The Great Recession of 2008, election victories for Trump and Brexit, recent forecasts of continued slower growth for the United States, Europe and Latin America: All are signs of a major change underway.
The rise of the Asia-Pacific region supposedly marks the world\u2019s shift into a \u201cpost-Western order.\u201d This was a central theme during the most recent BRICS summit held in Xiamen, China.
International relations scholars sometimes treat the notions of \u201corder\u201d and \u201csystem\u201d as synonyms. However, to better understand the unfolding changes, it would perhaps be useful to mark a difference between the two terms. \u201cOrder\u201d is a sort of X-ray of how the flows of power, wealth, and prestige (or soft power) are currently distributed worldwide. \u201cSystem,\u201d meanwhile, refers to the ensemble of institutions and norms built and led by the dominating powers, so as to reflect the interests and the vision that emerge from the current \u201corder.\u201d
The post-World War II order featured the United States as the hegemonic power. It wasn\u2019t just because the US became the biggest military power: It was also due to its economy representing half of the world\u2019s GDP, as well as the cultural influence that expanded to all corners of the world. In more ways than one, American interests would wind up blending with those of Europeans after 1945. It\u2019s from this convergence that the contemporary meaning of the word \u201cWest\u201d was extracted.
Going beyond geography, the word \u201cWest\u201d refers to the following criteria: market economy, representative democracy and the rule of law. And the norms and institutions of the \u201csystem\u201d\u00a0\u2013 the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, NATO, et al. \u2013 were created in accordance with this \u201corder.\u201d
Therefore, when we now ponder a \u201cpost-Western\u201d world, the questions we should be answering are the following two: Do the United States and Europe still hold dominant positions, as far as military, economic prosperity and values are concerned? And are Western institutions in decline?
In terms of the \u201corder,\u201d interpreting a transition to a post-Western world order is no easy matter. As far as political and military might go, the United States and the NATO remain unchallenged, either in terms of conventional force or of dissuasive power.
Of course, the \u201cNuclear Club\u201d includes countries that either potentially or openly antagonize the West (Russia, Pakistan and, obviously, North Korea) and the fragmented damage inflicted upon the West by terrorism is disturbing. Still, so far, nothing has emerged\u00a0\u2013 either in the form of a nation-state or of an international pact \u2013 to compete with or even threaten NATO, despite the well-known Trumpian criticism aimed at it.
In terms of wealth, there is no doubt about it: The West has clearly seen its position affected by the rise of the \u201cRest.\u201d The emergence of China, India, and others supporting actors from Southeast Asia have reshaped geo-economics.
Regarding prestige and soft power, the West\u2019s decline is plain to see. And yet, no alternative with a clearly-defined and potentially universal framework is emerging to fill the void. The \u201cAmerican Dream,\u201d for instance, is at no risk of being replaced by some kind of \u201cChinese Dream,\u201d Beijing\u2019s propaganda notwithstanding.
To be sure, in the \u201csystemic\u201d scope, it\u2019s undeniable that the rise of the Rest, and particularly of China, brings with it the creation of a family of new institutions reflecting the new realities of economic capabilities. But even then, the New Development Bank of the BRICS, and the different institutions recently created under Chinese leadership in the Asia-Pacific and Eurasia are not there to replace the ones designed during the West\u2019s long domination.
Instead, they are aimed at increasing the range of options available to finance development, a\u00a0field in which, even so, the needs are far superior to the sources of investment. The contemporary order\u00a0\u2013 and system \u2013 are still both too fluid. For all the West\u2019s decline, there is no Chinese, or Asian, or other emerging hegemony set to replace the established paradigm. What we are faced with, instead, is a \u201cpolymorphic\u201d dimension in which the main players (the United States and China) and a\u00a0series of non-negligible supporting actors (Russia, Germany, Japan, India) are engaged in a game where neither the rules nor the outcome are clear to see.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The West is in relative decline, but no clear\/cut alternative \u201csystem\u201d has emerged.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1204,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"country":[],"authors":[627],"class_list":["post-1201","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinions","authors-troyjo-marcos"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n