Twenty-First Century Global Hegemons: Some Empirical Estimates

Abstract

Against the backdrop of a robust great-power rivalry between an economically rising communist China and a democratic United States (U.S) and drawing on the International Relations literature, this paper develops a multifaceted concept of a 'hegemon', provides five different empirical measures of hegemony for 16 countries spread around the world, which together account for approximately three-fourth of global GDP. Except for democratic rule, China closely follows the U.S. in most other measures of a global hegemon, while India's rank ranges between 8 and 11 depending on the measure of hegemon chosen. Based on these empirical measures of hegemons and considering the emerging global trends, the key conclusion of the paper is that China may not become a democratic country anytime soon, but the democratic countries could and should become more democratic by closing their democracy deficits. That, in turn, could help the world to better manage a rising communist China and at the same promoting a democratic world order in the 21 st century.