Revisiting the fallacies in Hegemonic Stability Theory in light of the 2007–2008 crisis: the theory’s hollow conceptualization of hegemony

Abstract

In light of the renewed popularity of Hegemonic Stability Theory (HST) in the context of governance debates in the aftermath of the 2007–2008 crisis, this paper revisits, from a conceptual angle, the shaky basis upon which the theory draws a causal link between hegemony and stability. The paper is a critique of HST as a theory of hegemony that contains an underdeveloped concept of hegemony only defined ex post, highlighting that it is precisely this hollow conceptualization that has allowed for the perceived compatibility between US power and stability at a point in time (the Bretton Woods years) to be erroneously generalized into a causal relationship. The paper also shows, via the example of Germany in the European Economic and Monetary Union (EMU), how inattention to the conceptual content of HST has permitted the heedless extension of a problematic understanding of hegemony through stability to cases of regional hegemony.