US Hegemony and the Obama Administration: Towards a New World Order?

摘要

We appear to have reached a turning point in American hegemony. The election of a new American president, Barack Obama, combined with global financial crisis, have left us in uncertain times. While the 9/11 attacks were a defining moment for the USA and its relationship with the rest of the world, as the pretext for a more aggressive and contradictory hegemony (Anderson 2003), the events of late 2008 could arguably prove to have more fundamental and far-reaching consequences. Worldwide media coverage of Obama's "historic" election win was unprecedented in its scale. However, as Sarah Starkweather argues in the preceding intervention, the constitution of an extra-national public around the election should be seen as more than a media spectacle. Perhaps most significant is that it reflects how American national policies have far-reaching effects well outside of national politics.