Post-Arab Spring

Abstract

In the 1970s when the hegemony of the US was declining considerably, some neo-realist scholars emphasized the necessity of maintaining the supremacy of the United States, and they created the hegemonic stability theory. Therefore, the hegemonic stability theory is an expression of Americanism, a kind of American centrism. However, structuralist scholars and liberal scholars have criticized the hegemonic stability theory. The hegemonic stability theory has been criticized because of the ambiguity of the ‘hegemony’ concept, the problems of the theoretical composition of this theory, ideological bias, and neglecting the connectivity between domestic class-social structure-state within each nation-state and international relations. This article is based on the question of whether the hegemonic stability theory that ‘the existence of hegemon stabilizes the system’ properly explains the instability factors in the Middle East area in the era of Post-ArabSpring. This paper also emphasizes that the competition of hegemony of the three major actors in the Middle East - the United States, which is recognized as a hegemonic state in the Middle East, Shiite central state, Iran which is judged to seeks hegemony in the Middle East, and the Sunni group IS, which has pursued supremacy beyond the Middle East - is an instability factor of the Middle East international order.