Institutionalisierte Ungleichheit in der Weltpolitik. Jenseits der Alternative „Global Governance“ versus „American Empire“

Both realists and institutionalists have radicalized their analyses and findings in recent years. Whereas one camp no longer speaks exclusively of bipolarity and hegemony, but of unipolarity and empire, the other no longer refers exclusively to international regimes and institutions, but to global governance and constitutionalization. And both can refer to real world developments in support of their analyses. However, conceptual perspectives that can do justice to this dual development — i. e., the increasing dominance of the USA in the international system and the increasing significance of global norms — are lacking. The aim of this paper is to present such an integrated view and to argue that a constitutional world polity and unipolarity are not the poles of a one-dimensional category. Instead, it is possible that the significance of international norms and imbalances in the international distribution of power increase simultaneously. To this extent, the talk of both a new empire and of the world republic encompasses real and relevant developments. However, it is not until they are considered in combination that an adequate picture emerges: in fact, according to the core thesis of this paper, a third phenomenon, a “legally stratified multilevel system”, appears to be emerging.