Introduction

Abstract

The close of the first decade of the twenty-first century marks both the culmination of an almost sixty-year-old world order dominated by the United States and the inauguration of a radically reconfigured one. In the parlance of historians, the twentieth century has been labeled the “American Century.” It is a term that represents a triumphalist rendering of the nature and scope of American power in the twentieth century. More specifically, it stands as testimony to America’s hegemonic role and dominance in the realm of global power politics. The gravitational pull of this idea has captured the fancy of ideologues and fanatics as much as policymakers and power brokers. From the entrenched power perspective of the Washington establishment, neocon- servatives, liberal hawks and other post-cold war elites, the assumption that guided them through the successive administrations was one that depicted the United States as destined to enjoy an extended unipolar moment. It was supposed to be a unipolar moment that would make the next one hundred years into the “New American Century.” However, the tide of time and events has started to reveal a different set of factors at work for the evolution of twenty-first century global power politics.KeywordsGlobal GovernanceWorld OrderGlobal RelationRegional OrderLatin American NationThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.