Trading Networks and Lost Hegemony?
Trading networks are everywhere in life, as people exchange not only objects but information and emotions as well, all of which are manifolds of the power dynamic. One of the biggest trading networks in the world happen between bodies of nations, and for each important period of history, there is the presence of the hegemony of one nation or a cluster of nations over the rest of the world. However, the nation(s) at dominance are constantly shifting as the global networks evolve, which Susan Strange called “the persistent myth of lost hegemony”. (Strange 551)
In the modern world, the United States as the military and economical hegemony still possess incredible power and centrality within today’s global network. However, as the rise of the some second and third world countries, the same question comes into play — “Is the power of the United States as the modern hegemony declining?” Professor Strange believes that the centrality of the United States is still stable and promising in the long term. One of the reasons is that the rise of China and other countries seem to happen “at the relative expense of Europe, however, rather than the United States”. And the most important shift for America is not the redistribution of power, but the high density of today’s global networks. William Winecoff, in his revisit of Susan’s argument, arrives at the same conclusion, with extra analysis not only on finance but on security and knowledge networks as well. security, and knowledge networks. In his paper, he also introduces the idea of “hubs” and “communities”. Hubs are nodes that attract many other connections, while communities refer to groupings of nodes that are densely connected to each other, but relatively isolated as a group. And the roles of these nodes are often reinforced as networks develop, that is the status of the node is a combination of past residue and present development. From this perspective, the power of a nation is iterative, and the trajectory of the power of the United States, Winecoff argues, seems to be still promising in today’s world politics.
Reference:
- https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/2706758.pdf?refreqid=excelsior%3Aee70c6914349e466b3b8e2b162f477a3
- https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1354066120952876