覇権衰退期における協調 -覇権安定の理論への挑戦-

世界システム論

抄録

The purpose of this paper is to supplement the contemporary argument on international regimes and to construct an antithesis of the theory of hegemonic stability. It is a challenge to the theory of hegemonic stability in that it assumes the possibility of world stability without a hegemon.
According to structural perspective which composes the main stream of the argument on international regimes, the basic orientation of world political economy is identical to the theory of hegemonic stability. Because it does not assume the possibility of construction of a regime without a hegemon, it implicitly or explicitly has to conclude that the world political economy will break down some time after the hegemony begins to erode.
On the contrary, I maintain that it is possible to construct a regime without a hegemon on condition that world communication and transportation is so advanced that there is no more room for defecting others. I assert that when the era of hegemonic decline continues, regimes conforming to the following will exist without hegemonic leadership.
1) The opportunity of making the regime occurs after several crises which change the cognizance of related actors.
2) The interests of actors are evenly distributed.
3) The regime contains non-governmental actors.
4) The rule is relative compared to absolute rules of regimes made by a hegemon.
5) The type of cooperation is coordination.
I conclude that these regimes will contribute to the world cooperation and therefore to the stability of world political economy.