_Journal of World-Systems Research_
             Volume 1, Number 4.5, 1995

               http://jwsr.ucr.edu/
                  ISSN 1076-156X


        Introduction to the Thematic Articles:

          "Hegemonic Rivalry: Past and Future"



              Christopher Chase-Dunn
                    Sociology
             Johns Hopkins University
             Baltimore, MD. 21218 USA
             chriscd@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu
       Copyright (c) 1995 Christopher Chase-Dunn

      The international political economy has expe-
rienced a sequence of economic booms and busts, as
well as periods of relative peace and world war, for
the last 500 years. Capitalist industrialization
has expanded productivity and integrated ever-
larger numbers of people into a single global
economy in waves of industrialization and market
expansion. These waves have been repeatedly punctuated by
world wars. The current level of economic integra-
tion, and other factors, cause many students of the
global system to argue that the periodic outbreak
of world wars is over. This book focuses on both
long run trends and recent developments in the

[Page 1]    

modern world-system, and their implications for the
future of humankind. Will the cycles of boom bust,
peace and war continue? Or have long terms trends
(or recent changes) altered the nature of the
system sufficiently such that these oscillations
will cease, or take a less destructive form?  

The articles in this special thematic section of
_JWSR_ address the question of future competition
for hegemony in the core of the global system. The
authors, sociologists and political scientists,
construct scenarios and examine long term trends
and cycles of the global system to inform their
judgements about possible and probable futures. The
core of the modern world-system has experienced a
series of hegemonic rises and declines for centu-
ries. The Dutch were hegemonic in the European
world-economy of the seventeenth century; the
British rose to hegemony in the nineteenth century,
and the United States emerged as the economic and
military hegemon of the twentieth century. U.S.
economic hegemony, however, is now in decline. 

[Page 2]    Journal of World-Systems Research

In light of these historical patterns, the questions 
upon which this thematic section focuses are the
following: Will the core of the world-system 
continue to display a rise and fall of hegemonic 
powers and, if it does, which country or region 
is most likely to emerge as the next hegemon?  
Will a new supranational structure emerge which
is capable of stabilizing and pacifying relations 
among core powers?  How might this new core structure
be organized?  Or, will the more anarchical forms
of economic and military competition that have
been the _modus operandi_ of the world-system for 
centuries continue to function?  And, most importantly,
can the human race afford to allow such conflicts
to continue to play themselves out?

[Page 3]   

These are the big questions that are the focus of
this section. The answers are relevant for every
person on earth, whether or not they live in the
core. Peripheral peoples are greatly affected by
what happens in the core; indeed, a possible renewal 
of warfare among core powers might destroy all human
and non-human life on Earth. Never, before the
invention and deployment of weapons of mass de-
struction, has the possibility of total man-made
disaster existed. Earlier follies were localized or
regionalized and so others had a chance to learn
and avoid disaster. The immediate threat of total
destruction has undoubtedly become much less proba-
ble since the Soviet demise. The problem, if there
is one, is not the immediate future but rather the
future in about two decades from now after another
period of global economic expansion has provided
core states with expanded resources to wage war on

[Page 4]    Journal of World-Systems Research

one another. Will international integration have
increased sufficiently by then to resolve conflicts
among the powers peacefully? That is the question.

This thematic section of _JWSR_ is the product
of three sessions that were organized at the World
Congress of Sociology held in Bielefeld, Germany in
July of 1994, on the topic of the future of hegemon-
ic rivalry. The authors are both Political Scien-
tists and Sociologists, and they come from some of
the core regions that are also the main topic of
the book: Europe and North America. All of us are
social scientists trying to understand the future
by studying the past. Though there are many disci-
plinary and theoretical differences in the perspec-
tives represented, there is also a considerable
degree of agreement. All contributors focus on both
the international system of states and the now-
global world economy as important elements of their
analyses. All see the world economy as an expand-
ing division of labor that has integrated more and
more world regions into a single global network
that exposes one and all to global market forces.
And all agree that the international political
economy has been characterized in the past by the

[Page 5]   

rise and fall of hegemonic core powers, though some
prefer to call these global leaders. There is also 
considerable agreement that important systemic changes
have occurred in the international political economy
in recent decades, though the nature and importance 
of these changes are in dispute. 

Regarding disagreement, I can point to several
major issues. Some authors think that it is quite
likely that world wars can again occur, while
others see a new structure emerging that is deemed
likely to prevent these wars. The authors also differ
with regard to the importance that they assign to


ideological and normative factors in the operation
of the contemporary world-system. Some see norma-
tive factors and ideological legitimacy as central
factors in the operation of the system, while others
place much greater emphasis on economic and politi-
cal/military institutions. There are also interest-
ing differences in the prospects that authors see
for global leadership to come from different core
regions. Some think that the United States can
remain the leader, while others see likely leader-
ship prospects for Europe or Japan. Various possi-

[Page 6]    Journal of World-Systems Research

ble international alliances are also contemplated, 
as well as the emergence of a new form of hegemony
based on transnational alliance among the largest
private firms on Earth. Both U.S/European and
U.S./Japanese alliances are posited as possible
coalitions in a future bipolarity.

In article Number 5 Volker Bornschier discusses 
the causes and significance of European integration, 
along with the prospects for a new period of "hegemony
without a hegemon." Indeed, Bornschier sees world society
as having evolved beyond the rise and fall of single state 
hegemons.  He also contends that the "development model"
that is the basis of European integration can become a 
unifying approach to global development, because it 
combines the best aspects of contending development models
advocated and practiced by the United States and Japan 
with a sensitivity to social issues that derives from 
the European social democratic heritage.

In article Number 6, Christopher Chase-Dunn and Bruce 
Podobnik discuss a model of the factors that affect the
probability of future wars among core states. They
predict that there will be a window of vulnerabili-

[Page 7]

ty to another world war among core states in the
2020s. While they would prefer that a real world
state be constructed to enforce the illegality of
warfare, they do not believe that this will happen
in the next 25 years. So they propose that the
safest and "least worst" solution is a condominium
of military power between the United States and the
United Nations.

In article Number 7, George Modelski outlines his 
famous theory of long cycles of the rise and fall of
global leaders and introduces a new theory of
systemic evolution. Though leadership succession in
the past has always involved global war, Modelski
believes that the United States will again play the
role of leader in the coming period without violent
conflict among core powers. This involves a shift
in the system from  the informal leadership provid-
ed by a single state. to a more formalized political
relationship among the powers -- a democratic
community of states within a formalized global
federal structure. Modelski thinks that the kinds
of technologies that will be the leading sectors in
the economic expansion -- especially information
and communications -- will facilitate the emergence


[Page 8]    Journal of World-Systems Research

of a more pacific global polity.
      
In article Number 8, Walter Goldfrank also contends
that the world-system may have gotten beyond the 
sequence of hegemonic rise and fall of individual 
states. He describes the long-standing upward trends 
of the expansion of the capitalist world-system, and the
coming limitations on further expansion of those
trends that will necessitate systemic transforma-
tion in the long-run. He describes U.S hegemony as
in transition to a trilateral condominium (Japan,
the U.S. and German-led Europe), but in the mid-
dle-run (the next 50 or 60 years) Goldfrank sees
the emergence of a new bipolarity in which Japan,
East Asia and the United States will confront an
expanded Europe allied with Russia. During this
period Goldfrank sees a "window of danger," but he
suggests five factors that work against the repetition
of the hegemonic-rivalry/world war scenario. He
also sees possible disaster in the destruction of
the biosphere. Besides destruction, Goldfrank
posits three other possible long-run futures:
global fascism, global social democracy and global
socialism.

[Page 9]

In article Number 9, Gerd Junne examines several possible
scenarios for the immediate future that could lead
to either further global economic integration or
the break-up of the world market into rival trade
blocs. He concludes that separate trade blocs are
likely to emerge and consolidate themselves, and that
there will be a new period of trade-based rivalry 
among these blocs. But he believes that this rivalry 
will remain contained because of the high degree of
integration that the international economy has
reached. Under these conditions protectionist
measures would hurt important domestic constituencies as
well as foreign actors, and so rampant trade wars
are unlikely to be allowed to emerge.

In article Number 10 Tieting Su reports the results of a
network analysis of world trade patterns in 1938,
1960 and 1990. Considering the trade links of
Germany, Japan and the United States, Su finds
that, while the German trade network is largely
independent, the United States and Japan have
heavily overlapping trade networks. Su then dis-
cusses the causal interaction between long economic
cycles and major power wars. He posits three dif-
ferent competitive logics that link economic and

[Page 10]    Journal of World-Systems Research

war cycles: rivalry over "life spaces;" rivalry
over global domination; and imperial intervention.
Given these trade rivalries, the implications for 
possible future conflicts among these core powers 
are also discussed. Based on the notion of "lateral 
pressure," Su predicts a future conflict between the 
United States and Japan.

In article Number 11 John Borrego examines recent patterns 
of investment and competition between states and 
global firms in several regions of global economy. 
Borrego's analysis of the emergence of a new stage 
of global capitalism focusses on the changing
relationships between states and firms and the transition
from Fordism to flexible accumulation. He sees global 
capital and core states as utilizing competing strategies of
alliances and protection. The main core states are
forming regional blocs to try to protect their
incomes, while global capital is forming alliances
with specific regions. While core states may form
future alliances, the important fault-line for
Borrego is between the core states and the global
firms. Borrego predicts the emergence of a new kind
of global hegemony based on global firms, rather
than on a single hegemonic core state.

In article Number 12 Albert Bergesen and Roberto Fernandez
study the decline of the economic hegemony of the

[Page 11]

United States by examining changes in the composi-
tion of the world's largest firms between 1956 and
1989. They break the firms down by sector, and
demonstrate that the U.S. has declined in all the
broad sectors while Europe and Japan have made
gains. But the European and Japanese patterns
differ. European firms are consolidating their
positions in the industries in which they were
already strong, while the Japanese rise is through
expansion into new sectors.

In article Number 13 Brigitte Schulz considers the hypothe-
sis of "civilization clash" and the factors of culture 
and racism in future intercore rivalries. In this
context she examines the politics of German reuni-
fication, Germany's role in European integration,
and Germany's relationships with the United States
and Central Europe.  She predicts a further consol-
idation of the relationship between the United
States and Germany in order to counter the rise of
East Asia as a challenge to European hegemony. She
sees indications that old racial and "civilization-
al" enmities are being revitalized as part of the
emergence of this new fault-line of future global
conflict.

[Page 12]    Journal of World-Systems Research

In article Number 14 Erich Weede discusses the prospects of
China becoming a core power and a challenger for
global hegemony. Weede sees potential chasms in the
path of Chinese upward mobility, but his overall
assessment is that China has a good chance to
become a major player on the global stage. Weede
also presents valuable information about the rela-
tive economic and military strengths of other
contenders -- Russia, the United States, Japan,
Germany and united Europe. He identifies his per-
spective as close to classical international liber-
alism, and his policy implications involve trying
to coax China into the role of good world citizen
from this point of view.

In article Number 15 Terry Boswell analyzes the relation-
ship between long waves of economic expansion and
contraction with the rise and fall of hegemonic
core powers. He distinguishes between 
"leadership" and "hegemony," and he presents a model
of the hegemonic cycle as resulting from the inter-
action of three global trends: interstate competi-
tion, world integration and uneven economic devel-
opment. In an Appendix he presents evidence that

[Page 13]

part of his model is supported by a time-series
regression analysis. In his discussion he considers
other important world-system trends such as commod-
ification and proletarianization, and suggests the
conditions under which a democratic world state
might emerge.
 
I would like to thank the scholars who contributed
their ideas and research results to this special themat-
ic section.