After Victory: Institutions, Strategic Restraint and the Rebuilding of Order After Major
Wars, G. John Ikenberry.
Much of the argument in After Victory will be familiar to those who have managed to
keep up with this most prolific of authors. Ikenberry argues that the contemporary
international order between industrial democracies is durable because the character of
American power is ‘doomed to reassure’ (p.214). The reluctant nature of hegemony,
‘rooted in its legacy of isolationism and exceptionalism’, and the transparent and
penetrated character of a political system that provides ‘opportunities for voice and
reciprocity’ (p.199), reduces the fears of smaller states. This is reinforced by the
foreign policy practice of ‘constitutionalism’. This is the creation of ‘binding
institutions that tie states down and together, and thereby reduce worries about
domination and abandonment.’ (p.35). By exercising strategic restraint and setting up
institutions after victory in war, the great power can ‘lock-in’ the benefits of that
particular order so that they can continue to enjoy them even ‘after hegemony’
(pp.6–7). While there are no real theoretical surprises for those readers familiar with
Ikenberry’s articles, the expansion of institutional theory in Chapters 2 and 3 is still
helpful. For those new to his work, After Victory is a characteristically clear
introduction. It is, however, the historical depth that Ikenberry adds to these arguments
that is the real contribution of After Victory.
Ikenberry sets out to explain the increasing use of institutional strategies by states
that inherit the ‘power windfall’ of victory in war. What emerges from a detailed
historical analysis of the settlements of 1815, 1919 and 1945, is the conclusion that
such strategies are facilitated by large power disparities and democracy. While
Ikenberry cautions against oversimplifying the historical record, he argues that power
disparities enable the victor to create incentives for other states to commit to binding
institutions. Democracy bolsters the credibility of that commitment, as a strategy of
restraint cannot be easily reversed if it is the consequence of debate amongst ‘the
people’ rather than an unaccountable elite. Thus in 1815, Britain was able to use its
economic leverage to create a great power concert but that strategy was troubled by
the non-democratic nature of other states, notably Russia. In 1919, democracy and
institutionalism was at the forefront of Wilson’s post-war vision. The United States
was, however, less able to exercise leadership over the British and French, who were
less willing to abandon balance of power strategies. Wilson himself, meanwhile, was
unable to persuade American unilateralists that a commitment to European security
then would mean less commitment in the future. Finally in 1945, the US was able to
exert leadership and was willing to compromise on the institutions that would bind it
to the secondary states that had a stake in the new order. The success of this
‘constitutional order’ is shown in Chapter 7. Ikenberry demonstrates how the liberal
order was able, despite the hard-line rhetoric of conservatives who exaggerated the
difficulties of containment, to reassure Soviet ‘new thinkers’ as they sought to
dismantle the structures of the Cold War.
Ikenberry is speaking to two specific audiences with this book. By arguing that the
United States ultimately benefits from the strategic restraint that it shows when
binding itself to international institutions, he is making an important contribution to
the argument against those unilateralists who argue that American power is most
effective when it is unchecked. For the theorists, he gives convincing answers to those
questions set by the rationalist (and predominantly North-American) debate. After
Victory offers compelling reasons why the United States is not balanced against and
why, for instance, NATO expands even after the collapse of the USSR. The policy
discourses of unilateralism are unlikely to be moved by this book alone. The nature
and sources of policy discourse are found beyond academic debate. Yet After Victory
could easily be seen as a conclusion to the kind of theoretical debates that have
diverted much intellectual energy from those issues that are having a profound impact
on international order and global politics.
In this sense After Victory may come to imitate one of the historical ‘big bangs’
that it so eloquently describes. It is pivotal not merely because it should signal the
conclusion of one debate, but because it can provide the starting point for an ultimately
more significant debate. How the community of ‘industrial democracies’ collaborates
is answered here, how it relates to those peoples that it has ‘fenced off’ is neglected.
This, of course, is by no means a criticism of After Victory. One can hardly criticize a
book for not answering the questions it did not set itself. It can, however, be read as a
criticism of the complacency of the neoliberal dogma as it has been applied to the postcommunist
and post-colonial world. After Victory does little to challenge that
complacency. By implying, as Chapter 7 does, that the extension of the American
system through institutions like the IMF and WTO will extend the zone of stability
between states, Ikenberry’s conclusion is consistent but it also tends to overlook many
of the difficulties that these communities face. Ikenberry is surely correct to conclude
that the durability of a system rests on its ability to give as many people as possible a
stake in that system (p.253). Moreover, it is significant that the success of the 1945
settlement was based on concessions to a ‘social bargain’ that allowed others to
‘embrace such a system as their own’ (p.202). Given this conclusion, the fact that
‘countries with little affinity for the IMF and its operating methods have had little
choice but to negotiate with it over loans and economic stabilization’ (p.255 emphasis
added), hardly inspires confidence in the present course of expansion.
Ikenberry is surely right to argue that a cornerstone of international order is the open
and penetrated character of American democracy. However, it would also be right to
ask the question penetrated by whom? For there is a growing chorus of criticism and a
growing body of evidence (think Enron) that suggests the centres of power in the
international order, and in particular in Washington, are not open to all the views that
deserve to be mediated by a ‘constitutional system’. By laying out the nature and
sources of international order so well, After Victory may also provide a starting point
for those seeking to understand the nature and sources of global injustice.
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