| When Hegemons Arise: Explaining Balance of Power Failure in World History provides a first theoretical systematization of balance of power failure. It seeks to explain why states sometimes fail to stop hegemons from arising, contrary to the prediction of balance of power theory. While throughout history, most potential hegemons were stopped, large empires of hegemonic stature have occasionally emerged. This thesis offers a conceptual framework to analyze such exceptions. It identifies twenty-one structural and unit-level factors that can cause balance of power to fail and tests them in four in-depth case studies---the Mongol conquests, the rise of Rome, the unification of China under the Qin Dynasty, and the expansion of the United States into the Western Hemisphere---to determine which factors play a primary, secondary, and marginal role.;The thesis concludes that three factors are critical in explaining why rising hegemons occasionally succeed: the occurrence of acute distrust and a short-term gains focus among the potential balancers that prevent cooperative balancing; the rising hegemon's development of innovative ways to extract and use military resources that the potential balancers are unable to emulate or counteract; and the rising hegemon's provision of unique state-building measures that afford it more efficient control over the system than its competitors. The findings highlight that contrary to conventional wisdom, communication hurdles and bandwagoning play only secondary roles in allowing the success of an aspiring hegemon. They also substantiate the fact that the emerging hegemon plays a determinant role in the outcome, even though the balance of power scholarship emphasizes almost exclusively the role of the balancers, and they stress that the unit-level processing of structural constraints contributes significantly to producing systemic results like balance of power or hegemony. |
