Hegemonism, unlike imperialism, is a form of voluntary leadership that respects the subjectivity of partners. It is based on the uncontested domination of the hegemon, its decisive advantage in terms of power, and the asymmetric interdependence of other partners in terms of security, economy and culture.
The notion of hegemon, like many political concepts, we owe, of course, to the ancient Greeks. The hegemonic role was played by Athens (as part of the Maritime Union) and Sparta (as part of the Peloponnesian Union).
The Spartan Symmachia was created out of the growing military advantage of Sparta in the Peloponnese at the end of the 7th century BC. The Peloponnesian Union established by Sparta included all the city-states of the region except Argos and Achaia. The aim of the Union was to ensure the safety and protection of its members. In the Assembly of the Union, each city-state had one vote, but its resolutions were binding on everyone except Sparta. And only Sparta had the right to convene a session of the Assembly. The allied ties linking the members of the Union were of a radiant nature, i.e. each country was connected with Sparta (as the hegemon) by a bilateral defense pact. The other members might also have similar agreements among themselves, but they might as well be in a state of conflict. Their mutual relations, however, could not weaken their relationship with Sparta. Members contributed financially to the Union only during the war. At that time, they were also obliged to delegate armed units. It was also an ideological relationship which was directed against democracies, aimed at perpetuating authoritarian rule.
The Athenians formed their hegemony into the Delian League in 478 BC. The Hellenic League (after the second Persian invasion and the battle of Plataea, which was victorious for the Greeks) collapsed, because Sparta decided that after saving Greece, to continue fighting against the Persians in defense of, after all, the Athenian colonies (i.e. its main rival in the Greek backyard) did not serve its long-term interests.
The Athenian League also gave its members an equal vote. Its members could either allocate armed units for the needs of the Union, or pay tribute in money. Eventually, the Athenians imposed a draconian discipline of enforcing allied obligations (primarily monetary). Originally the voluntary Union allowed the members to quit. But when the Naxos islanders tried to secede, they were punished with the loss of their fleet, the tearing down of city walls, and the removal of their voting rights in the Union. Thasos’ attempt to leave the Union ended in equally cruel defeat. For Thucydides, the siege of Thasos was a sign of the League’s transformation from alliance into hegemony.
And when Pericles moved the Union treasury from Delos to Athens in 454 BC, the hegemony degenerated further and turned into empire. Athens already ruled the group with an iron fist, using common funds for its own needs (to finance, among others, the construction of the Parthenon).
As the Persian threat receded, a clash between the Spartan and Athenian leagues became inevitable. Athens succumbed in the Great Peloponnesian War (the conquest of Athens in 404 BC) and was humiliated by the loss of the fleet and almost all possessions. Sparta could not feel confident at all, because its hegemony was successfully undermined by Thebes. And the Athenians managed to build a second Maritime Union, already more democratic and partner-like (it survived until 355 BC). However, the Macedonian might was growing. Philip of Macedon dissolved the Peloponnesian Union (creating the Union of Corinth around Macedonia), and his son Alexander built a great (though short-living) Greek empire.
Until modern times, every state, which grew in power beyond the size of its partners, pursued a hegemonic policy to one degree or another, at least at an early stage of domination. Hegemony, however, always requires accepting domination and accepting that foreign leadership can be beneficial to one’s own interests. When resistance arises, competition becomes inevitable.
Portugal and Spain rose above the rest in the age of geographical discoveries, and even though they were able to delimit amicably the sphere of their colonization in America, they quickly encountered fierce global rivalry from England and France. Fierce rivalry forces imperialist behaviour, which, unlike hegemonic policies, means imposing one’s own order on the controlled areas even by force.
The Napoleonic conquest of Europe led to the conviction that any hegemony in Europe is so unhealthy for the continent that only a balance of power can be the guarantor of peace there. Processes influencing the power of individual actors on the European stage made the principle of the balance of power constantly under threat. The hegemonic instinct was by no means waning.
A textbook example of hegemonic doctrine was the policy of Prussia in the German lands in the mid-18th century. After the Congress of Vienna in 1815, the Prussian-Austrian rivalry for leadership over Germany began in earnest. The then established German confederation was jointly controlled by these two powers in order to calm the liberal-national mood in Germany in the spirit of the Holy Alliance. The Springtime of Nations in 1848 shook the stability of the German Confederation and revived unification tendencies. Some thought about reviving the empire around the Habsburgs, others, however thought of doing it around the growing power of Prussia. The Frankfurt Parliament proclaimed the King of Prussia as the Emperor of Germany in 1849 (but of a smaller Germany, essentially its northern part, without Austria). However, opposition from Bavaria and Württemberg thwarted Prussian plans.
The Prussian-Austrian war of 1866 opened wide the gates to the hegemony of Prussia. The German Union ceased to exist and Prussia was given a free hand to build a “tighter federation” north of the Main. After the territorial conquests of the war, Prussia accounted for 80 percent of the population and territory of this area. Their domination was unquestionable. Driven by its own instinct of self-restraint, Bismarck followed a gentle course (he did not want the domination of Prussia to be associated with the fear of restricting the rights of Catholics, which was very strong in southern Germany). Thus, in 1867, the North German Union was established, nominally confederal (comprising 22 state entities). The Union survived for four years. It introduced (at the dictation of Prussia) a uniform penal code, a universal electoral system, a common system of measures and weights, a common postal system, a passport system, and allowed for freedom of movement within its territory. The laws were adopted by the Reichstag controlled by Prussia, and although the Bundesrat nominally allowed smaller entities to block the Prussian majority in the Reichstag (Prussia had only 17 out of 43 votes in the Bundesrat), the persuasion power of Prussia was unquestionable. The full executive power was in Prussian hands (the presidency of the Union was entrusted with the rights of inheritance to the Hohenzollern dynasty). And southern Germany was indirectly incorporated into the system of Prussian hegemony through the customs union established in 1867. The victory of Prussia in the war with France in 1870 accelerated full unification. Established in 1871, the Reich took over the constitution of the North German Union (and even its official flag). In this case, the hegemonic system turned out to be a transitional system.
After World War I, space opened up for the practice of hegemonist politics by France. New and solidifying states in the post-Versailles realities, such as Poland, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia or Romania, were in the first post-war decades quite open to the leadership (and security guarantees) of France. France, however, rejected the hegemonist option. Admittedly, it tried to support the Little Entente with bilateral agreements, to push through the idea of the Eastern Pact, but in terms of leadership it was completely anemic. With fatal omission, it allowed for the revival of German revanchism.
The United States turned out to be the undisputed hegemon in the West after World War II. It spread an umbrella of security over free Europe, became its economic engine (the Marshall Plan), and even a cultural hegemon (the influence of American mass culture on Europe). The Europeans accepted the American hegemony (out of fear of the USSR). Adenauer’s Germany became its most zealous supporter. It was believed then in Bonn that only American hegemony offered a chance for German reunification. Adenauer was involved in European projects (the Coal and Steel Community, the Pleven plan and others), but he made sure that they did not take on an anti-American edge.
De Gaulle focused on the empowerment of Europe in relation to the United States. He has become a difficult partner for the American hegemon (eviction of the NATO Headquarters to Brussels, exit from NATO military command, independent nuclear policy, etc.). There have been difficult times for American hegemony (Europeans’ refusal to support the US in the Vietnam War, pressure from public opinion in Europe in the first half of the 1980s against the deployment of US medium-range missiles, France’s and Germany’s opposition to the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, Trump’s anti-EU tirades), but US leadership (at least in security matters) remains unchallenged.
The international order of the Cold War era was based on a bipolar system, the division of the world (and most of all Europe) into two spheres of influence: the American and the Soviet one. The American hegemony, of course, differed fundamentally from Soviet domination, even though in the consequences, that is, the limited room for manoeuvre of states in the sphere of influence, there might be similarities. Especially when it comes to the freedom of views represented in international fora on political and military matters. It is known that then one spoke in a block voice.
In the 1970s and 1980s, negotiations were conducted in Vienna to reduce conventional forces in Central Europe. They did not reach any agreement, and for many years they merely imitated negotiation activities. One of their rituals was the so-called informal consultations in a narrow group, which were attended by three delegations from both the Warsaw Pact and NATO. Once, back in the nineties, I told a diplomat friend from a small (relatively) Western country that all the speeches given during these consultations by the Warsaw Pact countries were written by the Soviets. It was a privilege of Poland to be able to choose from among the packages of speeches prepared by the USSR delegation (other allies were given what was left to be delivered). I do not know if our delegation ever dared to present its own text or to significantly improve the Soviet project. A friend replied: “Listen, we didn’t speak with our own text either. Americans wrote for us. But we asked them for it. They never insisted. Freedom is a realized necessity. “
If diplomatic hegemony is to manifest itself in imposing speeches written by the hegemon on others, then in my career I have encountered such hegemonic tendencies on the part of international organizations bureaucracies at least several times. In 2000, I was asked to help with the Polish participation in the UN Millennium Summit in New York. I came from Nairobi to New York for three weeks on an ad hoc assignment. The Polish president then became the chairman (as a result of drawing lots) of one of the four round tables during which the discussion was held. President Kwasniewski was due to present his report the next day after the round-table debate. I prepared the draft report fairly quickly. We did not yet have time to leave the Polish mission to the United Nations, when the UN Secretariat arrived discreetly with its version of the report (to help us, of course). Colleagues from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs decided that my text was better (immodestly speaking), but we decided that the president’s immediate circle should decide. And it was strongly in favour of the President giving the text prepared by me. This is how I could feel the pleasure of hearing a summary written by my hand at the final session of the Millennium Summit, including a few sentences that went beyond the material provided by the statements of over 30 heads of state and government who participated in the round table under the Polish chairmanship. Because the Secretariat had a few thoughts of its own in its project and undoubtedly wanted to smuggle them in.
Another anecdote relates to my chairmanship of the Council of Europe delegation to the meeting with the OSCE delegation in spring 2005, where the text of a declaration of cooperation between the two organizations was to be negotiated. I was representing (under the authority of the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Poland) the Polish presidency of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe (the declaration was to be approved by the Committee of Ministers). It turned out the day before that the secretariat (for the sake of our psychological comfort) prepared a text for me to deliver (for every possible circumstance). They were extremely dissatisfied that I did not use their text. Perhaps that is why we were able to efficiently agree on the text of the declaration with the Slovenian diplomat representing the OSCE chairmanship.
The reunification of Germany in the early 1990s changed the relationship of power within Europe itself. In economic (and even demographic) terms, Germany has surpassed everyone else (including France). The French decided that the best way would be to include German power in the system of checks and balances resulting from European integration. It is a common belief that the consent to reunification was combined with Germany’s commitment to support the common European currency (and bearing the burden of its stability).
Germany’s political power grew in Europe every day. I found out about it quite early. In 1992, I was one of the coordinators of the negotiations on the final document of the CSCE summit in Helsinki. Negotiations became hard and slow. Total cacophony and no consensus in sight whatsoever. After several days of work of the Sisyphus style, I decided to perform an act of mediation desperation. One Saturday, I invited a US diplomat and a German diplomat for private negotiations (to the hotel apartment where I was based). I put three quarters of a liter of frozen “Wyborowa” on the table (for a good start). I threatened to force us negotiate until we reached a compromise or run out of gas “whichever comes first”. After four hours of intensive work, we agreed on the text of an entire chapter of the final document. The fact that the next day (after a difficult retrospective of the previous day’s events) no one denied the co-authorship of the text was undoubtedly a good sign. I was not too surprised that the American diplomat managed to persuade his bosses both on the ground and in Washington to approve the text. But the fact that the German diplomat convinced the entire European Community (then not so numerous, because it consisted of 12 members), all its capitals (including Paris and London) and Brussels, was a serious surprise for me.
Then it was downhill (Russia in Helsinki was in such a total shock after the collapse of the USSR that it did not make any difficulties). Some of the solutions adopted at that time are still in force in the OSCE today. I was dissatisfied with one thing at the time, namely that our mutual ability to compromise, which was growing with each passing moment, meant that I gave up the issue of establishing the institution of the Secretary-General. The oversight was luckily repaired after a few months and in December 1992 the CSCE already had a Secretary General (a German, of course).
The European Union has grown up to be a hegemon in its immediate vicinity. For many neighbourhood states, it is a pole of political and economic gravity. However, the condition for their rapprochement is the harmonization of the principles of their economic and state management with the standards existing within the European Union. Countries that have entered the path of efforts to join the European Union, states that have signed an association agreement with the European Union, and even neighbourhood countries that are politically satisfied with the partnership formula (enhanced), undertake to implement EU directives and regulations in their legislation and practice in various areas of economic life, transport, energy, environmental protection, consumer protection, product quality, etc., etc. They undertake to comply with EU standards, the rule of law norms, protection of civil rights standards and others. The Union even assesses the degree of compatibility of their foreign policy with the line of the Union’s common foreign policy. They are allowed to join common EU positions, but only on a “take it or leave it” basis. They cannot introduce changes to the texts presented to them. At a time when Poland was striving for membership of the Union, it caused undisguised dissonance in the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs. On the one hand, joining the common EU position was a strategic imperative, but on the other hand, Poland was too big a country to have to join the EU position in some cases without even being able to move a comma in it. And more than once, not twice, it politely refused to join the EU statement. Though sometimes the subtext was clearly political.
In 2001, during negotiations to prepare a special session of the UN General Assembly on Human Settlements (Habitat), which was to be held in July that year, the Swedish Presidency of the EU Council made to us a proposal to join the EU position on family matters. We received a firm negative instruction from HQ. Warsaw wanted Poland to join a rival proposal, sponsored among others by Iran, Saudi Arabia, the DPRK, Cuba, Venezuela, in short, countries with which (unlike the EU) we were rather not on our way politically. I intervened at our headquarters. I received a signal from the then minister himself that in these matters the political line was not determined by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, but by the Prime Minister’s Office. It was one of three cases in my entire career where I followed an instruction that I deeply disagreed with (though I did everything I could to change it). Unfortunately, countries such as Iran, DPRK or Cuba in recent times (after 2015) have become again close to the views of the Polish government on social issues (e.g. the role of women, LGBT and others).
In the candidate and associated countries, some of the harmonization arrangements are accepted with a heavy heart up to this day. Moldova painfully gave up the possibility of calling its wine brandy cognac (although the new brand “divin” was quite successful even on the Russian market). Even today, one of the leaders of a country forming the Eastern Partnership calls the EU’s negotiating strategy in the work on the partnership agreement a dictate. Other politicians (in an associated country) say that EU directives on a local basis do not lead to development. EU officials are by no means discouraged by such statements. In its neighbourhood, especially in the Balkans, the Union is not ready to follow any neutral partnership regime.
Partnership with the Union can only be built on the basis of the acceptance of EU norms and standards. This is undoubtedly hegemonism in an enlightened form. Because it is not imposed. The Union is not forcing anyone to negotiate an association agreement (Azerbaijan did not want to and did not negotiate it; Armenia withdrew from it to less ambitious positions and the Union accepted it), it does not force anyone to apply for membership (and has even cooled down some partners’ aspirations recently). But if countries want to come closer to the EU, they must do so on its terms.
