Exploring the Fall of US Global Dominance

POLITICAL SOCIOLOGY ESSAY: DISCUSS THE DECLINE OF THE US AS GLOBAL HEGEMONY

Introduction

Political apparatus across the world massively influences the dynamics of society by impacting the nature and extent of laws, regulations, and other political elements that influence everyday life. In this context, political sociology enables the evaluation of the interrelationship between political governance and society. Accordingly, this essay seeks to undertake a discussion on the subject of decline of the United States (US) as a Global Hegemony. The study first assesses the nature and role of nations that act as a global hegemony. Moreover, it explores the declining power of the US as a global hegemony and its implications for political sociology.

Discussion

The international political landscape features different nations vying for power, which leads to inequalities in the abilities of individual nations in terms of influencing global political dynamics. In this context, a nation can emerge as a global hegemony by increasing its power of influencing global aspects such as prevailing cultural, military, and economic standards or perceptions (Wullweber, 2019). A country that has become a global hegemony can widely influence global sociological aspects such as the perception of global citizens regarding the power of different nations. For instance, the US as a global hegemony has influenced social perceptions in a manner, which has made people think that the US is a hub of innovation and might. However, in-depth research reveals that centres of innovation reside in Europe, which is still the industrial hub of the world (Hervas-Oliver et al., 2021). Hence, it is easy to understand that the role of a global hegemony allows hegemons to inaccurately shape popular perceptions in their favour. This influencing power leads to people across the world perceiving global hegemony countries such as the US as being dominant in terms of culture, military, and economic aspects.

The emergence of a nation as a global hegemony is usually preceded by years of war that lead to the ruining of other countries that possess power and influence. The reduced power and influence of multiple nations can lead to the emergence of a single nation as a global hegemony. In the context of the US, World War II had resulted in the emergence of a bipolar world with the US and USSR (now Russia) as being the dominant countries that influence global politics (Edel and Brands, 2019). Moreover, the power rivalry led to decades of cold war that eventually ended with the dissolution of the USSR into multiple nations, and the US emerging as a global hegemony. Hence, it can be analysed that the rise of the US as a global hegemony resulted from its success during World War II and its subsequent rivalry for global political dominance.

The US had become a clear global hegemony without competition by 1991, after the dissolution of the USSR in the same year. However, the world witnessed a continuous fall in the geopolitical, military, financial, cultural, technological, social, and even healthcare power of the US since the 2000s. The start of the clear decline of the US as a global hegemony can be traced to the Financial Crisis of 2008, which was a result of the lacking regulations and carelessness of the US as a global economic centre (Wang and Sun, 2021). The crises laid bare the deep seated vulnerabilities within the economic systems of the US and the systemic failure in its economic and political leaders. Hence, it is clear that the fall of the US as a global hegemony started during the Financial Crisis of 2008 as it revealed the incapabilities of the US to the whole world.

The Financial Crisis of 2008 resulted in massive losses for people across the world, leading to a global issue that resulted in significant changes in the economic policies and strategy of most nations. On the other hand, the decline of the US as a global hegemony after this crisis resulted in a substantial sociological change in terms of shifting perception of people across the world. For instance, people knew that the economic regulations of the US were proven insufficient after the financial crisis, leading to growing doubts over the high dependence on the US Dollar, which is a global currency. The US Dollar as a global currency continues to reign supreme in global markets. However, the growth of other strong currencies such as Euro and Pound have led to a shifting of the economic power of the centre to European nations (Rogoff, 2021). Accordingly, political power has been split with multiple European nations such as the UK acting as economic centres. Hence, this change has influenced sociological elements such as popular perception and economic law away from the standards of the US.

The cultural aspect of global hegemony is another important factor that influences the ability of a nation to influence global political and sociological conditions. The US had dominated the world culturally by developing a mature entertainment industry and sending its films, shows, music, and art across the world (Nurhasanah and Dewi, 2019). It has led to the development of a perception of cultural superiority for the US among people across the world. However, contemporary times have resulted in the development of cultures of individual nations. Accordingly, the cultural global hegemony of the US has decreased as sociological change has happened that leads to the popularisation of local cultures (López, 2021). Hence, it can be analysed that another cause of the decline of the US as a global hegemony is due to the popularisation of different cultures across the world.

The popularisation of individual cultures in different nations have resulted in the development of a multipolar world, where no single culture is dominant on any other. It has impacted political sociology by lowering the superiority that people across the world associate with the cultural elements of the US. On the other hand, the popularisation of local cultures with the growth of cultural tourism indicates that ethnic cultures in different nations have become appealing to societies (Ruttenberg, 2022). Hence, it is clear that current cultural tourism has resulted in the growing popularity of cultures of nations other than the US that has led to its reduced power as a global hegemony.

The sociological dominance of the US as a military power is apparent from the wide adoption of the military procedures of the US by other nations. Military global hegemony of the US is a clear result of the success achieved by the country in the second world war and subsequent military rivalry with the USSR that helped it establish its global dominance. However, other countries such as China are continuously increasing their military power while the power of the US is declining (Lowy Institute, 2023). Hence, it is clear that despite the still higher military power of the US, China is rapidly catching up to it, which is likely to lead to a change of military power dominance in the world (Refer to the Appendix). In this context, the US is declining as a global hegemony rapidly with alternate poles of power emerging such as China. Thus, it can be analysed that the current societies are transforming towards a shifting balance of military power that can influence world peace.

World peace represents the state of maintaining peaceful relations among different nations and avoiding war through diplomatic solutions. In this context, the military is an important component that deters warfare due to negative consequences of engaging in full-blown wars for the involved countries. For instance, nuclear weapons of mass destruction have resulted in military deterrence as using these would lead to assured destruction of all involved nations (Arbatov, 2021). Accordingly, the number of nuclear weapons is representative of the militaristic hegemony of the nation. However, 9 countries have nuclear weapons today with the majority being with Russia followed by the US, China, and France (ICAN, 2023). Thus, militaristic hegemony no longer features the US as the dominant nation as Russia has more nuclear warheads with China rapidly increasing its reserves.

The sociological perspectives around the world have been significantly impacted by the fall of the US as a global hegemony. For instance, the appeal of the US as a leader in education has declined substantially since 2017 as the number of international students decreased from 1090 thousand in 2017 to almost 948 thousand in 2021 (Statista, 2023). Therefore, the perception of societies has changed towards a reduced favourable perception of the US as an attractive destination for educational pursuits. Similarly, it can be observed that the positive perception of the US as a centre of politics and economy has reduced among the perception of contemporary societies. In this context, it is clear the power of the US as a global hegemony has consistently decreased during the last few decades with other nations emerging as superior in the world in different areas. For example, Denmark, Finland, and New Zealand are the most corruption free countries in the world with the US being at the 67th rank (Transparency International, 2023). Thus, the US is not a political hegemony due to its lacking political structures that are highly vulnerable to corruption.

The reducing global hegemony of the US has resulted in a differentiated growth of popularity of different nations, with other countries taking prime spots as favoured destinations for touring. For instance, Tokyo in Japan is the most popular tourist destination with over 8,800 cultural attractions followed by Paris and London while New York in the US is 4th with only over 2,100 cultural attractions (Statista, 2021). Hence, it can be analysed that the cultural dominance of the US as a global hegemony has receded massively to give room to culturally superior nations such as Japan to become prime tourism destinations (Refer to the Appendix). On the other hand, contemporary global events also indicate the impact of the lowering power of the US as a global hegemony. For example, the current Russia-Ukraine war started as a backlash by Russia against the US’s efforts to influence Ukraine to join its global military alliance named NATO (Kirby, 2023). Therefore, this global event indicates the low level of militaristic dominance of the US as it has been unable to deter Russia from taking a direct warring approach to stop the proceedings.

The decline of the influencing power of the US is a direct result of its reduced role as a global hegemony. According to the Pluralist theory, the rise of alternative centres of power is a critical component that bars any single entity from becoming all-powerful (Linsenmaier, Schmidt, and Spandler, 2021). Hence, the rise of the US as global hegemony was the result of the lack of any alternative centre of power after the fall of the USSR. Similarly, the current fall of the US as global hegemony is a result of the emergence of alternative centres of power. In this context, it is clear that the rise of China as a political and military leader due to its massive economic growth has made it an alternative centre of power against the US. Accordingly, the trade war of 2019 between the US and China was a result of the hegemonistic tendencies of the US to punish China for not complying with its desired changes to achieve fair trade (The Guardian, 2019). However, unlike the usual consequence of a hegemonistic action, China replied to the tariffs imposed by the US with its own tariffs, indicating an equal sense of economic power. Hence, the trade war is a critical portrayal of the impact of the lowering of the US global hegemony.

Conclusion

From the above study, it has been concluded that contemporary times have witnessed the lowering of the US global hegemony. The global hegemony of the US has decreased on economic, military, and cultural aspects due to the rise of other nations in these areas such as China and Japan. Additionally, the impact of this loss of global hegemony of the US is the emergence of alternative centres of power such as China. It has been analysed that the recent Russia-Ukraine war and US-China trade war represent the fall of the US global hegemony as these events indicate the decreased ability of the US to influence global events.

Reference List

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Statista (2023) Number of international students in the United States from 2003/04 to 2021/22. Available at: https://www.statista.com/statistics/237681/international-students-in-the-us/ (Accessed: 15 June 2023)

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Appendix

Figure 1: Military Power of countries

(Source: Lowy Institute, 2023)

Figure 2: Leading cities ranked by number of cultural attractions worldwide

(Source: Statista, 2021)