ABSTRACT
This chapter provides an investigation into the theoretical approaches of International Relations, in which the contemporary debate over power shifts in the global structure and its consequences for political leadership may be placed. Studies of international cooperation in general and multilateral negotiations in particular reveal that leadership is a crucial determinant of success or failure in efforts to address complex problems, reaching international agreements and establishing international institutions. In the 1990s Oran Young applied the concept of leadership to the study of international regimes. According to this view, leadership “refers to the actions of individuals who endeavor to solve or circumvent the collective action problems that plague the efforts of parties seeking to reap joint gains in processes of institutional bargaining”. The school of realism makes leadership one of its prominent topics in the most acclaimed of the theories constructed within this field, which however replaces world leadership with “hegemony”.
