话语制衡与霸权护持

Discursive Balancing for Hegemonic Maintenance:Taking the U.S. Rebalance to Asia-Pacific Strategy as an Example

现实主义理论认为权力的过度集中会引发其他行为体的权力制衡,鉴于国际体系中经常出现"制衡失灵"的现象,霸权何以维持成为需要解释的问题。现有文献大多从其他国家的角度思考为何出现"制衡不足",但是,作为有实力和意愿控制国际秩序的国家,霸权国不会消极等待其他国家的权力制衡,而会积极运用权力制衡维持霸权地位。作者提出话语制衡是霸权护持的重要手段,即通过使用话语策略在国内外建立话语共识和政策联盟,以维持国际霸权结构。具体表现为三种形式:一是旨在建立国内政策联盟的内部话语制衡,二是旨在建立国际霸权联盟的外部话语制衡,三是旨在阻止潜在挑战的消极话语制衡。强大的话语资本和对霸权地位的追求让霸权国拥有话语制衡的先发优势。话语制衡也存在局限,容易加剧霸权国的不安全感和国际体系的不稳定。作者旨在探究霸权国如何通过话语层面的权力制衡进行霸权护持,并以美国亚太再平衡战略为例,增进对美国霸权话语策略的理解。

Realist International Relations theories tend to believe that a concentration of power leads to power balancing by other actors, since the international system oftenwitnesses 'balancing failure', and how hegemony maintains becomes a research puz-zle. Existing scholarship largely probe into this question from the 'under-balancing' ofother states, but as the strongest country with both the power and willingness to con-trol international order, the hegemon will not passively waiting for power balancing ofother countries, instead it will use power balancing strategies to maintain its hegemony.This article proposes that discursive balancing is an important tool for hegemonic main-tenance, which refers to actors discursive efforts to reach discursive consensus andpolicy coalitions at home and abroad in order to maintain the international hegemonicpower structure. This discursive balancing strategy has three specific forms, includinginternal discursive balancing for building a domestic coalition, external discursive bal-ancing for building an international coalition, as well as external discursive balancingfor deterring potential challengers. Endowed with hegemonic discursive capital andprompted by the urge for hegemonic status, hegemons have preemptive advantages indiscursive balancing. Discursive balancing also has its limits, and might exacerbate in-security of hegemons and instability of the world at large. This text tries to delve intothe concept and mechanism of discursive balancing for hegemonic maintenance, andtake the 'Rebalance to Asia-Pacific' strategy as a case study to further understandingof the U.S. hegemonic discursive strategies.