and security order, particularly through the notion of hegemonic wars in the work
of Robert Gilpin.^58
HST’s core proposition is that ‘hegemonic structures of power, dominated by a
single country, are most conducive to the development of strong international
regimes whose rules are relatively precise and well obeyed’.^59 HST undoubtedly
starts from the concentration of power. This was most readily discernible in the
interest shown in any putative American decline, as likely to impact adversely on
future stability, because ‘as the distribution of tangible resources... becomes more
equal, international regimes should weaken’.^60 However, although HST starts from
material distributions of power, it does not end exclusively there. The concentration
of power is necessary, but not sufficient. Intrinsic to it is that the hegemon ‘is
recognized by others as having special rights and duties’.^61 Gilpin himself had insisted
that ‘hegemony... is based on a general belief in its legitimacy’.^62 What this suggests
is that legitimacy-based and hegemony-based theories of stability are not as radically
opposed as their initial assumptions about preferable distributions of power. Indeed,
if both were valid, we might conclude that legitimacy has the potential to trump
anyspecific balance of power.
This then confronts directly the relationship between legitimacy and hegemony.
For much social science, the idea of hegemony already embraces that of legitimacy.
‘The concept of hegemony’, it is typically observed, ‘is normally understood
as emphasising consent in contrast to reliance on the use of force’.^63 For example,
while acknowledging that HST ‘defines hegemony as preponderance of material
resources’, Keohane had been mindful also that theories of hegemony needed to
‘explore why secondary states defer to the leadership of the hegemon. That is, they
need to account for the legitimacy of hegemonic regimes’.^64 Others too restrict the
term hegemony only to a situation where a substantial element of legitimacy is
present.^65 Does hegemony then hold any possible attraction for the anarchical
society?
History and hegemony
In practice, one historical version was to construct a ‘collective hegemony’, as in
the European Concert, as a de facto way of combining both concentration and
dispersal at the same time.^66 Analytically, in a collective hegemony, two separate
axes of legitimacy come into play. The first is between the great powers collectively,
on the one hand, and the remainder of the states, on the other: it is for the smaller
states to bestow recognition, with regard to the responsibility that the great powers
will exercise on behalf of international society as a whole. What this conceals,
however, is the important second axis to be found in the mutual relations amongst
the great powers: if they are to accept their collective rights and duties, they must
agree also upon norms for their joint exercise. There is, therefore, along with the
verticalaxis between the great powers and the remainder of international society (the
putative expression of incipient hierarchy), simultaneously also a horizontalaxis
amongst the great powers (the putative expression of continuing anarchy). The
278 How hierarchical can international society be?