Adam Watson - Hegemony & History

Alongside Herbert Butterfield, Martin Wight and Hedley Bull, Adam Watson was a member of the British Committee on the Theory of International Politics and a founding member of the English School. The committee sought to explore relations between states in an historical context and developed a theory of international society and the nature of order in world politics. These theories have had an important impact on the discipline of international relations, providing a framework and research agenda for understanding international politics that continues to shape the discipline in the present day.

This fascinating collection traces the development of Watsons thinking on international theory and politics from the 1950s to the present. Its primary focus is on how present and past hegemonial systems function. The quest also led him to explore a range of topical issues including:

This book will be of strong interest to students and researchers of international relations, political science, history and economics, as well as diplomatic practitioners and others concerned with international affairs.

Adam Watson , diplomat and historian, has published several books on historical and international subjects; including The Limits of Independence; The Evolution of International Society and a study of the Muslim conquest of South India. After 30 years in the British Diplomatic Service, culminating with service as Ambassador and Assistant Under-Secretary of State, he directed two Swiss human rights foundations. Since 1978 he has been a Professor of International Relations at the University of Virginia.

The New International Relations
Edited by Barry Buzan, London School of Economics and Richard Little, University of Bristol

The field of international relations has changed dramatically in recent years. This new series will cover the major issues that have emerged and reflect the latest academic thinking in this particular dynamic area.

International Law, Rights and Politics
Developments in Eastern Europe and the CIS
Rein Mullerson

The Logic of Internationalism
Coercion and accommodation
Kjell Goldmann

Russia and the Idea of Europe
A study in identity and international relations
Iver B. Neumann

The Future of International Relations
Masters in the making?
Edited by Iver B. Neumann and Ole Wver

Constructing the World Polity
Essays on international institutionalization
John Gerard Ruggie

Realism in International Relations and International Political Economy
The continuing story of a death foretold
Stefano Guzzini

International Relations, Political Theory and the Problem of Order
Beyond international relations theory?
N.J. Rengger

War, Peace and World Orders in European History
Edited by Anja V. Hartmann and Beatrice Heuser

European Integration and National Identity
The challenge of the Nordic states
Edited by Lene Hansen and Ole Wver

Shadow Globalization, Ethnic Conflicts and New Wars
A political economy of intra-state war
Dietrich Jung

Contemporary Security Analysis and Copenhagen Peace Research
Edited by Stefano Guzzini and Dietrich Jung

Observing International Relations
Niklas Luhmann and world politics
Edited by Mathias Albert and Lena Hilkermeier

Does China Matter? A Reassessment
Essays in memory of Gerald Segal
Edited by Barry Buzan and Rosemary Foot

European Approaches to International Relations Theory
A house with many mansions
Jrg Friedrichs

The Post-Cold War International System
Strategies, institutions and reflexivity
Ewan Harrison

States of Political Discourse
Words, regimes, seditions
Costas M. Constantinou

The Politics of Regional Identity
Meddling with the Mediterranean
Michelle Pace

The Power of International Theory
Reforging the link to foreign policy-making through scientific enquiry
Fred Chernoff

Africa and the North
Between globalization and marginalization
Edited by Ulf Engel and Gorm Rye Olsen

Communitarian International Relations
The epistemic foundations of international relations
Emanuel Adler

Human Rights and World Trade
Hunger in international society
Ana Gonzalez-Pelaez

Liberalism and War
The victors and the vanquished
Andrew Williams

Constructivism and International Relations
Alexander Wendt and his critics
Edited by Stefano Guzzini and Anna Leander

Security as Practice
Discourse analysis and the Bosnian war
Lene Hansen

The Politics of Insecurity
Fear, migration and asylum in the EU
Jef Huysmans

State Sovereignty and Intervention
A discourse analysis of interventionary and non-interventionary practices in Kosovo and Algeria
Helle Malmvig

Culture and Security
Symbolic power and the politics of international security
Michael Williams

Hegemony & History
Adam Watson

Adam Watson

First published 2007
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN

Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
270 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

2007 Adam Watson

Typeset in Sabon
by Keystroke, 28 High Street, Tettenhall, Wolverhampton
Printed and bound in Great Britain
by Biddles Ltd, King's Lynn

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Watson, Adam, 1914
Hegemony & history / Adam Watson.
p. cm. - (The new international relations)
Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-415-39343-4 (hardback: alk. paper) 1. Hegemony. 2. International relations. I. Title.
JZ1312.W38 2007
327.101-dc22
2006018426

ISBN10: 0415393434
ISBN13: 9780415393430

Then felt I like some watcher of the skies
When a new planet swims into his ken;
Or like stout Cortez, when with eagle eyes
He stared at the Pacificand all his men
Looked at each other with a wild surmise
Silent upon a peak in Darien

John Keats
On First Looking into Chapmans Homer

Hegemony has been a central concept in mainstream thinking about international relations for more than two decades, although the evaluation of the concept has changed dramatically over that period. In the 1980s, the theoretical focus of interest was on how to maintain regimes in the face of the declining hegemonic influence of the United States. The dominant image at that time was of the United States operating as a benign hegemon, willing and able to establish and maintain a rule governed order in the first world. But it was also widely assumed in the 1980s that the balance of power was shifting in the West and that Europe and Japan were starting to challenge US hegemony. What would the world look like, after hegemony? With the ending of the Cold War and the demise of the Soviet Union this question was, of course, soon considered to be redundant and the interest of theorists re-focused on the world-wide implications of unipolarity and the putative emergence of the United States as a global hegemon. With the new millennium, when it began to appear as if the United States was moving in an increasingly unilateralist direction, the preoccupation with hegemony in the study of international relations expanded. Much of this debate shifted terms into the ongoing debate about whether the United States should be seen as an empire or not, and whether or not such a shift was desirable.