Il declino degli Stati Uniti e la Grecia classica

The issue of decline is at the core of the present and past debate on the US hegemony. This article aims at contributing to this debate by comparing the contemporary IR literature with the understanding the Greek historians had of the decline of Spartan and Athenian hegemonies in the classical system of the city-states. This article presents the reasons by which this comparison can be meaningful and useful. It maintains that contemporary IR theories share a materialistic view of decline, the causes of which are looked into changes of actors’ capabilities. It argues, on the contrary, the Greek historians like Herodotus, Isocrate, Xenophon and Thucydides seem to share a non-material perspective on decline. They do not search the causes for the decline of Sparta and Athens into the growth of Athens as a maritime power and, in turn, into the resulting changes in the relative distribution of capabilities. Instead, they suggest Sparta declined because it was unable to provide effective military leadership, thereby proving to be unreliable in political and military terms; while Athens declined because it became an empire, thereby proving its self-restraint was unreliable. The article concludes that classical Greece can provide useful insights on how to study contemporary dynamics. Firstly, the decline of American hegemony can result from changes in absolute and relative American power resources but also non-material factors can be autonomous causes of decline. Secondly, scholars could study the latter by focusing on the reliability of both American leadership (namely, the likelihood and features of hegemonic goods) and American self-restraint (namely, to what extent American power is perceived as threatening).