SFeDu
of.211, Gorgoko St., 88 
Rostov-on-Don
Russia
344002
+7 (863) 250-59-54
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
te@sfedu.ru

TERRA ECONOMICUS

  • Home
  • Issues
  • 2026
  • No 1
  • Taking down a mammoth: Cooperation strategies of great and middle powers in challenging the hegemon

Taking down a mammoth: Cooperation strategies of great and middle powers in challenging the hegemon


TERRA ECONOMICUS, Vol. 24, No 1

Citation: Crowley-Vigneau A., Baykov A., Zhang T. (2026). Taking down a mammoth: Cooperation strategies of great and middle powers in challenging the hegemon. Terra Economicus 24(1), 99–114. DOI: 10.18522/2073-6606-2026-24-1-99-114


The paper investigates, through the analysis of original expert interviews, the conditions under which a group of great powers has emerged in the international system to challenge the hegemonic leader. The findings reveal that the current transition to a multipolar world order is fashioned by challengers which use the values, once promoted by the West, of equality, non-discrimination, self-determination, as well as the institutions originally designed to uphold them, to call out US conduct on the global stage and advance a new multipolar international decision-making model. The US appears as a mammoth, a representative of a past world order governed by coercion, that has lost its credibility as an international peace broker. Beyond cooperating between themselves to dislodge the hegemon, great powers are benefiting from the support of a group of rising middle powers who wish to see China and Russia take on the role of social stabilizer, global spokesperson, and economic leader.

Keywords: hegemony; unipolar world; multipolar world; BRICS; middle powers
JEL codes: O10, N90


References:
  • Balatsky, E. (2024). The American model of global dominance. Terra Economicus 22(2), 96–113 (in Russian)
  • Batalov, E. (2001). A new era – A new world. Svobodnaya Mysl' (Free Thought) (1), 4–13 (in Russian)
  • Batalov, E. (2005). World Development and World Order. Moscow: ROSSPEN Publ. (in Russian)
  • Bogaturov, A. (2006). Leadership and decentralization in the international system. Mezhdunarodnye protsessy (International Trends) 4(3), 5–15 (in Russian)
  • Voskressensky, A. (2019). Implementing the "Chinese dream" in the "Xi Jinping era". What Russia should expect. World Economy and International Relations 63(10), 5–16 (in Russian)
  • Barnett, M., Duvall, R. (2005). Power in international politics. International Organization 59(1), 39–75. DOI: 10.1017/S0020818305050010
  • Baykov, A., Bolgova, I. (2023). International Relations in the Post-Soviet Space. In: Polycentric World Order in the Making (pp. 573–600). Singapore: Springer Nature Singapore.
  • Brooks, S., Wohlforth, W. (2023). The myth of multipolarity: American power's staying power. Foreign Affairs 102, 76–91.
  • Brooks, S., Ikenberry, G., Wohlforth, W. (2012). Don't come home, America: The case against retrenchment. International Security 37(3), 7–51. DOI: 10.1162/ISEC_a_00107
  • Brown, C. (2004). Do great powers have great responsibilities? Great powers and moral agency. Global Society 18(1), 5–19.
  • Caverley, J., Dombrowski, P. (2020). Too important to be left to the admirals: The need to study maritime great-power competition. Security Studies 29(4), 579–600. DOI: 10.1080/09636412.2020.1811448
  • Colby, E., Mitchell, A. (2020). The age of great-power competition: How the Trump administration refashioned American strategy. Foreign Affairs 99.
  • Crowley-Vigneau, A., le Saux, F. (2021). Language and statecraft: An old tool for new goals? International Trends 19(1), 120–138. DOI: 10.17994/IT.2021.19.1.64.9
  • Crowley-Vigneau, A., Baykov, A., Gao, A. (2024). Diplomats on BRICS: Drawbacks and benefits of cooperation without integration. Terra Economicus 22(2), 124–137. DOI: 10.18522/2073-6606-2024-22-2-124-137
  • DiCicco, J., Onea, T. (2023). Great-power competition. Oxford Research Encyclopedia of International Studies. https://oxfordre.com/internationalstudies/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780190846626.001.0001/acrefore-9780190846626-e-756 (accessed on November 17, 2023)
  • Foot, R. (2020). China's rise and US hegemony: Renegotiating hegemonic order in East Asia? International Politics 57(2), 150–165. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/s41311-019-00189-5
  • Gilpin, R. (1981). The nature of international political change. In: War and Change in World Politics (pp. 9–49). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  • Gilpin, R. (2015). Hegemonic war and international change. In: Betis, R. (ed.) Conflict After the Cold War (pp. 117–129). London, N.Y.: Routledge.
  • Israel, J., Evans, R. (1995). The Dutch Republic: Its Rise, Greatness, and Fall, 1477–1806. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
  • Istomin, I. (2022). How not to interfere in another country's domestic politics. International Affairs 98(5), 1677–1694. DOI: 10.1093/ia/iiac191
  • Istomin, I. (2023). Evolution of the international security landscape in the midst of great power rivalry. In: Shakleina, T., Baykov, A. (eds.) Polycentric World Order in the Making (pp. 77–102). Singapore: Springer Nature Singapore.
  • Kapstein, E., Mastanduno, M. (eds.) (1999). Unipolar Politics: Realism and State Strategy after the Cold War (pp. 26–68). N.Y.: Columbia University Press.
  • Kastner, J., Wohlforth, W. (2021). A measure short of war. Foreign Affairs 100(4), 118–131.
  • Kim, M. (2019). A real driver of US–China trade conflict: The Sino–US competition for global hegemony and its implications for the future. International Trade, Politics and Development 3(1), 30–40. DOI: 10.1108/ITPD-02-2019-003
  • Klein, J., Goertz, G., Diehl, P. (2008). The peace scale: Conceptualizing and operationalizing non-rivalry and peace. Conflict Management and Peace Science 25(1), 67–80. DOI: 10.1080/07388940701860466
  • Kline, G. (1994). Reflections on the immaterial conditions of development. Journal of Third World Studies 11(2), 151–163.
  • Layne, C. (2006). The unipolar illusion revisited: The coming end of the United States' unipolar moment. International Security 31(2), 7–41. DOI: 10.1162/isec.2006.31.2.7
  • Lebow, R. (2009). A Cultural Theory of International Relations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  • Lemke, D., Reed, W. (2001). War and rivalry among great powers. American Journal of Political Science 45(2), 457–469. DOI: 10.2307/2669352
  • Levy, J. (1981). Alliance formation and war behavior: An analysis of the great powers, 1495–1975. Journal of Conflict Resolution 25(4), 581–613. DOI: 10.1177/002200278102500402
  • Levy, J. (2014). War in the modern great power system: 1495–1975. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky.
  • Luard, E. (1992). A system of great power consultation. In: Luard, E. (ed.) Basic Texts in International Relations: The Evolution of Ideas about International Society (pp. 424–438). London: Palgrave Macmillan UK.
  • Mearsheimer, J. (2001). The Tragedy of Great Power Politics. N.Y.: W.W. Norton.
  • Mearsheimer, J. (2006). China's unpeaceful rise. Current History 105(690), 160–162.
  • Mearsheimer, J. (2021). The inevitable rivalry: America, China, and the tragedy of great-power politics. Foreign Affairs 100(6), 48–58.
  • Morgenthau, H. (1948). Politics among Nations. The Struggle for Power and Peace. N.Y.: Knopf.
  • Murray, M. (2018). The Struggle for Recognition in International Relations: Status, Revisionism, and Rising Powers. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  • O'Neill, B. (2006). Nuclear weapons and national prestige. Cowles Foundation discussion paper no. 1560. https://ssrn.com/abstract=887333 (accessed on November 17, 2023)
  • Oppenheim, L. (1912). International Law. New York: Longmans, Green and Co.
  • Organski, A., Kugler, J. (1980). The War Ledger. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
  • Porter, P. (2019). Advice for a dark age: Managing great power competition. The Washington Quarterly 42(1), 7–25. DOI: 10.1080/0163660X.2019.1590079
  • Powell, R. (1991). Absolute and relative gains in international relations theory. American Political Science Review 85(4), 1303–1320. DOI: 10.2307/1963947
  • Robertson, J. (2017). Middle-power definitions: confusion reigns supreme. Australian Journal of International Affairs 71(4), 355–370. DOI: 10.1080/10357718.2017.1293608
  • Schmidt, B. (2004). Realism as tragedy. Review of International Studies 30(3), 427–441. DOI: 10.1017/S0260210504006151
  • Schroeder, P. (1994). The Transformation of European Politics, 1763–1848. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  • Schroeder, P., (2004). The nineteenth century system: Balance of power or political equilibrium? In: Schroeder, P., Wetzel, D., Jervis, R., Levy, J. (eds.) Systems, Stability, and Statecraft: Essays on the International History of Modern Europe (pp. 223–241). Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
  • Shakleina, T. (2023). The global order in the twenty-first century: Consolidating polycentricity. In: Shakleina, T., Baykov, A. (eds.) Polycentric World Order in the Making (pp. 13–40). Singapore: Springer Nature Singapore.
  • She, G. (2021). Asymmetric competition on a new battleground? Middle Eastern perspectives on Sino-US rivalry. The Chinese Journal of International Politics 14(2), 289–320. DOI: 10.1093/cjip/poab003
  • Thompson, W. (ed.) (1999). Great Power Rivalries. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press.
  • Waltz, K. (1993). The emerging structure of international politics. International Security 18(2), 44–79.
  • Ward, S. (2017). Status and the Challenge of Rising Powers. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
  • Wohlforth, W. (1999). The stability of a unipolar world. International Security 24(1), 5–41.
  • Wohlforth, W. (2007). Unipolar stability. Harvard International Review 29(1), 44–48.
  • Wohlforth, W. (2014). The stability of a unipolar world. In: Elman, C., Jensen, M. (eds.) The Realism Reader (pp. 383–395). London, N.Y.: Routledge.

Publisher: Southern Federal University
ISSN: 2073-6606