ABSTRACT
The concept of hegemony, or global dominance, has been debated for decades among scholars and across academic disciplines. There is little agreement as to the meaning of this term and there have been few efforts to quantify it. This research attempts to accomplish both. I will argue two basic points. First, that global hegemony is comprised of two essential components, economic power and coercive (military) power. Second, I will argue that coercive power is best understood as a characteristic of nation-states, while economic power is a function of transnational corporations. I follow this theoretical discussion with a quantification of these concepts from 1970 to 2000, identifying both a taxonomy and a hierarchy of nation-state power. This work will, hopefully, contribute to the current debate concerning the current and future position of the United States in the world economy.
