Realism and World Politics

dimensions of power becoming squeezed out. Once we bring them back in, the
interesting puzzle is how a legitimate order, normally associated with consensus
amongst a number of states in relative equilibrium, might possibly be replicated in
conditions of US predominance. Legitimacy and hegemony, it then transpires, have
much more in common with each other, despite their opposed preferences about
distributions of power, and both invite reflections on our ‘anarchical’ understanding
of international society.

Anarchy and hierarchy in international society

This section traces a series of linkages between its principal concepts: anarchy,
hierarchy, and hegemony. Its ultimate question is about the compatibility of
hegemony and international society. To get there, we need to pose intermediate
questions about the compatibility of hierarchy with international society, and
whether hegemony – if it is indeed a form of hierarchy (and not anarchy) – is beyond
international society’s pale. In Dunne’s words, ‘how far is an international society
composed of a plurality of sovereign states compatible with hierarchy?’^21
Dunne had given voice to the worry that trends in the early 2000s might portend
a form of hierarchy that would threaten international society. While acknowledging
that ‘the sovereign states system has historically admitted many formal and informal
hierarchies’, he remained concerned that recent developments might have a more
disruptive significance.^22 One way of expressing this is that he feared a US-imposed
hierarchy might be emerging exogenously to threaten international society from the
outside. The alternative perspective addressed here is whether a legitimate
hegemony could be developed endogenously from the inside, and without such
‘anti-social’ implications.
It is at this point that English School theory confronts Waltz’s world, and the first
encounter actually suggests considerable potential compatibility. This emerges very
clearly in Waltz’s identification of one tendency in international politics:

The smaller the group, and the less equal the interests of its members, the

likelier it becomes that some members – the larger ones – will act for the

group’s interest, as they define it, and not just for their own. The greater the

relative size of a unit the more it identifies its own interest with the interest

of the system... in any realm populated by units that are functionally similar

but of different capability, those of greatest capability take on special

responsibilities...^23

The theme of the ‘special responsibilities’ of the great powers is pervasive in the
literature on international society. Just as interesting is Waltz’s account of the
underlying logic seemingly at work:

The smaller the number of great powers, and the wider the disparities between

the few most powerful states and the many others, the more likely the former

274 How hierarchical can international society be?