ABSTRACT
Shortly after the end of the Cold War, Francis Fukuyama argued for the victory of liberal democracy (Fukuyama 1992). The competing Soviet model had failed, and the number of democracies around the world was reaching a historically high number. His thesis was opposed by Samuel Huntington, who foresaw a ‘clash of civilizations’ between different cultures and their ideologies (Huntington 1993). These two theses represent very different perceptions of what it is like to live in the post-bipolar world. This chapter argues that the current world order most likely favours the further spread of democracy and that it is likely that it will develop into an inclusive order facing small but radical opposition. The political project of a lone superpower becomes particularly important to leadership and the shaping of the conditions of competition. The project itself tends to become inclusive, while competing projects are prone to becoming either absorbed or marginalized. In the current world order, the US project has been clearly defined in terms of democracy and the free market, and its leadership points towards further democratization at the global level. Leadership is essential: ‘If the leading power does not lead, the others cannot follow’, Waltz wrote in his concluding remarks to Theory of International Politics (Waltz 1979: 210) while addressing the need for international problem solving. Problem solving is difficult in an anarchically organized system, though not impossible. As argued in Chapter 4, the actor with the greatest stakes and greatest incentive to manage in a unipolar system is the superpower. Furthermore, in contemporary global politics, US leadership serves as the nodal point for attention. When the US president delivers his State of the Union Address, the audience is, in principle, found in all countries. In the following, it is explored and discussed how the world order interacts with the single superpower’s leadership efforts and its management; the postCold War US project is described with emphasis on the democratic dimension; and finally, alternative projects and their respective effects on the stability of the system are discussed.
