Leading by example or extortion?: US leadership role transition and the non-proliferation regime
This chapter addresses the question of US hegemonic transition under the current Trump administration via an assessment of America’s international leadership role. Leadership roles are an essential element of international orders, particularly hegemonic orders such as the liberal international order...
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| Format: | Chapter/Article |
| Language: | English |
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17 August 2021
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| In: |
Hegemonic transition
Year: 2021, Pages: 125-146 |
| DOI: | 10.1007/978-3-030-74505-9_7 |
| Online Access: | Resolving-System, lizenzpflichtig, Volltext: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-74505-9_7 Verlag, lizenzpflichtig, Volltext: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-74505-9_7 
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| Author Notes: | Gordon M. Friedrichs |
| Summary: | This chapter addresses the question of US hegemonic transition under the current Trump administration via an assessment of America’s international leadership role. Leadership roles are an essential element of international orders, particularly hegemonic orders such as the liberal international order. By employing a role theoretical approach, I argue that leadership roles provide hegemony with agency and require consensual followers to stabilize inter-state orders and overcome situations of uncertainty, such as power asymmetries or international crises. By looking at changes to US leadership role-taking and counter-roles by followers, I examine role transition and changes to the material and ideational underpinnings of the liberal international order that occur despite continuous stability of US hegemony. The paper is structured as follows: First, I introduce the concept of international leadership roles to the scholarship on hegemonic stability and transition, and develop four distinct ideal types of leader-follower constellations in international politics. Second, I briefly discuss two key mechanisms at work that facilitate or prevent leadership role transition, i.e., mimicking and alter-casting. In a third step, I apply a plausibility probe of US leadership role transition to the case of the Iran nuclear crisis. Nuclear proliferation is a particular interesting policy area because leadership changes do not correspond with changes to the material asymmetry of US hegemonic order. The empirical analysis suggests that role transition is usually preceded by role conflict but only consequential for inter-state orders when both leader and followers choose new roles for themselves in response. |
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| Item Description: | Gesehen am 20.10.2025 |
| Physical Description: | Online Resource |
| ISBN: | 9783030745059 |
| DOI: | 10.1007/978-3-030-74505-9_7 |