Mitrofanova A.V. Cold war and international relations in the post-bipolar world in the light of hegemonic stability theory. RSUH

Abstract

According to the hegemonic stability theory (HST), the change of world orders takes place as a result of wars for world leadership. Immediately after the end of such wars, world order becomes temporarily stable. Then the hegemonic power erodes; the “phase of challenge” comes when the other world powers start making plans about replacing the hegemon. At this stage a multipolar world political system emerges, consisting of the hegemon and its challengers who wage the next world war. HST suggests that in 1945 the USA became the world hegemon and the USSR played the role of its rival. The war for world leadership became “cold” due to both parties having nuclear weapons. The article suggests that the USSR – US confrontation was not so much geopolitical, as ideological. This fact made impossible a “normal” hegemonic competition of the superpowers. The 1945–1991 system was not hegemonic in the full sense. It was a pseudo-bipolar system (“pseudo” – because there was no mutual dependence between the capitalist and the socialist camps): the USA was an unequivocal hegemon for the capitalist part; the socialist part, headed by the USSR, has never participated in the geopolitical struggle for world leadership.