EBP #1

"Aftershocks": Great Powers and Domestic Reforms in the Twentieth Century.

Chapter 1 - "A century of shocks and waves". Summary and explanation

Chapter 1 of Seva Gunitsky's "Aftershocks", "A Century of Shocks and Waves", examines the important role that hegemonic shocks, which are significant disruptions in the global power hierarchy, play in shaping domestic political reforms around the world. The chapter gives an overview of how hegemonic shocks have influenced regime changes and the spread of different ideologies. The chapter states that hegemonic shocks often lead to an increased tendency among great powers to promote and push their ideologies to other countries. Gunitsky includes examples such as the efforts of the United States to establish democratic regimes in Western Europe and Japan after the Second World War and the Soviet Union's establishment of the Eastern Bloc at the same time, which set the stage for the Cold War.

Gunitsky explores the concept of emulation, where states will imitate successful regimes in the aftermath of hegemonic shocks, this is driven by ideological similarity and practical considerations, including the potential for military and economic success. As previously mentioned, processes such as these are more common in the aftermath of events that cause significant shifts in the balance of power. Gunitsky again uses the example of the early stages of the Cold War to show this, where states were aligning themselves with either the United States or the Soviet Union, depending on which regime they perceived to be the more legitimate and successful. The strengths, successes, failures, and management of crises of these great powers provide valuable information about the effectiveness of their respective political regimes. For example, the success of Nazi Germany in the early stages of World War two and the rapid industrialization of the Soviet Union led to other states considering emulating these models despite their ideological differences. Another example could be Japan's rapid modernization adoption of Western-style institutions during the Meiji Restoration that began in 1868, which was driven by the desire to avoid colonization and keep up with the Western Powers.

After a hegemonic shock, great powers will use these mechanisms to influence other states. The first is inducement, which involves economic, diplomatic, or political measures to encourage states to adopt certain policies. For example, the US Marshall Plan provided economic aid to Western Europe to help rebuild after the Second World War and strengthen democratic ties and institutions. Coercion, threats of violence, and force are other methods that are used, with a prime example happening around the same time as the Marshall Plan which was the imposition of communism and the establishment of communist regimes in Eastern Europe in the late 1940s. These efforts by both the United States and the Soviet Union to spread their ideologies would later expand around the rest of the world during the Cold War. The maps below show the spread of American democracy and Soviet communism from 1950 (above) to 1980 (below).

Gunitsky concludes in this chapter that the spread of ideologies in the twentieth century such as fascism and other totalitarian regimes before the Second World War and democracy and communism after it, was not simply a matter of ideological superiority but is deeply connected with the shifting balance of power and the outcomes of the geopolitical climate at the time. This analysis highlights the nature of political change by implying that it is not always inevitable but instead is greatly affected by external factors and current events. This was the case with the rise of Nazi Germany in the 1920s and 30s where the National Socialist movement took advantage of a desperate German population that was weakened by the harsh reparations enforced upon it after the First World War and eventually from the Great Depression. 

These types of circumstances have often been the grounds that lead to extremist ideologies and dictatorships emerging which the twentieth century saw a lot of. This table below is taken from the text itself is very useful in showing the major hegemonic shocks and how they affected the rise of certain political ideologies throughout the 20th century. 

. 
The final hegemonic shock in the table being the collapse of the Soviet Union, left somewhat of a power vacuum that left the United States was the only real world power in the 1990s. This meant that they were able to spread their ideology of American democracy without nearly as much resistance as they had during the Cold War. I would argue that despite the rise of powers such as China, and failiures in Iraq and Afghanistan, that the democratising efforts of the United States has overall been decently successful. It has ultimately been the reason that no major hegemonic shocks have occured since which would potetially allow for a new dominant ideology to take hold. 

Citation.

Gunitsky, Seva. “Introduction: A CENTURY OF SHOCKS AND WAVES.” In Aftershocks: Great Powers and Domestic Reforms in the Twentieth Century, 154:1–32. Princeton University Press, 2017. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt1q1xskn.5.