Hegemonies in the World-System: An Empirical Assessment of Hegemonic Sequences from the 16th to 20th Century

Both the world-economy perspective in sociology and the world politics perspective in political science recognize the importance of examining the rise and fall of world powers, and generally agree on the main causal mechanisms responsible for the rise and fall process. However, there is much less convergence between these perspectives on the indicators used to measure the relative power of nation-states. Thus, although in agreement over theory, there is much less agreement on the identity and timing of hegemonies. This article attempts to overcome this impasse by creating a hegemony index to assess the power structure of the capitalist world-system. Though results support the world-economy view of three hegemons since the 16th century, findings also contradict this perspective and show that England is the most powerful nation during two successive hegemonic sequences. Conclusions highlight the possibility of hegemonic resuccession, while supplementary analysis provides evidence of U.S. resuccession since the 1980s.