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The End of American World Order
The age of Western hegemony is over. Whether or not America itself is declining, the post-war liberal world order underpinned by US military, economic and ideological primacy and supported by global institutions serving its power and purpose, is coming to an end. But what will take its place? A Chinese world order? A re-constituted form of American hegemony? A regionalized system of global cooperation, including major and emerging powers?
In this timely and provocative book, Amitav Acharya offers an incisive answer to this fundamental question. While the US will remain a major force in world affairs, he argues that it has lost the ability to shape world order after its own interests and image. As a result, the US will be one of a number of anchors including emerging powers, regional forces, and a concert of the old and new powers shaping a new world order. Rejecting labels such as multipolar, apolar, or G-Zero, Acharya likens the emerging system to a multiplex theatre, offering a choice of plots (ideas), directors (power), and action (leadership) under one roof. Finally, he reflects on the policies that the US, emerging powers and regional actors must pursue to promote stability in this decentred but interdependent, multiplex world.
Written by a leading scholar of the international relations of the non-Western world, and rising above partisan punditry, this book represents a major contribution to debates over the post-American era.
In this timely and provocative book, Amitav Acharya offers an incisive answer to this fundamental question. While the US will remain a major force in world affairs, he argues that it has lost the ability to shape world order after its own interests and image. As a result, the US will be one of a number of anchors including emerging powers, regional forces, and a concert of the old and new powers shaping a new world order. Rejecting labels such as multipolar, apolar, or G-Zero, Acharya likens the emerging system to a multiplex theatre, offering a choice of plots (ideas), directors (power), and action (leadership) under one roof. Finally, he reflects on the policies that the US, emerging powers and regional actors must pursue to promote stability in this decentred but interdependent, multiplex world.
Written by a leading scholar of the international relations of the non-Western world, and rising above partisan punditry, this book represents a major contribution to debates over the post-American era.
96 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2014
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
October 1, 2024
Good arguments and a good view on the America world order we have now and if it’s sustainable. However, had to read it for uni and that gave me a headache
February 28, 2025
Even as a MSc student pol.sci. this book was unnecessarily difficult and dense. Acharya makes some interesting, well-researched points about the AWO, but lacks cohesive structure (both in his individual sentences and the book as a whole) and a way to keep the reader interested. Scholars keep complaining that their work is not easily accessible for the general public - then why are books like these always filled with unnecessary jargon as well as irrelevant material when the main conclusion/point and its arguments is usually reached 5 pages into a 30+page chapter?
If you’re a fellow student reading this for uni: chapter 6 is basically a summary of the entire book so don’t bother reading the rest.
If you’re a fellow student reading this for uni: chapter 6 is basically a summary of the entire book so don’t bother reading the rest.
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October 5, 2023good argument, but structurally not the best
June 30, 2022
Why is this book rated 3.5 stars on Goodreads? I guess a lot of people are upset that the American World Order is coming to an end. It is exactly this type of attitude that the professor is trying to challenge. Accept it without anger or prejudice – the American World Order is on a rapid decline. Lamentable? Yes.
I think Professor Acharya is fully vindicated by now. America’s utterly humiliating exit from Afghanistan, and the current debacle with Russia-Ukraine war are clear testaments that the Western liberal order is deathly ill. The U.S. and Europe couldn’t even lift a single finger to change the situation meaningfully. Their silence is terrifying and it signals that their collective power is waning.
Time to revise your ratings, people. The author got is right. I find his arguments strongly convincing. However, I disagree on a couple of points: (1) The Thucydides Trap might just happen in the foreseeable future. No great power gives up its position without a fight. We might not see gun blazing, but economic and cyber warfare will mark the coming struggle between great powers. (2) The coming world order (or even global order) will ultimately belong to a giant superpower. A multiplex world will be subservient to that superpower’s will. And I fear that that superpower will become terribly repressive. Will that superpower be China? I don’t know. It might even be a CEO of a conglomerate of powerful companies… who knows?
Dear Mr. Acharya, thank you for the clarity and simplicity of your book. Great job. I never thought I could learn so much from such a modest-sized book.
I think Professor Acharya is fully vindicated by now. America’s utterly humiliating exit from Afghanistan, and the current debacle with Russia-Ukraine war are clear testaments that the Western liberal order is deathly ill. The U.S. and Europe couldn’t even lift a single finger to change the situation meaningfully. Their silence is terrifying and it signals that their collective power is waning.
Time to revise your ratings, people. The author got is right. I find his arguments strongly convincing. However, I disagree on a couple of points: (1) The Thucydides Trap might just happen in the foreseeable future. No great power gives up its position without a fight. We might not see gun blazing, but economic and cyber warfare will mark the coming struggle between great powers. (2) The coming world order (or even global order) will ultimately belong to a giant superpower. A multiplex world will be subservient to that superpower’s will. And I fear that that superpower will become terribly repressive. Will that superpower be China? I don’t know. It might even be a CEO of a conglomerate of powerful companies… who knows?
Dear Mr. Acharya, thank you for the clarity and simplicity of your book. Great job. I never thought I could learn so much from such a modest-sized book.
May 12, 2018
Last line - perhaps the weakest ending one could ever expect in an otherwise great read...Star Trek, really?!? Multiplex - great concept and well explained..."powerful incentives to collude, not just collide." (158) G-plus global governance - yes, yes, regional, small, intersecting organizations yes. "The era of liberal hegemony is past" sums it up well (161). Insightful missiological implications as well.
Kudos for addressing Trump's election: "Trump's ascent to power is the consequence, not the cause, of the decline of the liberal order; the real cause is its failure to address the concerns of its domestic constituents cause by the global power shift." (133)
Most marginal notations for this: "As James Ron observes, 'Transnational NGOs and networks can monitor, inform, and advocate all they want, but without serious investments of time and effort by local human rights champions, nothing much will change on the ground.'" (75)
Kudos for addressing Trump's election: "Trump's ascent to power is the consequence, not the cause, of the decline of the liberal order; the real cause is its failure to address the concerns of its domestic constituents cause by the global power shift." (133)
Most marginal notations for this: "As James Ron observes, 'Transnational NGOs and networks can monitor, inform, and advocate all they want, but without serious investments of time and effort by local human rights champions, nothing much will change on the ground.'" (75)
October 6, 2023
Acharya provides a rigorous critique of established theories of international relations within the context of the United States of America and its position within the international system it created. The first few chapters of the book focus on how the USA ascended to its unchallengeable position within the international system by making foreign policy decisions that were often contradictory to the norms of the system that it wanted to create. He then proceeds to analyze the so-called “unipolar moment” when the USA was at the peak of its power (internally and internationally) and how this moment of American dominance facilitated the decline of the American liberal international order by acting unilaterally against the norms and principles of its own order. The next chapters focus on the rise of China and how the American liberal international order contributed to its rise within US’s own order and how the Chinese may aspire to transform that order in its own image while still retaining its core principles. The last chapter focuses on countries from global South and how their relationship tainted by the bloody history of western colonial domination affects (and will affect) the new multipolar order, that could with their inclusion into the structures of global governance become by Acharya’s own words “multiplex order”, an order that is multipolar and complex.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 30, 2025
I have to say that this book is, overall, a good overview of international relations since the first Trump administration. Although there are a lot of points that I do not agree with in this book and with my professor. I can understand his good evidence for his multiplex world, and some of the predictions for the future. Even though many of his predictions were wrong, he did have good evidence to back his claim. I really wish this book had an audio version because reading it in hindsight was harder to sit through, unless it was just part of the process. Would I read this now? Probably not, unless you wanted a quick update on what has happened since; then it could be a useful read.
December 24, 2020
Read this for a political science course at UWaterloo. Wanted to revisit this after reading Kissinger's World Order. Acharya's key arguments no longer hold much weight given the current political circumstances.
June 25, 2020
Acharya's critique of the ideas and concepts of American world order and liberal hegemony is insightful and well worth a read. The rest of the book is a bit weak.
December 19, 2023
203 - 2023
August 31, 2024
pakte me niet, snapte de essentie er niet echt van en heel technisch
June 14, 2014
Amitav Acharya's argument is that the 'American world order' was never that American in nature, nor worldly in scope or even very orderly. Instead he predicts that regions and regionalism is the future, and this might actually better serve us all, the US included. At least I think that's what he argues. The book for all its clarity of prose, feels half-formed. This is a placeholder book, hopefully pointing the author and other scholars towards important new approaches, but with the risk it might never be taken and thus this book will soon be forgotten.
One virtue of not being a 'big name IR scholar': I'm not expected to have a book out every time there's a new fad in the discipline. A decade ago, if you were big, you had a book on Terrorism, then it was Iraq, then China, now the decline of the US.
I've long been an admirer of Amitav Acharya's work. His book 'How ideas spread: Whose norms matter' was one of the best books on norms I read during my PhD and quite influential on my thinking. He has also produced a stream of strong articles in the leading journals around the world.
Yet I can't help but feel this book is a 'my thoughts on the world' text, both in its lengths (a mere 117 pages) and the many initiated but unfinished thoughts that appear amongst its pages. The book is neither long enough to serve as a description of the currently changing international system, nor with a clear and striking enough argument to serve as a way of understanding that change. Instead the book ends with something of a call for a new story to be told, of how regions are increasingly important and non-great powers play a vital role shaping the world order. Both of which I'd strongly agree with, but as a reader I'm left to wonder why those important arguments (and the detailed evidence to substantiate them) were not refined into a different book, instead of the one that is now in my hands.
Acharya's prose is clear, and even when walking you through the logic and arguments of other scholars he keeps the arguments highly accessible. If some random member of the public who largely ignored international politics happened to receive this as a birthday present, they'd be reasonably able to work through this book and come out much wiser for it. But that wasn't its intended audience and more likely our random member of the public would never even flick through its pages.
There's an interesting sub-theme running through this book. As everyone knows, Asia is rising and this is challenging traditional western ideas of how international politics works and even how we go about studying said politics. One small but growing trend is by Asian scholars who argue that the region has been judged by the wrong standards by outsiders who don't understand what is occurring. In short, westerns can't understand what is going on. Kishore Mahbubani is perhaps the most well known example of this critical trend, one which even if yet to clearly justify its case and uncomfortable reading for many western scholars, will be an important one to engage with. Acharya is far too conscious of American audiences to wholly embrace this trend, but he does seem to imply it at times in this book, as he has in other works.
If this trend ends up the growing pains of a serious contribution towards 'Non-Western approaches to International Relations' we will all be the better off for it. But if it's just a form of Asian swagger, based on nothing more than economic growth and feelings that the region's time has come (as it often does in Mahbubani's work), then, like its prior British and US versions, we could well do without it.
This is an enjoyable read, but i'm glad I didn't shell out the $31.95 (or a ridiculous $94.95 for hardcover) for it. I'm keen to see where Acharya's thinking goes next, his work will continue to be on my must-read lists. But it feels more like this book is a placeholder, or a basecamp for future endeavours: Something to satisfy the publishers and keep his name in the ring as a thinker on the big questions of the day, while he (hopefully) begins the actual struggle to move his way towards a real and substantial new contribution.
One virtue of not being a 'big name IR scholar': I'm not expected to have a book out every time there's a new fad in the discipline. A decade ago, if you were big, you had a book on Terrorism, then it was Iraq, then China, now the decline of the US.
I've long been an admirer of Amitav Acharya's work. His book 'How ideas spread: Whose norms matter' was one of the best books on norms I read during my PhD and quite influential on my thinking. He has also produced a stream of strong articles in the leading journals around the world.
Yet I can't help but feel this book is a 'my thoughts on the world' text, both in its lengths (a mere 117 pages) and the many initiated but unfinished thoughts that appear amongst its pages. The book is neither long enough to serve as a description of the currently changing international system, nor with a clear and striking enough argument to serve as a way of understanding that change. Instead the book ends with something of a call for a new story to be told, of how regions are increasingly important and non-great powers play a vital role shaping the world order. Both of which I'd strongly agree with, but as a reader I'm left to wonder why those important arguments (and the detailed evidence to substantiate them) were not refined into a different book, instead of the one that is now in my hands.
Acharya's prose is clear, and even when walking you through the logic and arguments of other scholars he keeps the arguments highly accessible. If some random member of the public who largely ignored international politics happened to receive this as a birthday present, they'd be reasonably able to work through this book and come out much wiser for it. But that wasn't its intended audience and more likely our random member of the public would never even flick through its pages.
There's an interesting sub-theme running through this book. As everyone knows, Asia is rising and this is challenging traditional western ideas of how international politics works and even how we go about studying said politics. One small but growing trend is by Asian scholars who argue that the region has been judged by the wrong standards by outsiders who don't understand what is occurring. In short, westerns can't understand what is going on. Kishore Mahbubani is perhaps the most well known example of this critical trend, one which even if yet to clearly justify its case and uncomfortable reading for many western scholars, will be an important one to engage with. Acharya is far too conscious of American audiences to wholly embrace this trend, but he does seem to imply it at times in this book, as he has in other works.
If this trend ends up the growing pains of a serious contribution towards 'Non-Western approaches to International Relations' we will all be the better off for it. But if it's just a form of Asian swagger, based on nothing more than economic growth and feelings that the region's time has come (as it often does in Mahbubani's work), then, like its prior British and US versions, we could well do without it.
This is an enjoyable read, but i'm glad I didn't shell out the $31.95 (or a ridiculous $94.95 for hardcover) for it. I'm keen to see where Acharya's thinking goes next, his work will continue to be on my must-read lists. But it feels more like this book is a placeholder, or a basecamp for future endeavours: Something to satisfy the publishers and keep his name in the ring as a thinker on the big questions of the day, while he (hopefully) begins the actual struggle to move his way towards a real and substantial new contribution.
April 12, 2015
Unconvincing on the whole, but the last chapter engaged me more fully. The idea of a multipolar, "regional worlds" global ordering of power as a stepping stone to universalism was interesting. If he could have only taken the next step! The historical examples (the Bandung Conference of 1955 as an example of successful regional emerging powers may be a little dated. And to argue that ASEAN and not the US has mitigated China's dominance of Southeast Asia seems to be leaning too far in favor of loose, non-binding treaty organizations with actual little organizational coherence, deterrence capability, or legitimate arbitration power. Still, worth reading.
May 13, 2020
A good international relations perspective on how the American-led hegemonic world order is slowly collapsing. It highlights the importance of regions in the 21st century and how they will eventually be the seat of power in the future. Acharya gives good arguments about how China is quickly pacing up and competing against the US. Would recommend to anyone who is looking to expand their knowledge about the post-WW2 political order of the world.
December 20, 2021
I did like this book, even though IR is up there with security studies as my least favorite part of policital science. It was great to get it from a non-American perspective, as well. I am not fully convinced of his argument as a whole, but his idea of the multiplex world is definitely something I will take with me in my further thinking on this subject matter.
September 26, 2020
An excellent contribution to IR theory that doesn't just synthesize or re-hash. I am choosing this as my second book for my students next semester.
October 28, 2021
Echt saai maar wel leuk idee van een multiplex world.
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews