Systemic Leadership, Energy Considerations, and the Leadership Long-Cycle Perspective

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
William R. Thompson ◽  
Leila Zakhirova
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Renewable Energy Sources ◽  
The United States ◽  
World Politics ◽  
P System ◽  
Long Distance ◽  
Global Commons ◽  
The World ◽  
System Leaders ◽  
Political Economic

System leaders, sometimes referred to as hegemons or world powers, emerge based on a foundation of technological innovation and global military reach. To this foundation energy is now added as a third leg of the power stool. It is not a coincidence that observers posit 17th-century Netherlands, 19th-century Britain, and 20th-century United States as the leading states in political-economy terms of their respective eras. The Dutch used peat and windmills, the British married coal to the steam engine, and the United States added petroleum and electricity to coal to fuel a host of new machines. The greater a country’s lead in technology and energy, the more impactful its tenure as the world economy’s lead economy. These leads, nonetheless, do not make their principal beneficiaries into dominant dictators of world politics. Instead, they focus on policing long-distance commercial routes and the global commons, as well as organizing coalitions to suppress perceived threats to the continued functioning of the world economy. Whether this process, which emerged slowly only in the second millennium ce, will continue into the future remains to be seen. It hinges on the prospects for abandoning carbon-based fuels, adapting renewable energy sources, and retaining the ability of one state to maintain a political-economic lead over its rivals for decades as in the past.

Introduction: There Was a Moment

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-15
Author(s):  
Luke Patey
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Global Economy ◽  
Strong Influence ◽  
The United States ◽  
The West ◽  
Norms And Values ◽  
Technology Leaders ◽  
The World ◽  
Economic Engagement ◽  
Political Economic

China views the decline of the United States and the West as signal to advance its interests, norms, and values on the world stage. But sentiments that one superpower will replace another miss the bigger picture. China’s rise to the commanding heights of the global economy and world affairs is not preordained. Its potential evolution into a global superpower, with a deep presence and strong influence over economic, political, military, and culture abroad, will rather be conditioned by how China behaves toward the rest of the world, and how the world responds. The world’s other large economies, major militaries, technology leaders, and cultural hubs will be significant in shaping the future world. For developed and developing countries alike, there is recognition that economic engagement with China produces strategic vulnerabilities to their own competitiveness and foreign policy and defense autonomy. China will struggle to realize its political, economic, and military global ambitions.

Thucydides and hegemony: Athens and the United States

2001 ◽  
Vol 27 (4) ◽  
pp. 593-609 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Ned Lebow ◽  
Robert Kelly
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
The United States ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Us Foreign Policy ◽  
Fifth Century ◽  
Striking Feature ◽  
Peloponnesian War ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
The World

Fifth century Greeks distinguished between hegemonia (legitimated leadership) and arkhe (control). Thucydides employed this distinction to track the changing nature of the Athenian Empire during the Peloponnesian War, and the ways in which a diminishing concern for balancing self-interest against justice corroded Athenian authority, made survival of the empire increasingly problematic and encouraged the disastrous expedition to Sicily. The Melian Dialogue—often cited by realists to justify a power-based approach to foreign policy—is intended to symbolize this decay. Building on our analysis of Thucydides, we examine the British, Soviet and American experiences with hegemony. A striking feature of the contemporary American situation is the extent to which American leaders claim hegemonia but deny any interest in arkhe. Rightly or wrongly, much of the rest of the world has the reverse perception. This seeming contradiction has important implications for US foreign policy and world politics more generally.

Small Is Beautiful

2014 ◽  
Vol 46 (2) ◽  
pp. 373-375 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cyrus Schayegh
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Middle East ◽  
Cultural History ◽  
Social History ◽  
21St Century ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
The United States ◽  
The World ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Political Economic

In scholarship on the Middle East, as on other regions of the world, the sort of social history that climaxed from the 1960s through the 1980s, and in Middle East history through the 1990s—that is, studies of categories such as “class” or “peasant”—has been declining for some time. The cultural history that replaced social history has peaked, too. In the 21st century, the trend, set by non-Middle East historians, has been to combine an updated social-historical focus on structure and groups with a cultural–historical focus on meaning making. Defining societyagainstculture and policing their boundaries is out. In is picking a theme—consumption or travel, say—then studying it from distinct yet linked social and cultural or political/economic angles. This trend has spawned new journals likeCultural and Social History, established in 2004, and has been debated in established journals and memoirs by leading historians of the United States and Europe.

scholarly journals The United States of America – A Declining World Hegemon?

2018 ◽  
Vol 14 (17) ◽  
pp. 46
Author(s):  
Benjamin Klasche
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Natural Resources ◽  
United States Of America ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Other ◽  
Global Politics ◽  
Global Commons ◽  
China And India ◽  
The World ◽  
The Usa

In this article the alleged demise of the United States of America (USA) and the ability of its challengers will be discussed and analyzed. Based on George Modelski’s concept of Long-Cycles in Global Politics we can anticipate a disruption in the hegemonic position – currently held by the USA. Considering, the possibility of this scenario, the author executed a pragmatic comparative study and sketches out the chances for the two main competitors – China and India – which struggle mightily with domestic issues and on the other side presents four arguments, why the decline of the USA is not as apparent and looming as partly presumed. The arguments are: (i) the independence supply of natural resources; (ii) its supremacy over the world seas; (iii) reinstated activity in the Rimland and (iiii) control over the Global Commons.

scholarly journals Calling for a Reset in Turkish-American Relations in the post-COVID International Order

2020 ◽  
pp. 93-109
Author(s):  
Mustafa Kibaroğlu
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
International Security ◽  
Middle Eastern ◽  
The United States ◽  
World Politics ◽  
The European Union ◽  
New Normal ◽  
Security Environment ◽  
The World ◽  
Conducive Environment

Analysts emphasize that nothing will be the same after the pandemic and refer to the “new normal” that is likely to prevail everywhere in the world. It would be a legitimate question to ask if this would provide a conducive environment for Turkey and the United States to reset their relations that have much deteriorated lately. This article will, first, highlight the contours of the “new normal” narrative by referring to the views expressed by politicians, academics, analysts, journalists and intellectuals from around the world. Second, the article will assess the implications of the parameters of the “new normal” for key actors in world politics, such as the United States, China, the European Union and Russia, as well as Turkey’s Middle Eastern neighbors, with respect to the issues that will be at stake in the international security environment. Finally, the article will make a call for a reset in Turkish-American relations in order for the two long-standing allies to adapt themselves better to post-COVID international politics.

The Leadership Long Cycle Framework

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
William R. Thompson ◽  
Leila Zakhirova
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Strong Evidence ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Political ◽  
Economic Evolution ◽  
Long Cycle ◽  
The Past ◽  
Technological Leadership ◽  
System Leaders ◽  
Political Economic

In this chapter, we lay out the leadership long cycle theory as our framework for assessing systemic leadership and then modify it. This revised framework is then applied to the political–economic evolution of the past one thousand years to identify the factors underlying the rise and fall of a sequence of system leaders and to examine the fairly strong evidence for the linkage of energy transitions and technological leadership. We find that it is difficult to imagine the ascent of the last three system leaders (the Netherlands, Britain, and the United States) in a situation with significantly different energy foundations. In other words, had there been no peat, coal, or petroleum/electricity, respectively, these episodes of systemic leadership would have been far less likely to have occurred.

why brazil did not develop a merchant marine; brazilian shipping and the world in the 19t h century

2012 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Birgitte Holten
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
19Th Century ◽  
The United States ◽  
Long Distance ◽  
Late 19Th Century ◽  
Merchant Marine ◽  
The World ◽  
African Slaves ◽  
External Sector

The weak performance of the Brazilian merchant marine is surprising, as a huge external sector is normally expected to gohand in hand with the development of anational merchant marine. To elucidate this question, the article proposes an analysis and discussion of the development of the Brazilian merchant marine in the nineteenth century. The early focus on the extremely specialized importation of African slaves led to a near abandon of long distance shipping when this trade was banned in 1830. The same tendency to desist from exterior shipping can also be found in the United States in the late 19th century. A comparison of the two countries demonstrates, that the need for developing the national territory and for providing transportation facilities for the growing interior economies diverted the concentration from exterior ventures tonational ones.

The Value of Interaction for Russia, the USA and China Facing the Information Warfare

2013 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
pp. 1-9
Author(s):  
Vasilyeva Inna
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Rapid Development ◽  
The United States ◽  
World Politics ◽  
First Century ◽  
Information Warfare ◽  
The World ◽  
The Usa ◽  
Open Dialogue ◽  
World Information

The rapid development of informatization worldwide, specifically in the USA, China and Russia, and its penetration into all spheres of the vital interests of an individual, society and the state, have caused, besides doubtless advantages, the emergence of a number of significant problems. The urgent necessity to protect the information along with being protected from it has become one of them. The geopolitical confrontation and information warfare between the United States and China will be a major factor in world politics in the twenty-first century. This increasing tendency is pushing Russia towards further increasing the development of information warfare along with ensuring national security; the formation of an open dialogue between civilizations; and resistance to the threat of conflict in the field of information. Exhaustion of natural resources of the planet, their consumption and growth of the population do not contribute to the reduction of information warfare. Therefore, the positions of Russia, the United States and China will be strengthened due to deeper integration into the world information space. This paper has highlighted the quintessence of what causes the great thirst towards reaching information comfort and leadership, along with information warfare terrifying serious threats and modern global geopolitical tendencies.

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