Two distinguished academics have each written a new book on the future of world politics. Each book is a work of deep and mature reflection. Each author is greatly respected among his peers. Both have a great deal to say. But despite their shared focus on the future of world order, neither touches much on the actual subject matter of the other. Professor Ikenberry is preoccupied with the future of America’s global hegemony. Professor Cerny is concerned with the general effects of ‘globalisation’ on ‘governance’ in the world system. Cerny does not often mention the United States; Ikenberry only on occasion mentions any other country, and then usually in relation to the United States. The one thing the two books do have in common is that neither pays much attention to the European Union.
Professor Ikenberry takes for granted the desirability of a liberal hegemonic power at the centre of the global system. For him that power already exists, thanks to America’s post-war project – ‘the most ambitious and far- reaching liberal order building the world had yet seen’ (p. 2). In terms of security, wealth creation and social advancement, the liberal hegemonic order America has built is arguably ‘the most successful order in world history’ (p. xi), the latest chapter in the 200-year-long rise of liberal democratic states to global dominance. The Soviet collapse brought that rise to a crescendo. As Ikenberry sees it, the task for America’s national political imagination is not to outgrow this past, but to preserve it.