1. Game of United Nations – an
Update to the Hegemon stability theory
Peter Wirthumer
Abstract
The days of the United States as global hegemon are numbered. The hegemonic stability theory predicts
chaos in an international system without a strong leader. In the multi-polar world of today, it is unlikely
that any single country or region gains enough influence, power and resources to become hegemonic.
International Organizations, spearheaded by the United Nations, may be able to take this position and
provide global stability. In theory, determinants for stability like global peace and security, human rights
as well as economic development are among the core issues. In reality, several bumps along the road
arise, such as states failing to live up to their commitments, structural issues from the very beginning and
bad luck while trying to do well. This essay discusses the decline of the United States as hegemon, the
hegemonic stability theory, the multi-polar political landscape and the ability of the United Nations to
become hegemonic.

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Peter Wirthumer 2
Game of United Nations – an Update to the Hegemon stability theory
Introduction
The days as world hegemon for the United States are counted. To use the popular metaphor from Game
of Thrones, “the Iron Throne has lost its influence over the Seven Kingdoms”. The inability to pay its bills
combined with a federal government shutdown are not the characteristics of a world leader. The capital
markets no longer treat US treasuries as risk-free, investors have sold billions of dollars of short-term
treasuriesi
and rating agencies have put the US on their negative watch listii
. Several countries around
the world, especially Asian countries, seek to decrease dependency on the greenbackiii
. The political two-
party system has led to several deadlock situations through a division of the houses and extremely
polarized party lines, making big reforms often difficultiv
. Putin’s proposition on how to deal with Syria’s
arsenal of chemical weapons was accepted by the Security Council, rejecting Obama’s aggressive war
intentionsv
. Recent events in Egypt have shown that democracy is not the most suitable form of
governance for every countryvi
. Mediation efforts by numerous US diplomats to find a solution to the
Israel - Palestine conflict have been in vainvii
. Germany’s chancellor Angela Merkel refused to support the
US-led aggressions in Libya in 2007viii
. Earlier problems of the United States doctrines were the dot.com
bubble or far earlier the Oil Shock of the 70s and the end of the Bretton Woods system. The list could be
continued much further. All these events are symptoms of the fact that the United States is not the
hegemon anymore it once was.
The question arises, what will the future look like? While this question can be approached from various
sides, I will use the theory of hegemon stability by Robert Keohane, Kindleberger and othersix
. It
hypothesizes that a world hegemon provides stability to the world and therefore leads to favorable
outcomes for all states in the international system – which need not be global. In contrast, in a time
without a hegemon, the international system would crumble. Similarly the fantasy universe of Game of
Thrones crumbled after the respected King Robert Baratheon died. All kingdoms respected him and
therefore it would be valid to call him a hegemon, providing stability to the world at hand. His successor
Joffrey is not nearly as respected, especially as his very right to be king is doubted. Tensions arise, wars
start, and economies collapse. Applying this concept to our situation today, the prospects of the future
would look dim.
However, the world looks quite different than in the last quarter of the 20th
century, when this theory
was established. The bipolar world from after the Second World War is no more. The United States
emerged as the sole superpower, a position which is crumbling. As the king is dying, several “kingdoms”
strive for world leadership. I hereby think of the past hegemon – the United States – followed by a region
of developed countries – the European Union – and further major players like China and regions like
Latin America or Southeast Asia. One could also include Russia, India and Sub-Saharan Africa into the
equation; the latter are of course long-term candidates. Note that all of them have different
characteristics, just like the Seven Kingdoms on the continent of Westeros in Game of Thrones. For
example, Robb Stark unites several Lords, Tywin Lannister has incredible amounts of wealth, Stannis the
strongest navy and Daenerys is the mother of dragons. In reality, the United States and the countries of
the European Union are still the most prosperous countries, without whose consumer demand most
other economies would fall like an apple from a tree. China has the largest population and therefore

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Peter Wirthumer 3
huge man-power potential. Russia and Sub-Saharan Africa have enormous untapped resources, yet to be
extracted and utilized.
However, the question should not be who will win battle after battle and finally sit on the Iron Throne.
Instead one should ask the following questions instead: Who can violent battles be avoided and who
should become king?
After arguably the most devastating years the Earth has ever seen up to 1945, visionary leaders from
around the globe came together to prevent such years from ever happening again. These efforts
happened before, for example with the creation of the “League of Nations” after the First World War.
After the Second World War, the United Nations and further International Organizations were created as
worldwide, supranational institutions. In theory, leaders of all nations come together to discuss pressing
and visionary issues at these institutions, in order to shape a better future.
Are these organizations, spearheaded by the “United Nations” (UN) able to address the major challenges
of our time? On the one hand, the United Nations are highly effective in improving poverty rates,
assuring access to basic education and coordinating peacekeeping missions. On the other hand, on big
issues like climate change, Iran’s nuclear policy, and the Arab spring, the UN does not have such a good
record. The latter is about to become an Arab Winter. And when winter is coming, it can be too late for
the kingdoms to unite.
This essay is split into five sections. Following this introduction, I will give a brief explanation of the
hegemon theory by Krasner. This also includes a brief historical overview of the recent past evaluating
how the US was the hegemon and at what points crack appeared in the hull. Third I will present a bird’s
eye view on the world’s political landscape. Fourth, I will evaluate the role of International Organizations,
in particular the United Nations. Finally, a conclusion will be provided.
The hegemonic stability theory
The world economy can prosper and grow, if there is a hegemon providing stability to the international
system. This is the main hypothesis of the hegemon stability theory. At the time of the creation of this
theory, the United States was in full ascendancy as hegemon. This theory, evaluated by Michael C. Webb
and Stephen D. Krasnerx
, Barry Eichengreenxi
and others, applies to more than a century of history, and
perhaps even farther into the past. Early episodes are for example the Persian, Greek and the Roman
Empire, the Chinese Ming Dynasty or Genghis Khan and his Pax Mongoliaxii
. During these episodes, most
of the known world was dominated by a hegemon and prosperity, culture and wealth arose. In contrast,
during the medieval times – also known as the Dark Ages – Europe was in even worse shape than
Westeros after the death of Robert Baratheon. When the United Kingdom became the world hegemon in
the 19th
century, stability arose all over the world, trade surged and prosperity emerged in most
countries – unfortunately to the detriment of others. After the First World War, the former hegemon,
the United Kingdom, was weakened while the world still looked up to its leadership, its economic power
and its currency. All three expectations, among others, proved wrong and the world fell into what is now
known as the “Great Depression”. This economic disaster led to the Second World War, where two
strong forces emerged. For approximately four decades, it was the United States of America against the
Soviet Union. Almost everything was different in these opposing countries – from human rights to

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Peter Wirthumer 4
economic ideals and political structures. In 1989 and the following years, the United States emerged as
winner from the Cold War and proved itself as world leader and true hegemon. Under its leadership,
world stability arose, trade surged and many countries around the world profited from the seemingly
endless biggest consumer market.
As explained above, recent events show that this role of the United States is about to end. Numerous
political, economic, and social events and developments undermine the hegemonic position. For the
sake of brevity, I will only mention one example of each. The political doctrine, that democracy is the
best form of governance and suitable for any country, regardless of state of development, social
structures or economic power distribution, has been proven wrong several times. The latest devastating
episode occurred in Egypt, where the Arab spring is about to turn into an Arab winter as mentioned
abovexiii
. Economically, the lessons taught by the Washington consensus as well as the financial
liberalization of the early 21st
century have proven devastating. Several emerging economies adopting
these policies fell into devastating crisisxiv
. The world as a whole experienced the most severe recession
since the Great Depression and currently, there is no light at the end of the tunnel to be seen. On the
social sphere, even Fukuyama repealed his own thesis that “The American Dream is the End of the
History” in 1999 after just 10 yearsxv
. Webb and Krasnerx
also mention the importance of military and
technological leadership as important for the world hegemon. Granted, in these areas, the United States
is still the undisputed leader. In military expenditures, the United States is second only to United Arab
Emirates and spent $2,141 per capita in 2009 and has the highest share of military expenditure to GDP
with 4.4% in any developed country, according to the SIPRI Military Expenditure Databasexvi
. In 2010,
American companies were second in patent applications behind Japan, but have still twice as much as
China, which is third. In total, the United States had 50% more patents in force than even Japan in 2008,
who ranks secondxvii
. Its researchers receive the most Nobel prizes, almost three times as many as the
United Kingdom, which is ranked secondxviii
. However, as the budget gets cut like hay in the fall, nobody
knows how the situation will look like in a decade or two.
It should be noted that, as any political theory, the hegemon stability theory is not without critic. Most
notable is probable the article of Duncan Snidal “The limits of hegemonic stability theory” in 1985, where
he argues that “the range of the theory is limited to very special conditions”xix
. A thorough discussion
about the theory’s limitations is however beyond the scope of this paper and the interested reader may
be referred to the extensive literature.
The world’s political landscape – a multipolar world
There are several kingdoms striving for the throne, yet some are much more powerful than others.
Looking at three very strong houses, the political power distributions could be understood more easily.
The Lannisters hold on to their fading power as past hegemon, like the United States does. Robb Stark
united various lords, like the European Union united its countries. Uniting was the first step, but it is
even harder – like for Robb – trying to hold them together. Across the narrow sea, which can be taken as
a rather wide Pacific, the Chinese Dragon grows and an ancient dynasty is about to regain its position as
the most advanced civilization, like the Targaryen dynasty led by Daenerys and her dragons. The world’s
largest country in geographic size – the Russian Federation – obviously cannot be forgotten either. As
mentioned above, other kingdoms are likely to play important roles as well in the future. At the time of

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Peter Wirthumer 5
writing, however, Sub-Saharan Africa for example is more an arm wrestling table for the United States
against China than a potential world leader.
This arm wrestling table is also very insightful in illustrating differences between the two opposites.
Candidate number one, in the red-white striped shirt with many white stars on blue, aims to gain
influence under the banner of official development aid. Various conditions like human rights, democracy
and trade access are connected to this form of aid. Trade access for the first candidate implies trade
restrictions for the second, the Candidate with the red shirt and one big and four small yellow stars.
However, China’s investment principles are very simple, without disguised demands for political
influence. It comes down to “I give you money, you give me what I want” and sometimes even “don’t
worry about how to do it; I bring my own labor” as in several resource-extraction and infrastructure
projects. A discussion about the advantages and disadvantages of each form of investment is beyond the
scope of this paper. However, it led to skyrocketing Chinese Foreign Direct Investment in Sub-Saharan
African in the last decadexx
.
A recent arm-wrestling also occurred between the United States and its historic rival – the Russian
Federation. For about 2 years, the world looked at the Syrian uprising without taking action. In late
August 2013, the use of chemical weapons of Assad’s regime was confirmed by an UN Reportxxi
. As such
weapons are forbidden by international treaties, the United States felt obliged to intervene. Considering
an unsatisfactory war record in the Middle East, an empty wallet and angry voters, the President waved
the flag and cried for battle, but waited for Congress to carry it. Congress was obviously not going to
support it but didn’t get the chance to vote on it anyway. Putin seeing a chance of limiting US
imperialism, proposed not to escalate the situation but to seize Assad’s chemical weapons stockpile. The
Resolution 2118 (2013), as proposed by the Russian Federation, was accepted by the Security Council on
September 27th
2013xxii
. Russia won this arm wrestling contest and the president of the United States had
to go home with a black eye but his face was saved – he spoke in favor of human rights and “fair
warfare” as expected from the American president.
Sidelined for all of this is an observer, who sometimes tries to intervene, the European Union. On the
one hand this common market had the largest accumulated gross domestic production in 2012xxiii
. On
the other hand, it has too many troubles at home to stretch for the Throne. The people at the wrestling
table have more than enough troubles as well, but as they are one country, they are, for the most part,
able to take care of such troubles (or ignore them temporarily) and look outward at the same time.
National problems and opposing views of countries within the European Union make effective foreign
policy difficult and limit the resources attributed to issues in the rest of the World. Nevertheless, the
European Union can play an important role in being a referee to the wrestling competition and counter-
balance if any competitor gets the upper hand.
As can be seen, the kingdoms have very different abilities and interests while stretching for the Iron
Throne. None is currently in the shape for absolute dominance, nor does the international community
officially aspire to have such a leader.

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A new type of king – International Organizations
After the Second World War, world leaders united to avoid a repetition of the prior years. International
organizations (IOs) have been founded. The most important nowadays are the World Trade
Organization, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, just to name three. The overarching
institution, however, is the United Nations, who could be consequently considered the potential king.
Basic principles in all IOs are similar. While the role of each single one is highly important and often also
controversial, I will focus on the United Nations for sake of simplicity and the ultimate purpose of the
analysis.
At these organizations, every nation has a seat. Here the democratic principle “One nation, one vote”
really applies. Whether it’s the world’s largest economy, the world’s most populous country or a small
island state in the Pacific with 20,000 inhabitants – their voices are equally heard.
The question arises whether the UN has what is necessary to become the king. To be a good king, the
most important factors according to one article are great swordsmanship in battle, fairness and
truthfulnessxxiv
. Let’s look at these medieval leadership traits into modern days. Great swordsmanship in
battle stands for strength, power and ability to deal with all kinds of problems. Fairness is one of the
basic principles of democracy as well as human rights. Truthfulness withstands the test of time; however
I want to extend this concept to integrity and especially the principle: “Walk what you talk”.
To analyze these three characteristics, I will split the following section into three parts. First, to evaluate
the UN’s strength and ability to deal with different problems, I will cover issues discussed in the United
Nations, in particular climate change. A brief history of negotiations and their development will be
presented. Second, to pay tribute to fairness and its implications for democracy within the UN, I will shed
some light on interesting alliances like the European Union or the Alliance of Small Island States. The
latter is a group of negligible countries in GDP and most measures, but highly relevant as voting group.
Third, attributable to fairness as well as truthfulness and integrity, I will mention institutional problems
that occurred in the almost 70-year old concept, in particular the Veto powers in the Security Council. At
the end of the section, I will conclude the prior analysis and evaluate whether the United Nations has the
potential to be a good king providing global stability to the international system.
The king’s council picks up any relevant issue with respect to the subsidiary principle, regardless of the
specific topic. A list of 30 Global Issues can be found onlinexxv
, the three most popular probably being
Climate Change, Peace and Security and Human Rights. For illustration of how the UN works and – how it
both succeeded and failed in some sense – I will look at the history of Climate Changexxvi
. The first major
success occurred at the third United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in
Kyoto, Japan. The reduction of greenhouse gases, emission trading and clean development mechanism
were core subjects of the Kyoto Protocol. Most countries signed up; only one failed to ratify. The
protocol to be ratified by the US Congress, sending a clear sign to the world that even the President’s
word to the International Community couldn’t be relied on. In 2001, the protocol was officially rejected
by the Bush administration. Other important countries, like Canadaxxvii
and Russiaxxviii
exited the Kyoto
Protocol in 2012. Over 100 developing countries, including China and India were exempted from the very
beginning. In summary, countries issuing accumulated more than 70%, of the world’s greenhouse gases,
according to 2008 numbers by EPAxxix
, are either exempt from or not part anymore of the Kyoto Protocol.

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Peter Wirthumer 7
Most of the relevant countries still committed to a reduction, are the European Union and like-minded
countries like Norway and Switzerland.
Overall, the United Nations were able to unite all major countries on this important topic; however it
failed to make them hold on to the achievement of the same. It should be noted that Climate Change is a
quite young topic and the negotiations are extraordinary difficult, as many strong and influential
interests oppose the implications of for example the Kyoto protocol. In contrast, by mid-2012, three out
of the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) have been met: The reduction of poverty and slums
and improvement of access to clean water. Further goals, specifically the fight against malaria and
tuberculosis, primary education as well as maternal health are within reachxxx
. The UN is on track to
establish clear Post-2015 Development goals for the next medium term. The swordsmanship is not as
bad as it once looked.
A strong player in the world, already mentioned a few times, is the European Union. Their members
alone represent 27 votes and therefore 14% of the total. Their economic weight is even more important
as they provide 38% of the general UN budget, about 40% of the peacekeeping budget and even 56% of
Global Development aidxxxi
. A similar voting alliance, yet with a very different structure, needs and
economic power is the cooperation “Alliance of Small Island States” (AOSIS). At the time of the writing,
the Alliance unites 37 countries, which are members of the UN, and therefore has almost one fifth of the
UN’s total voting power. This gives it considerable power on their issues and also leverage on diplomatic
relations and bilateral or small multilateral agreements.
Giving power to the weak is for sure a principle of fairness. Equally democracy and human rights are
highly respected, cherished and lived within the UN. For the sake of brevity, a further discussion will be
omitted.
Also most of these countries, which are members of AOSIS, were not even sovereign states at the time of
the creation of the United Nations. The original 51 countries represented mainly developed countries
and their former colonies, most becoming independent only a few years before (like India)xxxii
. Obviously
the world leaders of that time had an advantage in crafting the constitution, which can be considered
unfair. This advantage is most obvious in the position of the five veto powers of the United Nations
Security Council: China, France, Russia, United Kingdom and the United States. This is problematic for
three reasons. First it cripples the democratic principle of the United Nations. Second, deadlocks can
easily arise as recently happened in the Syria case. If the General Assembly would not have convened
around the same time, things could have become much more problematic. Third, the nations with the
veto powers don’t even represent the strongest countries in the world. Strength is of course a vague
term; for the sake of simplicity I will compare gross domestic production (GDP). According to UN data
from 2011, the five strongest economies are the United States, China, Japan, Germany and France in this
orderxxxiii
. As you can see, two of them are not veto powers in the UN. When comparing gross domestic
production by purchasing power parity (GDP (PPP)), France gets even replaced by India. The veto powers
United Kingdom and Russia rank 6 and 8 in nominal GDP and 8 and 6 in GDP (PPP), respectively. The
question arises, why should these countries still have these privileges? Pushing it further, why should
anybody have the privilege of being a veto power in arguably one of the world’s most important panels,

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Peter Wirthumer 8
in an organization that preaches democracy? Shouldn’t the world leader follow the principle “Walk what
you talk!” in all its actions and especially its voting principles and the very charter?
Another case where the UN fails to “walk what it talks” recently occurred in relation to the peacekeeping
mission in Haiti and the emergence of Cholera. The United Nations refuse to be held accountable, even
though its own reports have indicated that the Cholera was brought by peacekeeping staff after the
tsunami in 2004. This is especially critical as accountability is a major topic in the Post-2015 Development
Goals. If the UN fails to find a meaningful solution which satisfies all affected parties, its own credibility
and therefore integrity might become damaged in this regardxxxiv
.
To summarize, the United Nations is a highly democratic institution where almost all sovereign countries
(except some mostly non-recognized states) have one vote. Comparing its characteristics to the traits of
a good king, a good fit emerges. Great swordsmanship is shown in many battles, yet it might lose in
others. Overall, fairness and truthfulness are cherished by the UN, its institutions and its actions. Yet
several problems arise, one example that stems from the very beginning and another from a failure that
was committed while doing well. Both these issues can – and most likely will be – resolved. In conclusion,
the UN possesses the traits for a being a good king.
Conclusion
The United States has lost its status as hegemon of the world. Applying the hegemonic stability theory by
Krasner, the danger of world instability arises. A discussion of the question who could be the future
hegemon followed. When looking at the political world landscape, a mountainous area can be seen, yet
without a single peak. In our multipolar world nowadays, it is unlikely that one single country will
become hegemon. We discussed the question whether International Organizations, led by the United
Nations, can put on the crown and become king and therefore world hegemon.
The United Nations was analyzed and has the qualities fit to become a good king. Even though there will
be bumps along the way, overall it has what it takes to live up to its destiny. Thanks to its
swordsmanship, its fairness and integrity, the United Nations can take the position of being the next
hegemon.
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