The 1990s unipolar moment revived open imperial language in US policy
Evidence
This “neo-Reaganite” policy was called “benevolent global hegemony” because it asserted that what was good for the United States was generally good for the world as well. As an aside, we might note that this was not a radically new idea but rather a continuation of the “benevolent supremacy” that McAlister argues characterized US policy in the post–World War II era. What was new in the late 1990s was the willingness among the adherents of this policy to use the word empire more openly. Whereas the United States shied away from this designation after World War II, not least to differentiate itself from colonial powers like Britain and France, the unipolar world created new conditions for the resurrection of imperial language. — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 468
Categorization
Category: Causal Relationships
- DEFINE: Defines “benevolent global hegemony” and traces it to post-WWII “benevolent supremacy.”
- CANDY: A punchy conversational point: the US once avoided the word “empire” to distinguish itself from Britain and France, until the unipolar moment made it comfortable.
Related
- Only post-Cold War unipolarity let US elites openly embrace empire language (similarity 0.93)
- Post-Cold War unipolarity made US elites willing to openly embrace the word empire. (similarity 0.92)
- American exceptionalism repackaged empire because it could not inherit old imperial language (similarity 0.80)
- US post-war hegemony repurposed Orientalism and modernization theory to justify empire. (similarity 0.80)
- American postwar empire legitimized itself through ‘benevolent supremacy’ rather than old colonialism. (similarity 0.80)
- The US distinguished its postwar dominance from old colonialism as benevolent supremacy (similarity 0.79)
- US anticolonial identity required a distinct language masking its imperial ambitions. (similarity 0.79)
- Bush to Obama was a rhetorical shift masking unchanged imperial fundamentals. (similarity 0.79)
- American exceptionalism erases the country’s settler-colonial and imperial wars while projecting benevolence (similarity 0.79)
- US postwar imperialism was framed as benevolent supremacy via free-market capitalism (similarity 0.78)