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Amazon
Category:
Political Science
Publisher: Palgrave-Macmillan
ISBN-10: 0230617476
Type: Non-Fiction
Pages: 300
Copyright: 2009
ISBN-13: 9780230617476
Since the end of World War II, the US has been the leading global power or "hegemon." In the early 21st century, the hegemony of the US is coming to an end---hence "the crumbling walls" of the US Empire. It is being opposed by a counter-hegemonic coalition of nations which are regional in scope and influence-- hence, "rising regions." Today, these rising regions are often referred to as BRIC (Brazil Russia, India, and China). But, to this list we should add all of Latin America an Africa as these continents are kicking out the IMF, World Bank, and the power of the declining dollar as the world's reserve currency. A new "Human Rights-Based Approach" to development is putting into practice an expanded view and definition of human rights in the form of "solidarity rights" which is aimed at ending poverty, wealth inequality and environmental degradation. As these three problems are attacked as being interconnected, so too the human right to peace is also advanced, Hence, the book argues that the days of a unilateral US Empire are over--- it cannot afford to create wars (such as the Iraq War) just to grab oil, preserve the dollar as the world' reserve currency, or sacrifice peace and justice for billions of people. This new era is taking up where the calls in the 1970s for a New International Economic Order (NIEO) ended. Today, we see calls for peace through a reformation of the UN Security Council and what I call the "Principle of Hegemonic State Accountability." As the walls of the US Empire crumble, it is not acceptable to allow nuclear weapons to be used, or the misuse of the concept of "humanitarian intervention" and the "right to protect" as ideological justifications to maintain the geopolitical status quo of power relations. Rather, the future of global relations will be defined by the evolution of a multicentric world of powers dispersed over many regions and regional alliances. A growing demand for the cosmopolitan well-being of humanity is taking shape and being articulated as the need for centralizing human rights, health rights, food rights, and educational rights are overcoming the corrupt and profit-driven practices of Wall Street and its criminal bankers, military industrialists, and weapons dealers. In a world of rising regions, there will be greater cooperation and an integration of the larger human interest and values because the lack of development and the promise of peace are being perceived as vital for human survival.
The crumbling walls of the US Empire make it the world's last hegemon. The historical battle in international relations and politics for hegemony is coming to an end. Both the global demands of international law for the human rights to peace and development are in the midst of forcing an end to power-politics and geopolitical calculations as the primacy logic of international order. In fact, rising levels of global inequality and wealth disparities have crippled both the nations and regions of the global North as well as the global South. The current path is unsustainable because the exclusionary and profit-driven nature of neoliberal capitalism has ruined the global environment (global warming), placed billions of people in perpetual poverty (over 3-billion people live on less than a dollar a day), and wars over limited resources have created a future that threatens peace and development at every turn and in every region of the world. Hence, a new paradigm is required, which I call a world of "rising regions." It is a world that was promised in the 1970s when Third World nations declared the need for a New International Economic Order (NIEO) and called for peace in place of nuclear war under the auspices of the Nonaligned Nations Movement (NAM). At the dawn of the 21st century, a new world is emerging under the combined pressure of the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) and the failure of Washington and Wall Street to deliver on promises they made under the rubric of the neoliberal economic model ("the Washington Consensus"). The BRIC countries, the regions of Latin America, Africa, Asia, and the Middle East have been developing new regional partnerships to oppose US hegemony and, in its place, to advance the interests of a counter-hegemonic alliance of nations in a multicentric world of rising regions. This will be the new future for global relations.
Excerpt
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