 203-213.
22. Schweller, R & Pu, X 2011, "After Unipolarity: China's Visions of International Order in
an Era of U.S. Decline", International Security, vol. 36, no. 1, pp. 41-72.
23. Serafettin, Y. (2015). China's Foreign Policy and Critical Theory of International
Relations. Journal of Chinese Political Science, 21(1), pp.75-88.
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- American economic institutions now failing against the rise of China limiting
American soft power capacity
- Previously, World Bank and IMF were the only developmental institutions and only
economic framework:
o US basically used it as a tool of policy and used the neoliberal policies to gain
traction in the markets of the global south (Babb, S. and Kentikelenis, A.
(2018). ‘International Financial institutions as Agents of Neoliberalism’. In: D.
Cahill, M. Cooper, M. Konings and D. Primrose, ed., The SAGE Handbook of
Neoliberalism. SAGE Publications Ltd.)
o Privatisation of Bolivian water supply
o Samir Amin the centralisation of capital accumulation in the US since the
1980’s
- China offers a developmental/economic alternative
o OBOR, BRI, Investment Bank, Trade/aid etc.
o BRICS nations and emerging markets becoming the centres of economic
transactions
o China now has massive investment and traction in the economies of the Global
South (Latin America and Africa) through generous aid programs etc.
Brazil’s Dilma Rousseff the latest to develop an interest in the way
China ‘does things’ in regard to its political, economic, and social
development (Leahy 2011). Chodor, 2015
o Crypto-currency being developed in conjunction with Russia Aitken, R
2017, Russian-Chinese Cryptocurrency Alliance Launch Delayed Over
China's ICO Hitch, in , Forbes.com, viewed 27 April 2018,
<https://www.forbes.com/sites/rogeraitken/2017/09/06/russian-chinese-
cryptocurrency-alliance-launch-delayed-over-chinas-ico-
hitch/#2d3bc24964b5>.
- America also controls massively smaller share of the world market than ever before
o Declining economic growth
Fiscal crisis in the US
Downgrading of US treasury bonds
National debt
o Most of its activity is financial, rather than productive manufacturing
o China is largest economy on a PPP basis
o Largest holder of USD, largest debtor and largest creditor
o RMB soon to become the reserve currency of the world
o If USD loses reserve currency role, US hegemony will become unaffordable:
Can no longer borrow or print money to finance military dominance
(Layne, 2012)
Rise of regional powers that challenge US allies
- Assertive multipolarity requires both hard and soft power influences through regional
allies
o Rubinovitz 2015 US strategy of offshore balancing requires military and
economic allies who have ‘similar values’ to the US
- However, American allies losing ground in their regional struggles
- China already dominant in East Asia
- In Latin America:
o US Southern Command securitisation of Latin America through the War on
Drugs/crackdown on so called narco-terrorism
o US also propped numerous unpopular neoliberal governments in the region
(Ecuador – Gutierrez, Bolivia – de Lozada)
o Pink Tide has increasingly challenged US hegemony elections of legitimate
socialist governments in much of Latin America (Venezuela, Bolivia, Brazil,
Nicaragua, Chile, Argentina + Cuba)
o Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America-Peoples' Trade Agreement
first step in consolidating a regional bloc opposed to America and
neoliberalism Cuba and Venezuela challenging US hegemony through
offering a developmental alternatice
o Chodor, T 2015, Neoliberal hegemony and the Pink Tide in Latin America,
Palgrave Macmillan, Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire.
- More prominently, Iran is becoming the largest and most dominant regional player in
the Middle East against the power of the Gulf States:
o Hezbollah and the Assad government defeating the Saudi and Gulf-backed
proxies
o Syrian alliance is critical for Iran’s deterrent strategy against US and Israel
o Retain geographical link to Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas/PIJ/PFLP in
Gaza via Syria
o Alawite (Shia) dominated governments in both Syria and Iraq are beneficial
o Iranian backed Houthis are dominant in the Yemeni provisional government
resisting Saudi-led coalition airstrikes
o Withdrawal of US forces from Iraq allowed Iran to spread influence in the
Shia dominated governments of Nouri al-Maliki and then Haider al-Abadi, as
well providing material support to Shi’ite militias against Sunni insurgents
o Russia wants to maintain oil pipelines between Iran, Syria and itself, as well as
use the Syrian coast as a depot for Russian naval vessels
o China wants energy supplies including oil from Iran and Syria
- INTERSECTION OF AMERICAS RIVALS AND CONSTRAINING OF US
NATIONAL INTEREST
Amin, S 2006, Beyond US Hegemony: Assessing the Prospects for a Multipolar World, Zed
Books, London.
Samir Amin – Beyond US Hegemony: Assessing the Prospects for a Multipolar World
China
- 1960s and 1970s marked by significant solidarity between the countries of the Global
South:
o Decolonisation and mutual support for anti-colonial struggles
o Refusal to join pro-NATO military alliances, repudiation of IMF and World
Bank
- Renewal of solidarity might give rise to a new multipolarity
- Bandung Project (1955):
o Completion of decolonisation, political independence of the South, refusal to
join in the encirclement of the socialist bloc
- Development of the Non-Aligned Movement:
o Development ideology – de-linking but still participation within world
capitalist system to develop productive forces, industrialise and overcome the
limitations of colonialism
- New basis for solidarity in the South through the unilateral adjustment and neoliberal
globalisation of the peripheries:
o Genuine multipolarity can emerge from a united front of democratic popular
regimes
Reform of the UN
Zhang, X 2017, "Chinese Capitalism and the Maritime Silk Road: A World-Systems
Perspective", Geopolitics, vol. 22, no. 2, pp. 310-331
Chinese Capitalism and the Maritime Silk Road – A World Systems Perspective
- Material and political growth of China has set up fear of hegemonic competition
between the US and China
- One Belt One Road initiative is the overarching paradigm for China’s economic
policy and foreign policy
- Realist camp treats China’s ascent as a traditional hegemonic transition:
o Rising power becomes discontent with subaltern status and challenges the
incumbent hegemon (the US)
- Liberal camp argues that China wants to launch a departure from the democratic
capitalist world-order:
o Challenge US superiority in this system
- However these structural explanations do not account for the nature of China’s
changing external stance – namely the economic initiatives such as OBOR or the
Maritime Silk Road Initiative
- Need to situate an analysis of Chinese rise within historical development of capitalism
and East Asia:
o Encounter with imperial powers in the 19th century led to impoverishment and
exploitation of China (Opium wars, Boxer rebellion)
o Post-Mao – modernisation through a liberal strategy, economic integration
(ascension to WTO in 2001)
- Since 2000s – China has taken increasingly active role in trade/investment:
o Official aid to developing countries overtaken World Bank loans to these
countries
o BRICs Development Bank, China Development Bank
o Chinese leadership role in world and regional economy alongside the
institutionalisation of their economic development initiatives
- Chinese integration into world economy came with a tacit acknowledgment of the
US-led liberal order:
o 1990’s - China took over export-oriented, labour intensive industries that had
been dominated by the East Asian tigers in the 1980’s
o Mutual interdependence between liberal states and China
o China depended on the consumer markets of advanced capitalist economies
and US relied on China purchasing treasury bonds/financial products with the
trade surpluses to stabilise the economy
- China is subsequently “climbing the ranks” of the international order – from a semi-
peripheral nation towards advanced capitalist state:
o Capital saturation, declining capital returns, excess capacity/overaccumulation
and financialisation
o However state still retains dominance and stranglehold over the economy –
nationalisation, shareholdings, strict management of capital and capitalists
- When surplus capital cannot find an outlet – engages in a “spatial fix” and outward
expansion:
o OBOR represents this “going out” policy in a quantitatively more ambitious
setting
o Connect Asia, Europe and Africa
Martin, L 2013, "Turkey and the USA in a Bipolarizing Middle East", Journal of Balkan and
Near Eastern Studies, vol. 15, no. 2, pp. 175-188.
- Middle East is moving from multipolarity to a bipolar region divided between Iran
(Syria, Hezbollah, Iraqi Shiite government, Houthis – with support from Russia and
China) and the US/Western proxies (Turkey, Gulf states, Israel, Jordan, Syrian rebels,
Yemeni insurgents)
o Crisis in Syria has become a proxy war
- Between 1990 and 2010 – rough multipolarity in the Middle East:
o US, Turkey, Iran, Israel, Syria, pre-invasion Iraq jockeyed for influence and
power
o Turkey played a balancing role in the region through trade networks,
diplomatic mediates and cultural linkages with Arab world (soft-power
paradigm)
- Bipolarisation began in 2011 – growth of Iranian power and influence:
o Arab Spring offered Iran an attempt to spread Shia dissent against Sunni
majority regimes (i.e. Bahrain)
o Withdrawal of US forces from Iraq allowed Iran to spread influence in the
Shia dominated governments of Nour al-Maliki and then Haider al-Abadi, as
well providing material support to Shi’ite militias against Sunni insurgents
o Iranian progress in the development of nuclear capabilities
Iran believes that it is a deterrent against US/Israeli first strike threats
as well as Israeli nuclear power
- Syrian alliance is critical for Iran’s deterrent strategy against US and Israel:
o Retain geographical link to Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas/PIJ/PFLP in
Gaza via Syria
o Alawite (Shia) dominated governments in both Syria and Iraq are beneficial
- Bipolarisation of Middle East has global geopolitical implications:
o Russia and China have inserted themselves on the side of the Syrian
government while America/Europe have inserted themselves on the side of the
insurgents
Russia wants to maintain oil pipelines between Iran, Syria and itself, as
well as use the Syrian coast as a depot for Russian naval vessels
China wants energy supplies including oil from Iran and Syria
- Bipolarisation threatens US national interests:
o US concern over Iranian ability to impact world energy markets against their
favour by raising the price of Oil
o Ability to promote Shia uprisings in Sunni Gulf States as well as support for
Houthis could create a huge Iranian led Shia bloc opposed to the US
Patman, R & Southgate, L 2016, "Globalization, the Obama administration and the
refashioning of US exceptionalism", in , International Politics, vol. 53, no. 2, pp. 220-238.
- New US exceptionalism puts less emphasis on unilateral military force, and instead a
willingness to work within international institutions/law
- Theorists assume that globalisation has eliminated the sanctity of the state as the focus
of security concerns and IR
- American exceptionalism:
o US is a unique representation of peace and freedom that inspires others
o US has to transgress prevailing norms to provide this same peace and security
to others in line with American values
o Justification of military conquests through ideas of manifest destiny, Calvinist
morality/religious principles
- Has shaped foreign policy continually:
o First used to excuse US isolationism until 1941
o Since achieving superpower status, US has embarked on quest to improve the
world and lead an open international community
- Exceptionalism in early post-Cold War (1990-1993):
o New World Order phase
o Victory in the Gulf War
o Affirmation of a ‘new world order’ based in liberal democracy, free markets,
US power and UN authority
o Metamorphosed into the ‘assertive multilateralism’ of the Clinton
administration
- 1993-2001:
o Inclusive form of US exceptionalism was not sustained – post-Cold War was
not the order that both Bush I and Clinton envisaged
o Failure of intervention in Somalia – US scepticism of US involvement in
multilateral intervention and greater focus on intervention only for the sake of
US national interest
- 9/11 and Bush Era:
o The era of neo-cons in the US administration and unashamed unilateralism
o Rejected the idea of nation building, embraced the traditional view that
security was determined by military means
o War on terror – defence against the attack on the exceptional core values of
the US:
Defending freedom against the terrorists
Black/white, good/evil conception of conflict
o Exclusive US exceptionalism manifested in invasion of Iraq but also
challenged by the significant resistance of the native population
- Obama era exceptionalism recognised that the world had ceased to be unipolar
- Exceptionalism focused on soft-power assets:
o Tilt towards multilateralism, desire to lighten US military involvement in the
world, negotiation with potential adversaries such as DPRK/Cuba/Iran
- However also evident in invasion of Libya:
o Mobilisation of the international community on multilateral terms
Turkey
USA
Iran
Russia
- Historical ties viz. the USSR and trade ties
- Putin wanted to prevent another Libya or Iraq as well as the lack of a pro-Russian
regime in the Middle East that would prevent access to the vital trade routes of the
Mediterranean
- Use Syria as a buffer against Jihad and a way to exert its power over the West
Gulf States
Meltzer, A 2013, "End of the “American Century”, Economic and Political Studies, vol. 1,
no. 1, pp. 79-88.
- End of WWII – US proposed military and economic strategies to avoid war, contain
the USSR and regulate the global economy
- That period is ending – international institutions that sustained this US-led world are
no longer accepted
- US is still military strong but unable to translate power into influence
- Economic institutions:
o US led the development of the Bretton Woods Institutions, GATT, WTO – to
the extent that the IMF and World Bank are considered policy tools of the US
o Doha round of negotiations stalled – US turned from international free trade to
bilateral agreements
o The free trade institutions that the US have spearheaded have received
significant opposition through the anti-globalisation movement, Occupy,
Zapatistas, Labour movement etc.
Layne, C 2012, "This Time It’s Real: The End of Unipolarity and the Pax Americana",
International Studies Quarterly, vol. 56, no. 1, pp. 203-213.
This Time It’s Real: The End of Unipolarity and the Pax Americana
Schweller, R & Pu, X 2011, "After Unipolarity: China's Visions of International Order in an
Era of U.S. Decline", International Security, vol. 36, no. 1, pp. 41-72.
Beinart, P 2018, Trump Is Preparing for a New Cold War, The Atlantic, viewed 18 April
2018, <https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/02/trump-is-preparing-for-a-
new-cold-war/554384/>.
Serafettin, Y. (2015). China's Foreign Policy and Critical Theory of International Relations.
Journal of Chinese Political Science, 21(1), pp.75-88.
- CTIR sees the state as the ultimate unit for human progress and liberation
- China as a systemic parallel and challenge to the sustainability of the unipolar
moment
- Relative decline of the US in its ability to give meaning to material, ideational and
ethical history
- Contemporary foreign diplomacy of the Chinese state gives credence to the arguments
that the state might serve as an emancipatory agent which upholds sovereign equality,
territorial integrity, anti-hegemony and global harmony
- China’s five principles of peaceful coexistence:
o State can function as an emancipatory, anti-hegemonic actor
o International realm can be liberated without abolishing, subjugating or
weakening the national realm
- China’s material and ideational emergence indicates a potential transformation of the
post-war global order and the role of the state
o Chinese foreign policy as the dominant progenitor of this change
- Historical materialism and class theory are inseparable from CTIR:
o Revolutionary members of the international realm are politically conscious of
oppressor/oppressed dynamic (anti-imperialism)
o Strive for a better alternative to reconstruct or replace existing international
order (realist, revisionist power)
- With collapse of bipolar global system, Chinese foreign policy took pragmatist rather
than ideological turn:
o Multipolar power configuration as the central principle
o National sovereignty, tolerance of socio-political difference and strict non-
interference
- China sees itself as correcting the historical wrongs of the colonial/neo-colonial
capitalist world system:
o Hu Yaobong – ‘forces threatening peaceful coexistence are imperialism,
hegemonism and colonialism’
- Bloc politics has assumed new guises in the trend towards multipolarity:
o Independent choice of political systems and mode of development
- Rather than overthrowing IS, China focuses on reform/reordering the system on
principles of peaceful coexistence, sovereignty etc.
o Emancipatory politics influenced by its basis in masses and revolutionary
intelligentsia
- China’s criticism towards existing international system is not anti-hegemonic:
o No open war against hegemon
o However, use of delegitimation rhetoric through parallel social/development
initiatives (OBOR, BRICS, Investment Bank)
- Reconstructing great-power relationship into multiple poles
Global Times (2018). US' strong sense of insecurity beyond comprehension: FM. [online]
Available at: http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1089716.shtml [Accessed 22 Mar. 2018].
Rubinovitz, Z. The Rise of the Others: Can the U.S. Stay on Top? In: Kleiman, A. ed.,
(2018). Great Powers and Geopolitics: International Affairs in a Rebalancing World. Springer
International Publishing. Basel, pp.31-58.
Headley, J 2017, Post-communist Russia and the West: From Crisis to Crisis?, in Fish, M,
Gill, G & Petrovic, M (eds.), A quarter century of post-communism assessed, Springer
International Publishing AG, Cham, pp. 271-291.
Gordy, K & Lee, J 2009, "Rogue Specters: Cuba and North Korea at the Limits of US
Hegemony", in , Alternatives: Global, Local, Political, vol. 34, no. 3, pp. 229-248.
Chodor, T 2015, Neoliberal hegemony and the Pink Tide in Latin America, Palgrave
Macmillan, Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire.