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After Victory
The end of the Cold War was a "big bang" reminiscent of earlier moments after major wars, such as the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815 and the end of the World Wars in 1919 and 1945. Here John Ikenberry asks the question, what do states that win wars do with their newfound power and how do they use it to build order? In examining the postwar settlements in modern history, he argues that powerful countries do seek to build stable and cooperative relations, but the type of order that emerges hinges on their ability to make commitments and restrain power.
The author explains that only with the spread of democracy in the twentieth century and the innovative use of international institutions--both linked to the emergence of the United States as a world power--has order been created that goes beyond balance of power politics to exhibit "constitutional" characteristics. The open character of the American polity and a web of multilateral institutions allow the United States to exercise strategic restraint and establish stable relations among the industrial democracies despite rapid shifts and extreme disparities in power.
Blending comparative politics with international relations, and history with theory, After Victory will be of interest to anyone concerned with the organization of world order, the role of institutions in world politics, and the lessons of past postwar settlements for today. It also speaks to today's debate over the ability of the United States to lead in an era of unipolar power.
The author explains that only with the spread of democracy in the twentieth century and the innovative use of international institutions--both linked to the emergence of the United States as a world power--has order been created that goes beyond balance of power politics to exhibit "constitutional" characteristics. The open character of the American polity and a web of multilateral institutions allow the United States to exercise strategic restraint and establish stable relations among the industrial democracies despite rapid shifts and extreme disparities in power.
Blending comparative politics with international relations, and history with theory, After Victory will be of interest to anyone concerned with the organization of world order, the role of institutions in world politics, and the lessons of past postwar settlements for today. It also speaks to today's debate over the ability of the United States to lead in an era of unipolar power.
320 pages, Hardcover
First published September 30, 2000
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About the author
G. John Ikenberry
77 books53 followersGilford John Ikenberry (October 5, 1954) is a theorist of international relations and United States foreign policy, and a professor of Politics and International Affairs in the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University.
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May 29, 2020
A classic IR study from one of the leading liberal institutionalist/internationalist thinkers out there. I have read a lot of Ike's work, and this one is probably the most dense and theoretical, although the case studies themselves are well done. Liberal Leviathan is a little more policy-oriented, and his many scholarly articles get the points of this book across effectively.
So while this was highly theoretical writing that sometimes felt repetitive, I still found this to be a useful and engaging book. The heart of the book is about how the victors in wars use the period of flux and possibility at the end of the war to create institutions and lock in advantages as their relative power inevitably declines from that high point. I call the starting point of this book "the winner's dilemma." The winner wants to preserve certain advantage while also convincing other states (the defeated, the neutral, and its own allies) that it won't use its power in an abusive way. The winner's temptation is to just push everyone around, but this runs the risk of other states balancing against you (in the classic realist sense) and of sowing the seeds of the next conflict.
Ike's answer is that states try to build rule-based institution to manage their interactions going forward from victory. Powerful states give up the short-term gain of pushing everyone around for the longer-term gains of getting other states to acquiesce in your use of/preponderance of power and to feel comfortable cooperating with you rather than balancing against you. Weak states, in turn, are reassured of the non-threatening nature of the hegemon and they gain the advantages of cooperation, although they are locked in to certain rules and arrangements that restrain their actions later on when their relative power has increased. Institutions, for Ike, are eminently practical things that become path-dependent or "sticky" as states get used to acting within them, they continue to manage problems like mutual fear, more and more interlocking tendrils form btw states, and the ties themselves become normative. Realists, Ike cogently argues, portray things as power v institutions, but Ike shows that powerful countries gain a more nuanced and potent form of power (legitimate authority, one might call it), when they restrain themselves and act in conjunction with other states in rules based institutions that create predictability.
Ike shows these dynamics at work in 4 postwar settlements: 1815, 1919, 1945-early 50s, and 1989-91. The latter two cases are stronger illustrations of his argument. After WWII, for instance, the US assured allies that it would neither dominate nor abandon Europe but foster European integration and provide security guarantees as a way to manage German recovery without leading to the rebirth of geopolitical competition and to balance against Soviet power. NATO, Bretton Woods, the World Bank, the ECSC, and dozens of other institutions, trade deals, etc formed from this initial period. After the CW ended, realist theory predicted that power balancing would return now that the big bad boogeyman was gone, but instead you saw the deepening of transatlantic and inter-European institutions and relationships, which definitely seems to validate Ike's notion of the path-dependency of institutions.
Ike sees democracy as a sort of lubricant for institutions. Democracies are better able to signal long-term commitments, they are generally less aggressive than autocracies, and they are more transparent and open to dialogue and outside influence (compared to the often erratic and opaque foreign policies of autocratic states). Of course, this point about the consistent internationalism of democracies looked a lot better in 2001 when this book was published than afterward. Ike offers a new preface in this book that provides a partial corrective: the extent to which victorious states are balanced against or not depends largely on their actions, and since 2001 the US has clearly been more aggressive, unilateralist, and unpredictable (the Obama years excepting). Other states have grown nervous (understandable, esp if you are an autocrat) about the less restrained flexing of American power, and we have started to see the weakening of international institutions and the rise of forms of balancing against the US (like much of Putin's foreign policy). However, I think this shift is really more about internal political change in Western societies and the abandonment of internationalism (esp on the right) than it is about the malfunctioning of institutions or major changes in the international arena.
So is Ike right? I would say yes, in some big ways, but it depends largely on what leaders decide to do and how they think, which is fundamentally unpredictable. That's where I part ways from IR theorists. However, this book reaffirms for me that I'm basically a liberal institutionalist with some realist tendencies.
So while this was highly theoretical writing that sometimes felt repetitive, I still found this to be a useful and engaging book. The heart of the book is about how the victors in wars use the period of flux and possibility at the end of the war to create institutions and lock in advantages as their relative power inevitably declines from that high point. I call the starting point of this book "the winner's dilemma." The winner wants to preserve certain advantage while also convincing other states (the defeated, the neutral, and its own allies) that it won't use its power in an abusive way. The winner's temptation is to just push everyone around, but this runs the risk of other states balancing against you (in the classic realist sense) and of sowing the seeds of the next conflict.
Ike's answer is that states try to build rule-based institution to manage their interactions going forward from victory. Powerful states give up the short-term gain of pushing everyone around for the longer-term gains of getting other states to acquiesce in your use of/preponderance of power and to feel comfortable cooperating with you rather than balancing against you. Weak states, in turn, are reassured of the non-threatening nature of the hegemon and they gain the advantages of cooperation, although they are locked in to certain rules and arrangements that restrain their actions later on when their relative power has increased. Institutions, for Ike, are eminently practical things that become path-dependent or "sticky" as states get used to acting within them, they continue to manage problems like mutual fear, more and more interlocking tendrils form btw states, and the ties themselves become normative. Realists, Ike cogently argues, portray things as power v institutions, but Ike shows that powerful countries gain a more nuanced and potent form of power (legitimate authority, one might call it), when they restrain themselves and act in conjunction with other states in rules based institutions that create predictability.
Ike shows these dynamics at work in 4 postwar settlements: 1815, 1919, 1945-early 50s, and 1989-91. The latter two cases are stronger illustrations of his argument. After WWII, for instance, the US assured allies that it would neither dominate nor abandon Europe but foster European integration and provide security guarantees as a way to manage German recovery without leading to the rebirth of geopolitical competition and to balance against Soviet power. NATO, Bretton Woods, the World Bank, the ECSC, and dozens of other institutions, trade deals, etc formed from this initial period. After the CW ended, realist theory predicted that power balancing would return now that the big bad boogeyman was gone, but instead you saw the deepening of transatlantic and inter-European institutions and relationships, which definitely seems to validate Ike's notion of the path-dependency of institutions.
Ike sees democracy as a sort of lubricant for institutions. Democracies are better able to signal long-term commitments, they are generally less aggressive than autocracies, and they are more transparent and open to dialogue and outside influence (compared to the often erratic and opaque foreign policies of autocratic states). Of course, this point about the consistent internationalism of democracies looked a lot better in 2001 when this book was published than afterward. Ike offers a new preface in this book that provides a partial corrective: the extent to which victorious states are balanced against or not depends largely on their actions, and since 2001 the US has clearly been more aggressive, unilateralist, and unpredictable (the Obama years excepting). Other states have grown nervous (understandable, esp if you are an autocrat) about the less restrained flexing of American power, and we have started to see the weakening of international institutions and the rise of forms of balancing against the US (like much of Putin's foreign policy). However, I think this shift is really more about internal political change in Western societies and the abandonment of internationalism (esp on the right) than it is about the malfunctioning of institutions or major changes in the international arena.
So is Ike right? I would say yes, in some big ways, but it depends largely on what leaders decide to do and how they think, which is fundamentally unpredictable. That's where I part ways from IR theorists. However, this book reaffirms for me that I'm basically a liberal institutionalist with some realist tendencies.
March 7, 2010
After Victory attempts to develop a grand theory of how international systems are reorganized after major conflict. Specifically, it uses three cases to illustrate a theoretical framework for how the newly dominant victors in these conflicts –new hegemons – engage in institutional bargains, what Ikenberry calls the creation of constitutional orders, to secure a stable international order that maximizes the longevity of their dominance while making important concessions to the concerns and interests of the less powerful victors; Schweller’s summary of Ikenberry’s thesis is, “for the leading state, restraint and commitment are not the enemy of primacy.” After Victory’s particular worth, as noted by Schweller and others , is in its attempt to tackle change: what the logic of change in these crucial and dynamic moments is, and how it informs the international order going forward.
Despite the significant contribution that After Victory clearly represents, it is compromised by two important and separate issues: a weakness at its theoretical heart and a relationship to actual history that is only partially convincing. The first issue is that the formal theoretical mechanism that drives Ikenberry’s theory – how an institution developed at time T can restrain the dominant state from freely pursuing its own interests at time T+x – is never fully clarified and remains an unconvincing and partial mix of several different theories. The power to bind, which is central to Ikenberry’s vision, is ultimately never presented as a compelling theoretical case.
The second problem is empirical: the only case that really works for Ikenberry’s theory is the U.S.-led post-World War II settlement. This would not be a major problem if his other cases – the British-led settlement after the Napoleonic Wars and the U.S.-led attempt at institutionalization after World War I – performed the function that he presents them for, namely illustrating growing trends that culminate in the 1945 agreements between the victors. Instead, however, these cases present a mixed story in which only Ikenberry’s broadest contentions (a general move towards democracy and institutions in the West) are confirmed, while the mechanisms that should drive his theory are if anything obscured by particularities of each case that the theory cannot capture. This compromises After Victory even in the bounded empirical ambit it sets for itself. Once one looks further, for instance to the years between the book’s publication in 2001 and now, severe empirical challenges to its assertions about the moderate nature of an American-led world order are easy to discern. Finally, once one looks forward from now, a moment in which the pressing question does not appear to be reorganization after the abrupt dislocation of a major war but rather what will happen as the U.S. is gradually but not that gradually matched and perhaps eclipsed by China’s rising economic importance, much of Ikenberry’s theory seems in applicable, and what predictions it does make are starkly absent from international proceedings.
Despite the significant contribution that After Victory clearly represents, it is compromised by two important and separate issues: a weakness at its theoretical heart and a relationship to actual history that is only partially convincing. The first issue is that the formal theoretical mechanism that drives Ikenberry’s theory – how an institution developed at time T can restrain the dominant state from freely pursuing its own interests at time T+x – is never fully clarified and remains an unconvincing and partial mix of several different theories. The power to bind, which is central to Ikenberry’s vision, is ultimately never presented as a compelling theoretical case.
The second problem is empirical: the only case that really works for Ikenberry’s theory is the U.S.-led post-World War II settlement. This would not be a major problem if his other cases – the British-led settlement after the Napoleonic Wars and the U.S.-led attempt at institutionalization after World War I – performed the function that he presents them for, namely illustrating growing trends that culminate in the 1945 agreements between the victors. Instead, however, these cases present a mixed story in which only Ikenberry’s broadest contentions (a general move towards democracy and institutions in the West) are confirmed, while the mechanisms that should drive his theory are if anything obscured by particularities of each case that the theory cannot capture. This compromises After Victory even in the bounded empirical ambit it sets for itself. Once one looks further, for instance to the years between the book’s publication in 2001 and now, severe empirical challenges to its assertions about the moderate nature of an American-led world order are easy to discern. Finally, once one looks forward from now, a moment in which the pressing question does not appear to be reorganization after the abrupt dislocation of a major war but rather what will happen as the U.S. is gradually but not that gradually matched and perhaps eclipsed by China’s rising economic importance, much of Ikenberry’s theory seems in applicable, and what predictions it does make are starkly absent from international proceedings.
May 21, 2021
This is a well written and well researched book that provides the liberal institutionalist framework for understanding power and security in the international system. However, there are a number of problems with Ikenberry's analysis. Ikenberry asserts that liberal democracies are better suited to committing to binding agreements, yet history has shown this isn't the case. Further, who gets to be considered a liberal democracy is based on the whims of the hegemonic power, which controls the institutions making those determinations. Also, the record of institutions binding hegemonic power is abysmal, as US unilateralism has been standard in the world. The end of the Cold War to the modern day, a period of US unipolarity, has been the death knell for liberal institutionalist theory.
November 5, 2023
An interesting guy
but i don't agree on a lot
......
For the third time in this troubled century and following the end of the Cold War and the tragic events in the former Yugoslavia, the world is challenged to create a stable and enduring world order. In this pathbreaking book, Ikenberry draws upon novel theoretical insights and historical experience to determine what policies and strategies work best as the United States attempts to lead in the struggles to create a new world order. . A major contribution to IR theory and to thinking about international order.
Robert Gilpin, Princeton University
Through careful, thorough, and subtle analysis of the diplomacy of the post-war settlements of 1815, 1919, 1945, and 1989―91, John Ikenberry addresses in After Victory three major questions for the study of world politics: how do major-state victors seek to translate their military success into a sustainable political order; why do secondary-state partners accept the order so constructed by the major victors; and why have post-war settlements become progressively based on institutional principles and practices? In its theoretical boldness, historical sweep, policy relevance, and sheer elegance of analysis and presentation, few books published in the past quarter-century in the field of international relations are the equal of After Victory.
Joseph Grieco, Duke University
After Victory is an extremely important inquiry into the origins of postwar order in international relations―the key analytic and policy issue of our time. Ikenberry's book is unique in its theoretical and empirical sweep. In contrast to realists, for whom international orders are epiphenomenal and transient, and constructivists, who see order emerging from shared worldviews and norms, Ikenberry adopts a historical sociological framework. He argues that states self-consciously create institutions to bind themselves and others in international orders that reduce the 'returns to power'.
David A. Lake, University of California, San Diego
After Victory argues that political primacy is achieved best through a strategy of limiting the unilateral exercise of power. This book engages contemporary political debates, and it illuminates these debates with an informative set of historical case studies. All serious students of international relations and all practitioners of foreign policy will want to come to terms with John Ikenberry's elegant and learned analysis.
Peter Katzenstein, Cornell University
.............
Foreign Affairs
March 2001
Why did the United States win the Cold War, and what can the country do now to win the peace? Ikenberry argues that the United States triumphed because it pursued a successful two-track policy after the defeat of Germany and Japan: a realist containment of the Soviet Union combined with the liberal internationalist construction of a democratic club.
Ikenberry reviews the Vienna settlement of 1815, the story of Versailles, and the post-World War II order to contend that liberal victors can win the peace by showing "strategic restraint."
In effect, these multilateral "institution builders" use their dominance to create international 'constitutional orders', the designs of which serve the weak as well as the powerful.
He concludes that this tactic, rather than a balance-of-power approach, has best served U.S. interests.
With containment now buried, the value of a liberal-democratic partnership among like-minded states still endures.
Yet Ikenberry worries that Washington today may not recognize the order that it once created, and thus may miss the opportunities to increase power and well-being for others as well as itself.
For international-relations theorists, this book demonstrates that the liberal-democratic internationalist ship has finally come into port.
For decades, realists have mocked liberals for their "idealism" and "utopianism," lamenting that democracy's openness, divisions, and secularism would ultimately weaken the United States in the face of its communist adversaries.
But now the liberal argument that democratic regimes can make a dramatic difference in world affairs has finally achieved intellectual respectability, as this fine book so convincingly maintains.
.........
And well, i think that Waltz, Huntington, Walt, and Mearsheimer won the debate.
but i don't agree on a lot
......
For the third time in this troubled century and following the end of the Cold War and the tragic events in the former Yugoslavia, the world is challenged to create a stable and enduring world order. In this pathbreaking book, Ikenberry draws upon novel theoretical insights and historical experience to determine what policies and strategies work best as the United States attempts to lead in the struggles to create a new world order. . A major contribution to IR theory and to thinking about international order.
Robert Gilpin, Princeton University
Through careful, thorough, and subtle analysis of the diplomacy of the post-war settlements of 1815, 1919, 1945, and 1989―91, John Ikenberry addresses in After Victory three major questions for the study of world politics: how do major-state victors seek to translate their military success into a sustainable political order; why do secondary-state partners accept the order so constructed by the major victors; and why have post-war settlements become progressively based on institutional principles and practices? In its theoretical boldness, historical sweep, policy relevance, and sheer elegance of analysis and presentation, few books published in the past quarter-century in the field of international relations are the equal of After Victory.
Joseph Grieco, Duke University
After Victory is an extremely important inquiry into the origins of postwar order in international relations―the key analytic and policy issue of our time. Ikenberry's book is unique in its theoretical and empirical sweep. In contrast to realists, for whom international orders are epiphenomenal and transient, and constructivists, who see order emerging from shared worldviews and norms, Ikenberry adopts a historical sociological framework. He argues that states self-consciously create institutions to bind themselves and others in international orders that reduce the 'returns to power'.
David A. Lake, University of California, San Diego
After Victory argues that political primacy is achieved best through a strategy of limiting the unilateral exercise of power. This book engages contemporary political debates, and it illuminates these debates with an informative set of historical case studies. All serious students of international relations and all practitioners of foreign policy will want to come to terms with John Ikenberry's elegant and learned analysis.
Peter Katzenstein, Cornell University
.............
Foreign Affairs
March 2001
Why did the United States win the Cold War, and what can the country do now to win the peace? Ikenberry argues that the United States triumphed because it pursued a successful two-track policy after the defeat of Germany and Japan: a realist containment of the Soviet Union combined with the liberal internationalist construction of a democratic club.
Ikenberry reviews the Vienna settlement of 1815, the story of Versailles, and the post-World War II order to contend that liberal victors can win the peace by showing "strategic restraint."
In effect, these multilateral "institution builders" use their dominance to create international 'constitutional orders', the designs of which serve the weak as well as the powerful.
He concludes that this tactic, rather than a balance-of-power approach, has best served U.S. interests.
With containment now buried, the value of a liberal-democratic partnership among like-minded states still endures.
Yet Ikenberry worries that Washington today may not recognize the order that it once created, and thus may miss the opportunities to increase power and well-being for others as well as itself.
For international-relations theorists, this book demonstrates that the liberal-democratic internationalist ship has finally come into port.
For decades, realists have mocked liberals for their "idealism" and "utopianism," lamenting that democracy's openness, divisions, and secularism would ultimately weaken the United States in the face of its communist adversaries.
But now the liberal argument that democratic regimes can make a dramatic difference in world affairs has finally achieved intellectual respectability, as this fine book so convincingly maintains.
.........
And well, i think that Waltz, Huntington, Walt, and Mearsheimer won the debate.
January 3, 2012
In After Victory, John Ikenberry examines the attempts of states to create lasting peace through international order after major wars. Arguing that major wars create a new distribution of power, Ikenberry contends that winning states have increasingly had incentives to exercise strategic restraint in post-war agreements to lock-in long-term influence in the international order through institutions that preserve and maintain existing power structures. Ikenberry’s empirical analysis of the institutions and peace processes developed after wars in 1815, 1919, and 1945 shows that institutionalism helps explain the increased stability in post-war environments and the success that states have had in “reducing the implications of winning” in politics by reducing fears of abandonment and domination.
While the three post-war cases presented do not all perfectly fit the constitutional order that best implements strategic constraints on power, Ikenberry effectively shows that winning states have sought to develop a more durable world order by creating binding agreements, that by placing limits on state power can create peace. Ikenberry’s analysis shows that domestic politics play an important role in allowing the use of strategic restraint to create lasting peace. It also shows the importance of a winning state’s hegemony in its ability to compel losing states to enter into sustainable peace agreements.
To analyze the three empirical cases, Ikenberry first discusses three different explanatory models of order: balance of power, hegemonic, and constitutional. While Ikenberry predominately uses the constitutional framework, he admits that any of the types of order can exhibit characteristics of another. Ikenberry contends that states will seek to order based on constitutional principles to best conserve power in the long term.
Using these frameworks, Ikenberry begins his empirical analysis by looking at the political order that emerged from the Vienna settlement in 1815. Moving away from solely balance of power considerations, Britain, the newly hegemonic state, sought to lock in a favorable post-war order and lasting peace by creating legitimacy among all involved states through a pactum de contrehendo. Britain’s economic power enabled it to finance the war efforts of other allies and lock them into the creation of the Treaty of Chaumont. British subsidies were contingent on allied support of British aims and gave Britain leverage to design the post-war order. Although the Vienna settlement offers evidence of some institutional characteristics, Britain does not appear to have significantly constrained itself in order to lock in the post-war agreement.
In 1919, the United States similarly sought to establish a favorable post-war order by locking states into institutional commitments. Because the United States did not yet possess hegemonic power, its ability to force Britain and France to abandon territorial claims in favor of institutionalism, was limited. President Wilson’s attempt to use the League of Nations to foster collective security among democracies represented a significant constitutional order; however, Wilson’s calculus that a wave of democracy would spread and allow the League to expand, was premature. Ultimately, a lack of domestic support and insufficient global power doomed Wilson’s vision of a democratic league that could prevent another great war.
Ikenberry finally examines the peace after 1945. The lessons of the 1919 peace process coupled with greater American power and domestic acknowledgement that the US needed to prevent European states from going to war with one another led to the creation of significant institutions that have facilitated peace in Europe for over 65 years. The use of NATO to assuage other countries’ fears of German rearmament by binding American security forces to Europe allowed the United States to create other institutions that promoted its strategic goals through the Marshall Plan and the Bretton Woods institutions. Ikenberry also argues that the stability that these institutions established allowed for the peaceful dissolution of the Soviet Union because the Russians were convinced of the US’s benign intentions of the expansion of NATO after 1990.
Ikenberry’s empirical analysis of the three peace agreements in post-war periods shows the importance domestic political actors play in facilitating the creation of institutions. The advantage that democratic states have in creating credible commitments due to their democratic processes also exposes them to the vicissitudes of domestic polities. Democratic governance yields a longer, more precarious process in providing guarantees to other states as in the inability of Britain to provide a general security guarantee in the peace of 1815, the inability of Wilson to convince domestic politicians to sacrifice flexibility and make binding security commitments to Europe in 1919, and the six competing visions for peace by different domestic groups in the US in 1945. Thus, while democracies appear more willing to constrain their power, domestic realities restrain states’ ability to enter into commitments that quickly and effectively institute peace agreements.
The book also suggests the importance of a hegemonic state in creating lasting peace. Because the countries of continental Europe depended on Britain’s economic power to finance themselves, they negotiated more readily for a lasting alliance. The lack of US hegemony and France and Britain’s desire to maintain power appear to have limited the ability of the US to dictate reasonable concessions in the Treaty of Versailles. Finally, US hegemony ameliorated European fears of potential German dominance through security guarantees and granted Europe the ability to rebuild through financial commitments in the Marshall Plan. Both domestic politics and a lack of financial strength appear to limit the US’s ability to dictate peace agreements in today’s wars either because of a lack of will or financial ability to assure Afghans and Iraqis fear of abandonment.
Overall, Ikenberry’s use of three main comprehensive peace agreements to show that states’ exercise of strategic restraint can lead to lasting peace and sticky institutions is persuasive. While the scope of the book is limited to major wars between great powers, it provides the implications for other wars that peace is limited by the extent that states are able to use the power derived from victory to compel losers to enter into agreements, and get domestic actors to coalesce around strategic restraints.
June 3, 2019
This was a well-written and interesting book about international politics. It's been a while since I've read it, so this is based off of memory only!
The author uses historical and contemporary cases to outline his argument about what happens when an international war ends with a country powerful enough to make a power play.
The argument in the book is that "after victory" in the conflict, the winner roughly 3 choices:
1.) Abandonment--the winner leaves the area and actors to their own own devices (potentially creating a power vacuum)
2.) Domination--the winner takes advantage of its relative strength to create conditions highly favorable to itself and unfavorable to the "losers."
3.) Institutionalization--the winner creates a system of rules and conditions that the losing parties find more favorable than domination and even abandonment (power vacuums are dangerous, especially with neighbors that have invaded historically!). To actually work in practice, these rules rules and conditions must largely apply to and have the backing of winning power.
Because relative positions and alliances can change over time, option 3 is presented as the most stable long-term solution.
At any rate, it's an interesting well-written book, but it presents only one argument and way of explaining things. Because it's a bold examination of international politics I think it gets by without spending as much time talking about other ways of explaining the geopolitical world.
The author uses historical and contemporary cases to outline his argument about what happens when an international war ends with a country powerful enough to make a power play.
The argument in the book is that "after victory" in the conflict, the winner roughly 3 choices:
1.) Abandonment--the winner leaves the area and actors to their own own devices (potentially creating a power vacuum)
2.) Domination--the winner takes advantage of its relative strength to create conditions highly favorable to itself and unfavorable to the "losers."
3.) Institutionalization--the winner creates a system of rules and conditions that the losing parties find more favorable than domination and even abandonment (power vacuums are dangerous, especially with neighbors that have invaded historically!). To actually work in practice, these rules rules and conditions must largely apply to and have the backing of winning power.
Because relative positions and alliances can change over time, option 3 is presented as the most stable long-term solution.
At any rate, it's an interesting well-written book, but it presents only one argument and way of explaining things. Because it's a bold examination of international politics I think it gets by without spending as much time talking about other ways of explaining the geopolitical world.
June 3, 2022
I think it was a bit dry, like so many political science works. But of course it gets better towards the ending, where Ikenberry explains why the post Cold War order will endure.
He makes an interesting point, explaining why neorealist theories regarding balance of power have been wrong to predict that European countries and Japan would balance against the power of the United States after the end of the Cold War . He exlains this, as I understand, by the power of the institutions the US set up during and after the end of the Cold War. This is done in the discussion around the 1989 settlement and the following conclusion.
Although I think he brilliantly examines the history of the various settlements and offers a credible conclusion, he was obviously too optimistic. On the other hand, he was less optimistic than Francis Fukuyama in "The End of History and the Last Man". Ikenberry does offer some critical points regarding the future of the order, with examples of the US acting on its own, unrestrained by its own order. In hindsight, one can see that the US did act more unrestrained in the years following this book, undermining its own order.
Despite the fact that Ikenberry may have been wrong about institutional theory in general or the US-led order more secifically, this book is clearly useful both for understanding liberal insitutionalism or the history junctures it studies.
He makes an interesting point, explaining why neorealist theories regarding balance of power have been wrong to predict that European countries and Japan would balance against the power of the United States after the end of the Cold War . He exlains this, as I understand, by the power of the institutions the US set up during and after the end of the Cold War. This is done in the discussion around the 1989 settlement and the following conclusion.
Although I think he brilliantly examines the history of the various settlements and offers a credible conclusion, he was obviously too optimistic. On the other hand, he was less optimistic than Francis Fukuyama in "The End of History and the Last Man". Ikenberry does offer some critical points regarding the future of the order, with examples of the US acting on its own, unrestrained by its own order. In hindsight, one can see that the US did act more unrestrained in the years following this book, undermining its own order.
Despite the fact that Ikenberry may have been wrong about institutional theory in general or the US-led order more secifically, this book is clearly useful both for understanding liberal insitutionalism or the history junctures it studies.
August 17, 2021
After Victory effectively illustrates the conditions that allowed for post 1945 stability and the concept of 'strategic restraint' that global powers have resorted to as they establish themselves as leading political powers. It combines liberalist and realist ideologies in an effort to bridge between two political theories that tend to be pitted against each other. It offers great insight in terms of strategic policies taken by the US government without necessarily taking a strong normative stance.
August 27, 2021
After Victory effectively illustrates the conditions that allowed for post 1945 stability and the concept of 'strategic restraint' that global powers have resorted to as they establish themselves as leading political powers. It combines liberalist and realist ideologies in an effort to bridge between two political theories that tend to be pitted against each other. It offers great insight in terms of strategic policies taken by the US government without necessarily taking a strong normative stance
September 23, 2022
One of the more nuanced liberal arguments for international order. Effectively makes his argument about effective strategies of institutional restraint .
I particularly enjoyed his analysis about how the systems that create the nation-state can be extrapolated to wider communities, which he uses extensively in his discussion of constitutions and constitutional orders.
However, historical cases can drag on a bit at times and sometimes requires a re-reading and jumping back and forth about the text to identify where his argument comes in.
The intense Euro-centrism with very little mention at all of postwar Japan has not aged well.
I particularly enjoyed his analysis about how the systems that create the nation-state can be extrapolated to wider communities, which he uses extensively in his discussion of constitutions and constitutional orders.
However, historical cases can drag on a bit at times and sometimes requires a re-reading and jumping back and forth about the text to identify where his argument comes in.
The intense Euro-centrism with very little mention at all of postwar Japan has not aged well.
October 24, 2013
[Disclaimer: This is a snapshot of my thoughts on this book after just reading it. This is not meant to serve as a summary of main/supporting points or a critique – only as some words on how I engaged with this book for the purposes of building a theoretical framework on strategy.]
Ikenberry presents his institutional theory as a means for post-war powers to negotiate their interactions with smaller states for the purposes of long-term stability once power has been gained through war. The author appeals often to the realist reader, first by recognizing that states may need incentive in order to enter into institutional agreements, and second, by pointing out how institutions may in fact be a power mechanism. His central argument is that “stable orders are those in which the returns to power are relatively low and the returns to institutions are relatively high” (258). He uses the US and Britain (primarily) as examples of how these two powers used institutions to negotiate stability while ensuring their interests were looked after – establishing a sort of international or regional “constitution”. Ikenberry believes that lesser powers have as much a role to play in the durability of an institution, and also discusses the importance of institutional credibility.
Ikenberry does not see American power as the primary enabler as an international leader, but America’s willingness to use institutions to build sturdy relationships with other states. My admittedly realist (and cynical) perspective is that the author should not be so quick to make such a distinction. If a state sees that it is in its best interest to use softer forms of power such as institutions to contain other states, derive resources from a system of states, and act as a defensive measure against conflict with states in the “constitution,” then that is still an intent to control via power. The author stretched the Cold War bipolarity into a sort of institution “with constitutional characteristics” in order to defend his thesis, which I felt detracted from his credibility. The historical defense he provides is rich in detail and adds quite a bit to the study of strategy; however, he takes liberty in applying the definition of “institution” where it helps his argument.
In an interview, Ikenberry admitted that a state required three things in order to lead other states into an institution: power, legitimacy, and functionality (http://youtu.be/TqEmt64mihw). If this is the case, then it still serves a great power to pursue power and prestige (Gilpin), as well as economic strength, for the purposes of being more effective at using soft power such as Ikenberry suggests. This theory simply seems a more civilized and less costly way of maintaining an international system toward a balance of power (Waltz) – or perhaps, to pursue even more power (Mearsheimer). Institutions may also be a safe place for a state to hide until they have accumulated enough power and/or prestige to affect its place in the international system. Certainly, this theory would be an effective way to balance the international system so that it remains relatively stable – allowing for the powerful to stay powerful and the weak remain relatively weak.
This is an articulate perspective on the value of institutions, what types of institutions can be effective control mechanisms after power has been established, and how constitutional characteristics can increase the likelihood of durability. From a realist perspective, Ikenberry’s ideas can be applied to use institutions as a form of lower-cost power to exercise control over more states than would otherwise be possible.
Ikenberry presents his institutional theory as a means for post-war powers to negotiate their interactions with smaller states for the purposes of long-term stability once power has been gained through war. The author appeals often to the realist reader, first by recognizing that states may need incentive in order to enter into institutional agreements, and second, by pointing out how institutions may in fact be a power mechanism. His central argument is that “stable orders are those in which the returns to power are relatively low and the returns to institutions are relatively high” (258). He uses the US and Britain (primarily) as examples of how these two powers used institutions to negotiate stability while ensuring their interests were looked after – establishing a sort of international or regional “constitution”. Ikenberry believes that lesser powers have as much a role to play in the durability of an institution, and also discusses the importance of institutional credibility.
Ikenberry does not see American power as the primary enabler as an international leader, but America’s willingness to use institutions to build sturdy relationships with other states. My admittedly realist (and cynical) perspective is that the author should not be so quick to make such a distinction. If a state sees that it is in its best interest to use softer forms of power such as institutions to contain other states, derive resources from a system of states, and act as a defensive measure against conflict with states in the “constitution,” then that is still an intent to control via power. The author stretched the Cold War bipolarity into a sort of institution “with constitutional characteristics” in order to defend his thesis, which I felt detracted from his credibility. The historical defense he provides is rich in detail and adds quite a bit to the study of strategy; however, he takes liberty in applying the definition of “institution” where it helps his argument.
In an interview, Ikenberry admitted that a state required three things in order to lead other states into an institution: power, legitimacy, and functionality (http://youtu.be/TqEmt64mihw). If this is the case, then it still serves a great power to pursue power and prestige (Gilpin), as well as economic strength, for the purposes of being more effective at using soft power such as Ikenberry suggests. This theory simply seems a more civilized and less costly way of maintaining an international system toward a balance of power (Waltz) – or perhaps, to pursue even more power (Mearsheimer). Institutions may also be a safe place for a state to hide until they have accumulated enough power and/or prestige to affect its place in the international system. Certainly, this theory would be an effective way to balance the international system so that it remains relatively stable – allowing for the powerful to stay powerful and the weak remain relatively weak.
This is an articulate perspective on the value of institutions, what types of institutions can be effective control mechanisms after power has been established, and how constitutional characteristics can increase the likelihood of durability. From a realist perspective, Ikenberry’s ideas can be applied to use institutions as a form of lower-cost power to exercise control over more states than would otherwise be possible.
February 6, 2015
How political institutions are created and operated is one of the keys to understanding how international affairs in general and foreign policy in particular is created. In this book, Mr. Ikenberry lays out a general thesis of the three different orderings of international affairs (balance of power, hegemonic, and constitutional) and uses the examples of the post-war orderings of 1815, 1919, 1945, and the post-Cold War period up to 2000 to back up his thesis. This book is good, if not necessarily groundbreaking, and his historical analysis of the reasons for how each post-war ordering was different in each historical instance. And his theory on constitutional international orders, which morphed by the end of the book into institutional international orders (is there a difference?) is a good avenue of research into the how our modern world is ordered. But, as I said before, there was nothing necessarily groundbreaking about this work. I would recommend that you pick up
Henry Kissinger's
Diplomacy first for a much better and more detailed historical analysis of the working of international affairs first then use this book as a supplement to that.
Henry Kissinger's
Diplomacy first for a much better and more detailed historical analysis of the working of international affairs first then use this book as a supplement to that.
January 29, 2017
This study of postwar orders does a fine job of describing balance of power, hegemonic, and constitutional systems and how they have been applied after four major conflicts. This is insightful as it is real analysis of international relations seen through a historical lens. Ikenberry's definitions of the three systems are well told and his applications to historical example illustrate how each has their benefits and downfalls. The thesis centers around the merits of constitutional order as they are most binding of the nations involved and more likely to serve as peaceful orders.
A great introduction to international relations.
A great introduction to international relations.
October 25, 2012
Excellent discussion of where institutions fit into international relations. Makes the case that, contrary to the narrow view of Realists and the overly utopian view of liberalists, institutions can be put in place for "selfish" reasons of creating a new order that benefits the contemporary power and allows that state to trade short-term power/gains/freedom of maneuver for a long-term investment in a stable, favorable system.
May 11, 2012
Ikenberry's book is a useful corrective to the current trend towards a reassertion of the Hobbesian view of relations between nations, however, it neglects certain aspects what truly makes multilateral agreements and transnational institutions functional--an Anglo-American hegemon with leaders temperamentally predisposed to be magnanimous in victory in seeing that the institutions function.
February 17, 2007
A thorough and interesting explanation of the causal variables in neoliberal IR theory, analyzed through the post-war hegemonic settlements of 1815, 1919, 1945, and 1989.
August 1, 2016
I remember I had to read chunks of this for an IR class. Very interesting analysis of what to do once you have won a war.
October 24, 2012
A little repetitive, but made some good points about how institutions fit into the ordering of states in contrast to the realist balance of power theory. .
April 15, 2016
Seriously academic but an important book
January 23, 2013
Interesting response to realism. Still outdated though.
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