the United States created additional international institutions and supported existing
ones, even though partly with less vigour than in the preceding era. These insti-
tutions can be understood as the material representation of socialisation and
cooperation, and they served for stabilising US hegemony. Therefore, by the
positive efforts of the hegemon, ideational and material ‘facts’ were created which
transformed the logic of interaction in the direction of coordination and coop-
eration. Tit-for-tat still applied internationally, but was biased towards more positive
interaction. The tendency towards equilibrium was thought to be satisfied by direct
interaction and cooperation among unequal partners (as opposed to indirect
competitive interaction, as in balancing).^58 This particular idea of ‘equilibrium by
cooperation’ essentially reduced the urge for explicit policies of balancing.
However, as the notion of ‘overstretch’ implies,^59 with time the hegemon can
become overly entangled in its own institutions, in the demands of others, and in
over-exercising its own ideology. It starts to suffer under its own leadership, in
subjective or objective terms. It can now calculate its still-existing potential for
‘freedom of action’, depending on its overarching capabilities. It therefore can
choose to stop engaging in altruistically cooperative, socialising behaviour and start
to ‘free ride’ within its self-created system. Furthermore, integration under hege-
mony does not necessarily lead factually and materially to more international
equilibrium. As mentioned before, this is essentially an idea on which hegemony is
based and which has to actively be realised in material terms. If it is not, then this
might promote increasing international and global resentment and frustration with
this constellation. Both failures of hegemony can result finally in erosion of the
hegemon’s legitimacy and of the ‘ideological glue’ on which cooperation depends.
The process by which anarchy matures is endangered, and a possible outcome is that
the world of states falls back into self-help anarchy and balancing, with the formation
of counter-power towards the former hegemon. Only the institutions created in the
Cold War and after under hegemony – even if their creator, the hegemon, defects
- can then serve as material stabilising factors leading to continuity.^60 As formalised
cooperation forums, these institutions maintain cooperation even in the absence of
a strong supporting state acting as the hegemon.
After 9/11, the United States, under the presidency of George W. Bush, acted
in a highly self-regarding and non-cooperative fashion, abandoning international
institutions and even refuting elements of internationally shared norms and laws
which it had helped to create.^61 Also, around the turn of the millennia it became
increasingly obvious that the tendency towards material equilibrium remained
merely dormant in the global realm, between as well as within states.^62 Both pro-
cesses resulted in a decline of the hegemon’s international legitimacy,^63 and in the
reduction of the strength of those ‘social bonds’ that tied other nations to the United
States. In response to this, the ideas and actions of many states formerly submerged
in hegemony changed.^64 The European Union, for example, started to ‘soft balance’
against the United States in the wake of the Operation Iraqi Freedom. India, Russia
and China were deliberating on increased cooperation between them and possibly
against the United States, to replace a non-benign unipolarity with multi-polarity.^65
Hegemony, equilibrium and counterpower 239