Importance Of Hegemony

The revolutions of the late eighteenth century and early nineteenth century, including the American War for Independence, the French Revolution, and the Mexican Revolution led to changes in the position, power, and security of states; however, the French Revolution was one of the most significant events as it led to a failed attempt by France at hegemony. From 1792 to 1815, France underwent a campaign of wars and military battles under the rule of Napoleon Bonaparte. In 23 years, France conquered or annexed the Illyrian provinces, Switzerland, the Roman Republic, the Holy Roman Empire, the Netherlands, The Republic of Holland, the Confederation of the Rhine, the Duchy of Warsaw, the Kingdom of Naples, and more territory. However, despite

Economic hegemony implies the ability to center the economy around the power whereas political hegemony means being able to dominate militarily; essentially, a hegemon is a state that is able to force its will upon other states due to its power or means, economically, socially, politically, militarily, or a combination of these factors. According to David Wilkinson, a state must meet the following criteria in order to achieve hegemonic status: investiture, installation, appointment and deposition, adjunction, maintenance of order, convocation, command, veto, subsidy, tribute, and conversion. According to realist theory, states such as Napoleonic France pursue power and the strategy of offensive realism for main reasons: states seek security in an anarchic system, some states inherently possess offensive capabilities, states can never be sure of other states’ intentions, survival is the primary goal of international actors, and states are rational actors that act to survive and take advantage of opportunities to gain a better position. Under this criteria and according to these motivations, France under Napoleon was able to achieve significant control over Europe by “[launching] numerous military campaigns, [occupying] numerous countries, and incessantly [restructuring] the map of Europe,” but the state failed to achieve lasting and stable