TEHRAN – Professor Nicholas Onuf, a primary figure among constructivists in international relations, tells the Tehran Times that the United States’ political leadership has been declining. 

Onuf says the main reasons behind this decline are “political incoherence and loss of will” in the United States.

Following is the text of the interview:

Q: Do you agree with this view that the U.S. hegemonic power has declined?

A: To start, we need to be clear by what we mean by the term hegemony.  It is used most generally as a synonym for dominance achieved through the exercise of power.  Judging from what the term hegemonia means in Greek, hegemony is more properly understood as leadership.  In this case, we assume that power enables leadership, but the exercise of power is collective, more or less institutionalized and presumably in the interest of the collectivity.  Finally and most narrowly, hegemony means leadership by example.  In my view, this third sense of the term implies a shift from power to status (understood as a position or standing in society).  Every society has a status-order; some individual or group has the highest rank, and all other individuals or groups are ranked in descending order.  Arguably this is the basis of order, or stability, in any society (including so-called modern societies and ‘international society’).  Status may have its source in power, defined as the matter of A somehow getting B to do C, but status translates back into power in a wide range of situations.  The result is social stratification. 
So, when we talk about U.S. hegemonic power, we need to specify which sense of hegemony we have in mind.  Is it dominance, leadership or rank?

Q: Some scholars such as Robert Keohane believe that the U.S. has seen a decline in its status as a global hegemony as of the 1970s. What is your stance in this regard?

A: First I should point out that Keohane, who is best-known for writing about hegemony in the second sense, has a more subtle or complex position than you give him credit for.  In 2012, he said that ‘only the United States has the material capacity and political unity to exercise consistent global leadership.’  And he asked, ‘Can the United States as a society summon the political coherence and willpower to devise and implement a sustainable leadership strategy for the twenty-first century?’  It’s pretty clear he thought it an open question just a few years ago, and I expect he still does.  (The quoted passages are from Keohane’s ‘Hegemony and after:  What can be said about the future of American global leadership?’ Foreign Affairs, Vol. 91, No. 4, readily available online.)

The U.S., Germany, China, India, Russia and perhaps even Iran could be taken to constitute a club of regional hegemons, each gradually learning to respect the others’ regional spheres of influence.   Now, as for my stance.  If we mean hegemony as dominance, than obviously the U.S. experienced a moment of dominance after the Cold War ended.  This moment was highly contingent and bound to be temporary.  Decline set in soon enough for all kinds of obvious reasons.  If we mean hegemony as leadership, then my stance is pretty much the same as Keohane’s.  If there is a decline in U.S. leadership, then the large causes are political incoherence and loss of will.  This is not just the situation in the U.S.   No other country has the coherence or will to exercise leadership beyond regional limits.  If we mean hegemony as top rank in the global status-order, I’m not sure this has changed—yet.  The question is not so much whether the U.S. has lost status in the global order but whether other states have joined the U.S. in the top rank.  Here the answer is not so clear.  In strictly global terms, no.  If we see the world having regionalized significantly in the last couple decades, then yes.  The U.S., Germany, China, India, Russia and perhaps even Iran could be taken to constitute a club of regional hegemons, each gradually learning to respect the others’ regional spheres of influence.   
Q: How do you support your stance if you think the U.S. has experienced a decline?

A: It would take a book, or indeed three books, to support my stance that the U.S. has lost room to maneuver in world affairs without necessarily losing its capacity for leadership or its status by most measures.  And even then I would not have addressed the large question as to whether states in general have lost their dominance, capacity to lead and status in today’s world. 

Q: In what areas have the U.S. hegemony declined most?

A: If ‘most’ relative to other states, then it would seem in its ability to compel other states to do its bidding through the threat or use of military force and economic sanctions.  But I should point out that this is hardly a recent development—consider Vietnam.  The real issue is whether this traditional criterion for dominance tells us very much about the way things work today.   If ‘most’ relative to other societies, it may be in its reputation for managing the global economy.  In this respect, 2008 changed everything.  

U.S. hegemony in forcing other countries to do its bidding “through the threat or use of military force and economic sanctions” has been declining, says Onuf, a primary figure among constructivists in international relations.   

Q: Do you see a link between the decline in the U.S. hegemonic power and the conflicts in the Middle East?

A: If we define hegemony as Keohane does—as a matter of political leadership—then the answer is surely yes, there is a link.  To say this, of course, is barely to scratch the surface of what has been happening in the Middle East.  If we define hegemony as I am inclined to—as a matter of status-ordering—then the Middle East has been off-limits, so to speak, for decades.  Let me explain briefly.  Given Israel’s peculiar position as a beneficiary of U.S. protection and the dependence of the world economy on the region’s oil, the stability of the global status-order (which is, after all, in the interest of most states) requires the Middle East to be cordoned off and  treated by reference to a separate set of rules.  In effect, the Middle East has a status so anomalous as to deny it any position in the standing system of global hegemony.  I see little likelihood that this situation will change in the foreseeable future.