The Phoenix-Cycle: Global Leadership Transition in a Long-Wave Perspective (2004)
01/04/04 16:10 Filed in: publicatons
In
Hegemony, Globalization and
Antisystemic
Movements, edited by
Thomas E. Reifer. Boulder, CO: Paradigm.
The reoccurring
shift in the geographical and political location of
power as a result of hegemonic transitions has been
explained as the outcome of the leader’s experience
of success in the current setting, creating an
entrenched institutional setting (in a broader
sense) that proves adaptive in defending its turf
but less so in fostering the rise of new leading
sectors. This paper introduces the concept of
internal and external global network environments
in the world system and argues that the extension
of leadership from an old to a new commercial and
organizational arrangement is dependent on the
systemic nature of the world system. A shift from
an external to an internal network environment (or
vice versa) allows the parallel development and
rise of new leading sectors because they pose no
threat to the existing institutional setting of the
established leading sectors. The emerging new
leading sectors do profit from the relative
advantages of the current leadership position (in
terms of capital, costs, etc.) without the
resistance usually encountered from the established
leading sectors. The paper develops a systematic
account of the shifts from maritime commercial
(external network environment) phases, over
industrial (internal network environment) phases,
to the rise of a digital commercial (external
network environment) phase. It concludes that the
shift from an industrial phase to the new digital
commercial phase puts the current systemic leader,
the United States, in a position of continued
leadership over two long-waves.
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