The current global power situation of the United States crystallizes a brutal unbalance of forces. Nevertheless, this immense power concentration neither means - nor guarantees - the permanent exercise of domination. This is also true because a nation maintains its hegemony as long as, while conducting the system of nations into a desired direction, it manages to be perceived as seeking general interest and favoring global governability. The idea of a new and more stable global order from Bretton Woods onwards was rapidly buried by the brutality of a market ruled by volatile capitals and submitted to high levels of instability. Despite the strength of the capitalist system, the affirmation about market supremacy created a wave of crises that swept through the last three decades of the previous century and continues until today. The fragmentation of global productive chains and the worldwide expansion of commerce ended up allowing for a greater participation of large peripheral countries in the world market. However, with few exceptions, the exchange terms continue in favor of the central countries and unbalance has increased. It is the function of these countries - especially the United States as the mean conductor of global policies - to face the urgency of a new global order, basically including efficient measures for the reduction of their agricultural and industrial protectionism, regulation of volatile financial flows and support for strategies that allow large peripheral countries to incorporate value into their local production. The latter, then, should not raise exaggerated hopes in relation to globalization, merely putting it forward as an important perspective and not as the center of their policies. Therefore, the concept of a national State needs to be reconstructed, which is capable of exercising its sovereignty in a mature way, simultaneously informed by a new notion of identity and by the circumstances of the global market.
Hegemony; Governability; Global Order; Capitalism