Hegemony and Its Discontents: A Symposium1

As we released our call for papers in March 2003 for the next International Studies Association (ISA) conference, the United Nations (UN) had failed to reach a consensus about what to do about Iraq's defiance and their refusal to submit to UN demands for inspections of suspected weapons development facilities. The United States had begun its war with support from the United Kingdom, Australia, and a number of smaller countries. The initial phase of the war that toppled the government of Saddam Hussein lasted only three weeks. The world was introduced to the awesome military power of the United States; they also saw how the Bush Administration would extend its war on terrorism that began with the invasion of Afghanistan. Moreover, the world witnessed the operational side of the previously articulated Bush Doctrine (see, for example, Nye 2002; Pollack 2002; Kaplan and Kristol 2003; Clarke 2004; Gordon and Shapiro 2004). The Bush revolution in foreign policy as described by Ivo Daalder and James Lindsay (2003:13–14) was based on two critical assumptions. First, in this dangerous world the only way to protect the United States and to secure its national interests is to “shed constraints imposed by alliances, international law and international regimes.” After the September 11 terrorist attacks, the hegemonists took full control of the Bush foreign policy. Second, these critical decision makers saw the United States as an exceptional nation, the sole superpower, with the responsibility to use its power to serve US interests and thereby make the world more free, prosperous, and eventually peaceful by ridding it of all things evil (see Frum and Perle 2003; Halper and Clarke 2004; Krauthammer 2004). Under Bush, the United States was ready and willing to assume the mantle of leadership and was …