Making the world safe for power transition - Towards a conceptual combination of power transition theory and hegemony theory

The aim of this paper is to establish a political framework to mitigate the crisis propensity of power transitions in the international system. One approach that focuses on this phenomenon is Power Transition Theory, which warns that situations in which rising powers approach a (declining) hegemon often escalate into conflict or war. Specifically unsatisfied rising powers are expected to come into conflict with the dominant power and each other. Power Transition Theory, however, has only a limited view on the structure of the international order. It overlooks the possibility of ruling the system by consensus rather than by coercion, highlighted by Liberal Hegemony Theory. Merging Power Transition Theory with liberal Hegemony Theory can reveal previously hidden opportunities to manage peaceful power transitions. In the light of the prolonged economic growth of countries like China and India this finding might prove to be crucial for the thinking of future world-order-governance politics. In recent years two strands of literature, both dealing with the importance of the international power configuration, have gained increasing prominence. On the one hand the fact of continued unipolarity motivated a renewed interest in the role of the United States as the world’s largest power (Ferguson 2003; Florig 2010; Ikenberry 1999; Layne 2009; Hansen 2011; Brooks and Wohlforth, 2008). This strand of literature invokes notions of empire, as well as notions of hegemony and sometimes mixes both to an extent that leaves both concepts as meaningless shells (Prys and Robel 2011; Herborth and Wurm 2008; Nexon and Wright 2007). The important thing, however, that unites this unipolarity-debate is that the United States is expected to maintain or even expand its extraordinaire position as ‘primus inter pares’ (Wallerstein 1984: 38). If we follow this line of thought, unipolarity, whichever form it may take, is here to stay and will influence international politics accordingly.