Weakening of Western Dominance in International Relations

Running head: INTERNATIONAL RELATION
International relation
Name of the student
Name of the university
Author note

1INTERNATIONAL RELATION
Introduction
Traditionally, western economies especially the United States of America are having
higher level of importance in the international political and economical systems. This is due to
the reason that western economies are the frontrunners in terms of development and access to
different resources coupled with military and economical might. This led to the increase in
importance of these countries in different international bodies such as World Economic Forum
and the United Nations1. Another reason of this strength of the western economies is the
dependency of other countries on them. Western countries are one, which can influence the
world politics and even influence the economy of other countries. However, in the recent time,
this dominance of the western countries is weakening and countries mainly from the Asian
regions are coming up as the new determining force in the world2.
There are obviously different reasons behind the reduction of the dominance of the
western countries and in this essay; these reasons will be discussed in details.
Social factors
Social factors are one of the major determining factors for the country development and
in this area; western countries are trailing behind the Asian counterparts. Gaughan et al. (2013)
reported that Asian countries constitute of approximately 60 percent of the total population of the
world3. Thus, the advantages that maybe gained from having higher population are being with
1 Desai, Radhika. "The Brics are building a challenge to western economic supremacy." The Guardian 2 (2013).
2 Alejandro, Audrey. Western Dominance in International Relations?: The Internationalisation of IR in Brazil and
India. Routledge, 2018.
3 Gaughan, Andrea E., Forrest R. Stevens, Catherine Linard, Peng Jia, and Andrew J. Tatem. "High resolution
population distribution maps for Southeast Asia in 2010 and 2015." PloS one 8, no. 2 (2013): e55882.

2INTERNATIONAL RELATION
the Asian countries. These advantages are higher gross domestic income, higher foreign
investments due to larger market size and more potentiality of economic growth. In this case,
Asian countries mainly India and China are the top two countries in the world in terms of
population. Thus, these countries are having the advantages over the western economies. On the
other hand, it should also be noted that dependency of the western economies on these Asian
countries are increasing due to the fact that investors from the western countries are more
investing in the Asian countries to tap the growing market while the market in the western
countries already got saturated. This is causing reduction in the dominance of the western
economies in against the Asian developing countries4.
Economic development
One of the major reasons of the weakening of the western dominance is the rise of Asian
giants such as India and China. Gay (2016) reported that the economy growth of the United
States is 2.8 percent as of 2017, while the economy growth rate of India and China is 6.3 percent
and 6.8 percent respectively. This shows that these developing countries are growing at the more
than double rate of that of the United States5. Thus, the more rapidly these developing countries
will grow, the less they will be depending on the traditional superpowers6. On the other hand, the
more will be the economy development of India and China, the more will be their market
opportunities over their developed counterparts. This is also shifting the determining powerhouse
from the western region to the eastern region. The shift of the powerhouse is well evident by the
4 Hopewell, Kristen. "Different paths to power: The rise of Brazil, India and China at the World Trade
Organization." Review of International Political Economy 22, no. 2 (2015): 311-338.
5 Gay, Robert D. "Effect of macroeconomic variables on stock market returns for four emerging economies: Brazil,
Russia, India, and China." The International Business & Economics Research Journal (Online) 15, no. 3 (2016):
119.
6 Hoge Jr, James F. "A global power shift in the making." In Paradoxes of Power, pp. 62-68. Routledge, 2015.