4.1.2 Global superpowers

News article

America’s loosening grip: inside the 17 April Guardian Weekly

The decline of US hegemony. Plus: Hungary’s new dawn Get the Guardian Weekly delivered to your home address

The Guardian · 15 April 2026

Key terms

• Cultural imperialism
  • The practice of promoting the culture, values or language of one nation in another, less powerful one.

• Geopolitical
  • Focuses on political power linked to geographic space. At the level of international relations, geopolitics is a method of studying foreign policy to understand, explain, and predict international political behaviour through geographical variables. These include area studies, climate, topography, demography and natural resources.

• Hegemony
  • The political, economic, or military predominance of one state over other states

• Imperialism
  • A policy or ideology of extending the rule over peoples and other countries, for extending political and economic access, power and control, often through employing hard power, especially military force, but also soft power

• Influence
  • The capacity to have an effect on the character, development, or behaviour of someone or something, or the effect itself

• Superpower
  • A nation or group of nations with a leading position in international politics