United States Hegemony and Globalisation: What Role for Theories of Imperialism?

This article examines the return of the subject of imperialism to the social sciences since 2001, focusing in particular on Marxist and Marxist-related attempts to reconstruct an analysis of the US-led international order based on this concept. It does so by first examining attempts to update Marxist and Marxian work to understand contemporary globalisation, and then points to both the weaknesses of these approaches and international events that have undermined these theories. The paper then examines the return of imperialism in some detail. While the international order can still be described as imperialist, the article is sceptical of many accounts of the ‘new imperialism’. This is partly because the utility of classical theories was questionable in the pre-1914 era, and are even more so now. Theorising imperialism in turns of surplus capital or a spatial fix ignores the direction of capital flows, both before the First World War, and in the current era. Moreover, as Marxist and Marxian theories of globalisation point out, the current era is one of greater openness and international integration than the pre-1914 era, and there is far greater cooperation between the core capitalist states, as well as sovereign states in the developing world. Contemporary imperialism is characterised by US hegemony but also greater global interdependence, and US military domination does not guarantee its economic domination. At the same time however, US hegemony is closely related to neo-liberalism and, despite as much as because of US intentions, these same policies undermine the prospects for development in the ‘South’. In this respect, US attempts to ‘Americanise’ the world are undermined by US hegemony and the imperialism of free trade.