Structural Liberalism:The Nature and Sources of Postwar Western Political Order _*

Daniel Deudney and G. John Ikenberry _**

Browne Center for International Politics
May 1996

Introduction

The end of the Cold War has triggered new debates about international relations theory. Most of the attention has been focused on explaining the end of the Cold War. Equally important, however, this epochal development raises new questions about the impact of forty years of East-West rivalry on the relations among the Western liberal democracies. This issue is not simply of passing historical interest because it bears on our expectations about the future trajectory of relations among the great powers in the West. Will the end of the Cold War lead to the decline of cooperative relations among the Western liberal democracies? Will major Western political institutions, such as NATO and the U.S.-Japanese alliance, fall apart? Will "semi-sovereign" Germany and Japan revert to traditional great power status? Will the United States return to its traditional isolationist posture? Our answers to these questions depend upon the sources of Western order: was the Cold War the primary cause of Western solidarity or does the West have a distinctive and robust political order that predated and paralleled the Cold War?

Realism advances the most clearly defined -- but pessimistic -- answers to these questions. Neo-realist theory provides two powerful explanations for cooperation within the West: balance of power and hegemony. Balance of power theory explains Western cooperation and institutions as the result of balancing to counter the Soviet threat. ₁ With the end of the Soviet threat, balance of power theory expects the West, and particularly the security organizations such as NATO, to weaken and eventually return to a pattern of strategic rivalry. ₂

A second realist theory holds that American hegemony created and maintained Western order. ₃ The preponderance of American power allowed the United States to offer incentives, both positive and negative, to the other Western democracies to form and maintain political institutions. Although the end of the Cold War does not itself signal the waning of American hegemony, many realist theorists argue that America's relative power position has been slowly and inexorably eroding for several decades. ₄ So long as Cold War bipolarity produced incentives for Western cooperation, the full consequences of the decline of American hegemony were not fully felt. But with the end of the Cold War, the implications of American decline -- institutional decay and conflict in the West -- will finally manifest themselves. The basic thrust of these realist theories is that the relations among the Western states will return to the patterns of the 1930s and early 40s, in which the problems of anarchy dominated: economic rivalry, security dilemmas, arms races, hyper-nationalism, balancing alliances, and ultimately the threat of war.

But realists overlook important aspects of the system. In the wake of the second World War, the United States and its liberal democratic allies created a strategic, political, and economic order that was explicitly conceived as a solution to the problems that led to world war. ₅ This order predated the onset of the Cold War and it was developed and institutionalized at least semi-independently of the Cold War. The Western system contains too many consensual and reciprocal relations to be explained as the product of balancing and American hegemony. Nor can the degree of Western institutionalization, its multilateral pattern, and the stable "semi-sovereignty" of Germany and Japan be explained by balancing and hegemony. The timing of this order creation and many of its salient features provide a puzzle that can only be explained by looking beyond realist theories.

Of course, many liberal theories have attempted to understand and explain the distinctive features of Western order. But they too fall short in important ways. Theories of the democratic peace, pluralistic security communities, complex interdependence, and the trading state attempt to capture distinctive features of liberal, capitalist, and democratic modern societies and their relations. ₆ They offer more optimistic expectations for the West's future than does realism. While offering important insights into the Western order, these liberal theories are incomplete and miss several of its most important aspects: the prevalence of binding security practices over traditional balancing, the distinctive system-structural features of the West, the peculiarly penetrated and reciprocal nature of American hegemony, the role of capitalism in overcoming the problem of relative gains, and the distinctive civic political identity that pervades these societies. This paper aims to develop a theory of "structural liberalism" that more adequately captures the unique features of this Western order in a way that builds on the strengths but goes beyond the weaknesses of current realist and liberal theories.

It is important to note that conflict within the Western system is not itself contrary to the propositions of structural liberalism and does not in itself validate realist arguments. In holding up "harmony" as the standard of the success of liberal practices, realists have not only set a standard impossible to meet but also one that is deeply misleading as to the character of liberal political systems. ₇ Conflict in such systems in endemic but bound and channeled. The diversity of actors and interests insures a continuous, often heated, political struggle in which there are real winners and losers. Indeed, conflict is evidence of the vitality of liberal political orders so long as it falls short of the use of violence or highly asymmetrical coercion.

The argument unfolds in three major sections. The first section focuses on five significant features of the Western order that together constitute a distinctive system. The second section offers a two-fold theoretical explanation for the emergence of this system. At the deepest level, structural liberalism is explained by the imperatives and consequences of industrialism. At a more proximate level, the timing and shape of liberal institutions and practices are explained by the opportunities created by the crisis of the 1930s and 40s and the preferences and capacities of the Western victors in World War II. In the third section, we generate a set of structural liberal expectations about the trajectory of Western order and assess their fit with events in the first five years of the post-Cold War era. In the conclusion we offer summary theoretical observations.

 

Part I: Liberal Practices and Structures

All systems are constituted by parts and their interaction. Five features of the Western system are most salient: the security practice of co-binding; the penetrated and reciprocal character of American hegemony; the semi-sovereign and partial great powers of Japan and Germany; economic openness; and the distinctive Western civic identity. In explicating each of these features, we first set forth the realist understanding and follow with the contrasting structural liberal one. See Figure One.

 

Security Co-Binding

The strong neo-realist argument relating system structure to unit-level practices is that states in an anarchical system will pursue a strategy of balancing. Anarchy impels states seeking security to balance against other states threatening their security. Internally, balancing requires domestic mobilization of power resources (via armament and the generation of state capacity). Externally, balancing typically entails ad hoc, counter hegemonic alliances. ₈ Successful balancing undercuts the concentration of power at the system level, thus reinforcing anarchy. Likewise, balancing in anarchy tends to strengthen the capacity of the state in its relation with society, which in turn makes the creation of system-wide governance more difficult. Because of its long history, realists expect balancing to be pervasive in international politics.

This realist view neglects a distinctive practice that liberal states have pioneered and which has given the West a distinctive structure unlike anarchy. Unrecognized by neo-realists, liberal states practice co-binding -- tying one another down in mutually constraining institutions. ₉ Asymmetrical binding is characteristic of hegemony or empire, but liberal states practice a more mutual and reciprocal co-binding that overcomes the effects of anarchy without producing hierarchy. This practice of co-binding does not ignore the problems and dynamics of anarchy, but rather aims to overcome them. By establishing institutions of mutual constraint, co-binding reduces the risks and uncertainties associated with anarchy. Co-binding ties potential threatening states into predictable and restrained patterns of behavior, and makes balancing unnecessary. Co-binding practices are particularly suited to liberal states. Successful co-binding makes unnecessary strong and autonomous state apparatuses. Moreover, democratic and liberal states are particularly well suited to engage in co-binding, because their internal structures more readily lend themselves to the establishment of institutions that constrain state autonomy.

Co-binding is an important feature of the Western liberal order. While balancing and hegemony played a role in the formation of these Western institutions, this binding practice was significantly and independently motivated by an attempt to overcome anarchy and its consequences among the Western states. After World War I, the United States sought through the League of Nations to establish a system of binding restraints among the Western states, but this was not fully attempted in practice and, to the extent it was, it failed for a variety of reasons. ₁₀ After World War II, the United States and liberal states in Europe sought again to bind themselves through NATO.

The most important co-binding institution in the West is NATO. Although the Soviet threat provided much of the political impetus to form NATO, the alliance always had the additional purpose of mutually constraining the Western European states and tying the United States to Europe. ₁₁ NATO was as much a solution for the "German problem" as it was a counter to the Soviet Union. As the first NATO Secretary General, Lord Ismay famously put it, the purpose of NATO was to keep the "Russians out, the Germans down, and the Americans in." These aims were all inter-related: in order to counter-balance the Soviet Union it was necessary to mobilize German power in a way that the other European states did not find threatening and to tie the United States into a firm commitment on the continent.

The NATO alliance went beyond the traditional neo-realist conception of an ad hoc defense alliance, because it created an elaborate organization and drew states into joint force planning, international military command structures, and established a complex transgovernmental political process for making political and military decisions. ₁₂ The binding character of this alliance is manifested in the remarkable effort that its member states made to give their commitment a semi-permanent status -- to lock themselves in so as to make it difficult to exit. ₁₃

The desire to overcome the dynamics of anarchy also generated an agenda for economic co-binding. The European union movement explicitly sought to achieve economic interdependence between Germany and her neighbors in order to make strategic military competition much more costly and difficult to undertake. The first step, the European Coal and Steel Community, effectively pooled these heavy industries essential for war making. In its administration of the Marshall Plan, the United States encouraged joint economic organizations in order to create economic interdependencies that crossed over the traditional lines of hostilities between European states. ₁₄ American supporters of European reconstruction as well as European advocates of the European community explicitly sought to create European institutions that were more like the United States than the traditional Westphalian states in anarchy. ₁₅

In sum, security co-binding among Western liberal states has produced a political order that successfully mitigated anarchy within the West in ways that neo-realist theory fails to appreciate. Although these institutions created by co-binding practices significantly altered the anarchical relations within the Atlantic world, they fell far short of creating a hierarchy. Because Waltzian neo-realism conceives of order as either hierarchical or anarchical, it lacks the ability to grasp institutions between hierarchy and anarchy that constitute the structure of the liberal order.

 

Penetrated Hegemony

The second major neo-realist explanation for the Western political order is American hegemony. Tracing their roots to Thucydides and E.H. Carr, hegemony theorists claim that order arises from concentrations of power, and when such power is absent disorder marks politics. In international relations, concentrations of power produce hegemony, a system of asymmetrical power relations. ₁₆ Hegemonic theorists argue that American preponderance, at its zenith in the immediate post-World War II years, produced the major security and economic institutions. In this view, order is maintained because the United States has the capacity and the will to establish and maintain rules and to provide inducements to its client states in Europe and East Asia. ₁₇

Both balance of power and hegemonic theories are conventionally viewed as versions of neo-realism, but their relationship is much more problematic. In fact, these two versions of neo-realist theory have quite contradictory images of order in world politics -- one emphasizing that order comes from concentrations of power and the other emphasizing that concentrations of power produce resisting measures. Thus balance of power theory poses a fundamental question to hegemonic theory: why do subordinate powers within a hegemonic system not balance against the hegemon? ₁₈ To answer this question one must look at the ways in which stable hegemonic orders depart from the simple image provided by hegemonic theory.

The American-centered Western order exhibits far more reciprocity and legitimacy than an order based on superordinate and subordinate relations would expect. American hegemony has had a distinctively liberal cast -- it has been more consensual, cooperative, and integrative than it has been coercive. The distinctive features of this American-centered political system -- particularly its transparency, the diffusion of power into many hands, and the multiple points of access to policy-making -- have enabled Western European and Japanese allies to participate in the formation of the policies for the overall Western system. ₁₉ As a result, American hegemony has been marked by a high degree of legitimacy, without major challenges or efforts to balance against American leadership. In large measure, this system is an "empire by invitation," in which the secondary states have sought American leadership rather than resisted it. ₂₀

To understand this system, and explain why it deviates from the neo-realist hegemonic model, it is necessary to incorporate two factors neglected by realists: the structure of the American state and the prevalence of transnational relations. A distinctive feature of the American state is its decentralized structure, which provides numerous points of access to competing groups -- both domestic and foreign. ₂₁ Because of its size, diversity, and federal character, the American polity has many of the features associated with international politics that make it particularly able to incorporate pressures and influences from liberal societies outside itself. When a liberal state is hegemonic, the subordinate actors in the system have a variety of channels and mechanisms for registering their interests with the hegemon. Transnational relations are the means by which subordinate actors in the system represent their interests to the hegemonic power and the vehicle through which consensus between the hegemon and lesser powers is achieved. This system provides subordinate states with transparency, access, representation, and communication and consensus-building mechanisms, thus providing the means for secondary states to represent and satisfy their interests. Because the decision-making process of the American liberal state is so transparent, secondary powers are not subject to surprises. ₂₂ Taken together, liberal state openness and transnational relations create an ongoing political process within the hegemonic system without which the system would either be undermined by balancing or need to be extensively coercive. The key point is that the open domestic structure of the United States is not simply an anomalous or solely domestic phenomenon, but is integral to the operation of the Western system. ₂₃

Transnational relations are a second integral component of the liberal hegemonic system, whose role and significance has not been grasped by either realist or liberal theorists. Transnational connections between the actors in a hegemonic system constitute a complex communication system that is continuously shaping preferences and thus moderating the divergence of interests among actors in the system. ₂₄ Because of the accessible state structure and transnational state processes, the arrows of influence are not in one direction -- from the center to the periphery -- as in the hegemonic model, but rather run in both directions, producing a fundamentally reciprocal political order. The elaborate consultative arrangements in NATO provide venues and forums for European concerns to be registered in the American public policy process. ₂₅ There is an extensive network of public and private Western institutions. Official venues include the G-7 process, the OECD, inter-governmental consultative networks, and the NATO Council. Quasi-official institutions include the Atlantic Council, Council on Foreign Relations, the Atlantic Assembly, the International Institute for Strategic Studies, the Transatlantic Policy Network, and the Trilateral Commission. Also extensive social, cultural, and economic networks span the Atlantic, including business roundtables, parliamentary exchanges, networks of journalists, and common media sources. Taken together these constitute a dense system of routinized channels for consultation, exchanges of views, dispute resolution, and consensus building. The relationship between the United States and Japan is less extensively institutionalized than Atlantic relations, however it also exhibits similar features. ₂₆

Neither neo-realist nor liberal theorists have fully grasped the role and significance of transnational relations in this system. ₂₇ Realists view transnational relations as derivative of hegemonic power and argue that the growth of transnational relations in the post-World War II era is a consequence of American hegemony. ₂₈ Conversely, liberal theorists, who pay a great deal of attention to transnational relations, see them as the beginnings of a system that is expected to eventually displace the state and locate political power in non-state entities such as multinational corporations, international organizations, and networks of transnational and transgovernmental experts. ₂₉

In sum, transnational relations are not ancillary or oppositional to the operation of the American hegemonic system as most neo-realists and liberals argue, but are rather integral to its structure and help account for its stability and durability. Transnational relations provide subordinate actors in the system with channels through which their interests can be expressed to the hegemon. Were such relations less robust, the hegemonic system would invite balancing, be more coercive, and be less legitimate. Neo-realist hegemonic theory has failed to appreciate the significance of transnational relations in the operation of state hegemonic systems and thus provides an incomplete picture of the Western system.

 

Semi-sovereignty and Partial Great Powers

A third major structural feature of the Western liberal order that distinguishes it from the neo-realist image of states in anarchy is the distinctive status of Germany and Japan as semi-sovereign and partial great powers. Contrary to neo-realist expectations, Germany and Japan both have "peace constitutions" that were initially imposed by the United States and the Western allies after WWII, but which have come to be embraced by the German and Japanese publics as acceptable and even desirable features of their political systems. The structure of these states is highly eccentric for realist models, but these are integral and not incidental features of the Western political order.

Neo-realist theories assume that the nature of the units making up the international system are sovereign and, to the extent they have sufficient capacity, they are great powers. Sovereignty as understood by neo-realists is Westphalian sovereignty, and this means that states are accorded a set of rights and assume a set of responsibilities, the most important of which is the mutual recognition of each other's autonomy and juridical equality. ₃₀ Moreover, Westphalian sovereignty is understood by neo-realists to be one of the primary means by which the system of anarchical states is institutionalized, thus reinforcing the primacy of the state, the absence of hierarchy characteristic of anarchy, and providing a degree of regularity to anarchy. ₃₁ Central to neo-realist theory is also the concept of the Great Power, the exclusive set of states that have sufficient capacity to secure themselves but also to exercise influence over surrounding smaller states and to effect the entire system. In the neo-realist concept of the great power, such states possess a full range of instruments of statecraft, most importantly a robust military establishment with which to make good their claims to great power status and to influence the system. ₃₂ Together, Westphalian sovereignty and the great power are enduring features of the realist vision of anarchical society.

Two of the major states in the Western system, Germany and Japan, do not fit the realist model, but rather are semi-sovereign and partial great powers. Since World War II, Germany and Japan have been "semi-sovereign" states. ₃₃ This label is partly misleading, but it captures their distinctive and eccentric character and roles. During postwar reconstruction, Germany and Japan both sought to be accorded the full panoply of rights and responsibilities of a Westphalian sovereign, and the United States and the other Western states were forthcoming with this recognition as part of their reconstruction and reintegration into the international system. However, it is still appropriate to characterize these states as fundamentally semi-sovereign because in return for sovereign recognition they accepted a role in international relations that was self-constrained in major ways. They were able to gain juridical sovereignty only because they were willing to eschew the full range of great power roles and activities.

At the heart of this odd configuration of juridical sovereignty and effective semi-sovereignty have been two levels of structure: strong self-imposed constitutional constraints and the integration of Germany and Japan in wider political, security, and economic institutions. German domestic political structures that were created during occupation and reconstruction featured parliamentary democracy, federalism, and an independent judiciary -- and thus Germany was much more like the liberal American state than the traditional and closed autocratic state. ₃₄ These domestic structures of constraint facilitate binding linkages, transnational interaction, and political integration. Semi-sovereignty is anchored in a strong domestic consensus that traditional autocracy and imperialism had catastrophic consequences to be avoided at all costs. ₃₅

Germany and Japan are also eccentric states for the neo-realist model because they are not playing the traditional role of great powers. Their partial great power status is defined by the discrepancy between their potential and mobilized power, and the discrepancy between their foreign policy interests and their policy instruments. During the postwar occupations, both Germany and Japan created "peace constitutions" committing them to a foreign policy orientation that is radically at variance with the requirements of great power status and activities. ₃₆ Most importantly, these constitutions mandated purely defensive military orientations, and both Germany and Japan have voluntarily foregone the acquisition of nuclear weapons -- the military instrument that more than any other has defined great powers during the last half century. The international strategic environment during the Cold War foreclosed the option of retreat into isolation or neutrality. However, their defensive military postures have not been autonomous, but have been extensively integrated into multilateral arrangements. In addition to explicitly eschewing great power postures, German and Japanese constitutions contain a strong mandate for an activist foreign policy directed at maintaining international peace and building international institutions.

Although both Germany and Japan are semi-sovereign and partial great powers, there are important differences between them resulting from their different regional contexts. Germany, sharing long contested land borders with many countries, has pursued its unique post-war role by militarily and economically integrating with its neighbors. In contrast, insular Japan was alone in the Far East as a relatively liberal power and therefore its strategic binding with the rest of the system has been through the bi-lateral U.S.-Japanese alliance. Furthermore, the Western reconstruction of Germany along liberal lines was much more intensive, while the early demands of the Cold War led the United States to less comprehensively reform Japan. Partially as a result, Germany's domestic political structures became more liberal and decentralized than Japan's, where strong state economic capacity remained. Overall, German integration into the Western political order is much more complete than Japanese integration, both in multilateral economic and security systems. One expression of this difference is that German rearmament has been more extensive than Japanese because Germany is more thoroughly bound into the Western order than Japan.

The semi-sovereign and great power features of Germany and Japan are integral to the Western political order. These features constitute a fundamental anomaly for realist theory but not for structural liberalism.

 

Economic Openness

It is widely recognized that a major feature of the Western order is the prevalence of capitalist economies and international institutions dedicated to economic openness. Neo-realist theories offer two powerful explanations for the Western liberal economic order, one stressing American hegemony and the other Western alliance within bipolarity. Liberals also offer many explanations, including the rise of "embedded liberalism" among the advanced industrial nations. While offering important insights, these theories are insufficient and miss crucial dimensions of the political structure and practice of the liberal economic order. Specifically, advanced capitalism creates such high prospects for absolutes gains that states attempt to mitigate anarchy between themselves so as to avoid the need to pursue relative gains.

One powerful neo-realist explanation for the prevalence of open economies in the Western order is hegemonic stability theory. ₃₇ These neo-realists argue that open international orders are created by and must be sustained by the concentration of power in the hands of one state. Hegemonic powers produce and support openness by establishing and enforcing rules, providing exchange currency, absorbing exports, and wielding incentives and inducements to encourage other states to remain open. Hegemonic stability theorists argue that economic openness in the 19th century was made possible by British hegemony and that when British power waned in the first decades of the 20th century, the open trading system broke down. Likewise, after the second World War, the United States, then at the peak of its relative power, provided the leadership to establish Western liberal economic institutions, thereby catalyzing another era of economic openness and high growth. ₃₈ Hegemonic stability theorists maintain that the relative economic decline of the United States has the potential to undermine the openness and stability of this order.

Another neo-realist position is that free trade has resulted from bipolarity and the Western strategic alliance. ₃₉ In this view, allied states are less concerned with relative gains considerations than unallied states. Because states are allied, they are at least partially removed from anarchical relations and thus are not as sensitive to relative shifts in economic advance that might result from free trade. Similarly, neo-realist theorists argue that states that are members of a military alliance see relatively gains by their allies as adding to the overall strength of the alliance, and therefore they are willing to participate in an open system with their allies.

Liberals also advance powerful arguments about the sources of the Western system of open economies. Of particular note is the proposition that liberal states in the 20th century have committed themselves to ambitious goals of social welfare and economic stability, which in turn requires them to pursue foreign economic policies that maintain a congenial international environment for the realization of these goals. ₄₀ This notion of "embedded liberalism" situates the motivation for open economic policies in the domestic structures of advanced industrial societies, which have changed from laissez-faire to welfare states. As long as Western welfare states retain their commitment to full employment and social welfare, the theory expects that they will remain committed to liberal foreign economic policies regardless of changes in the strategic environment. ₄₁

These neo-realist and liberal views make important insights, but they neglect important sources of Western economic openness. Neo-realists rightly point out that in an anarchical system, states must be more concerned with relative than absolute gains, and therefore are willing to forego the absolute gains that often derive from economic exchange out of fear that their relative position will suffer. ₄₂ The relative and absolute gains argument is typically seen as a powerful reason why states will not accept economic openness. In reality, however, it suggests a powerful explanation for why states will take steps to mitigate anarchy. In a world of advanced industrial capitalist states, the absolute gains to be derived from economic openness are so substantial that states have the strong incentive to abridge anarchy so that they do not have to be preoccupied with relative gains considerations at the expense of absolute gains. The assumption of the neo-realist argument is that the only alternative to anarchy is hierarchy, but in fact liberal states have developed co-binding institutions and practices that make it possible to moderate anarchy without producing hierarchy. The extensive institutions, both strategic and economic, that liberal states have built can be explained as the mechanisms by which they have sought to avoid the need to forego absolute gains out of the need to pursue relative gains. As we argued above, the Western system of co-binding is highly developed across security, political, and economic realms, and it provides states with confidence that changes in their relative position do not translate into security threats.

Another feature of advanced industrial capitalist society with significant implications for the politics of relative and absolute gains is the uncertainty about how relative gains will be distributed, the high probability that the distribution of relative gains will fluctuate fairly rapidly, and the many sectors of modern societies that make it likely that patterns of gains and losses will be variegated. Modern industrial economies are characterized by great complexity and this means that states attempting to calculate the relative gains consequences of any particular policy face a high degree of uncertainty about its effects. In highly dynamic markets with large numbers of sophisticated and fast moving and autonomous corporate actors, it is very difficult to anticipate the consequences of policies and thus the relative distribution of gains and losses. Moreover, the rate of change in advanced industrial capitalism is so great that the distribution of relative gains and losses is likely to fluctuate between countries fairly rapidly. Thus, even if one country can foresee that it will be a loser in a particular period, it can assume that it will experience a different outcome in successive iterations. ₄₃ Finally, modern industrial capitalist societies contain many different sectors and different sectors in one country may be simultaneously declining and rising as a result of international openness, making it difficult for states to calculate their aggregate relative gains and losses. The multifaceted character of these societies helps insure that the pattern of relative gains and losses will be highly variegated making it unlikely that any one state will be a loser or winner across the board. ₄₄

Neo-realist claims that the Western economic order derives from hegemony and alliance overlooks crucial features of the Western system. The theory of structural liberalism argues that there is a political logic and structure that emerges more directly from capitalism. The character of capitalism provides states with powerful incentives to create structures that replace or mitigate anarchy so as to sidestep relative gains concerns and the impediments they pose to the realization to high absolute gains. Likewise, the dynamic and complex character of modern capitalism frustrates calculations of relative gains and thus the formulation of policies that might seek to advance it. In short, the political economy of capitalism and the structural features of the Western political order are much more integrally related than neo-realists suggest.

 

Civic Identity

The fifth dimension of the Western political order is a common civic identity. The common elements of Western identity take two interrelated and reinforcing forms: first, the parallel domestic identities centered around liberalism, democracy, and capitalism, now dominant in all Western countries; and second, a common system-wide political identity, less dominant and concentrated in elites. Together, they have significantly displaced more virulent and xenophobic forms of national identity, producing forms that are quite at odds with neo-realist expectations. ₄₅

Although difficult to quantify, what Montesquieu called "spirit" is an essential component of any political order. ₄₆ Political identity and structure are mutually dependent. Structures endure when they are congruent with identities and forms of community that provide them with legitimacy. Conversely, structures and institutions create and reinforce identities through processes of socialization and assimilation. These important sociological dimensions of political orders have been neglected by both neo-realist and liberal theories, which take the preferences of the actors as given and examine only the interaction between interests and structure. As a result, they miss the identity and community dimensions of political order -- both national and civic.

Neo-realist theory largely assumes that the separate state units have distinct national identities. National identity provides states with legitimacy and facilitates resource mobilization against outside threats. ₄₇ For neo-realism, inter-state war generates national identity and loyalty because it evokes potent and emotive symbols of heroism, battlefield sacrifice, and collective memory of opposition and triumph. ₄₈ Military organizations socialize individuals into patriotism and veterans organizations are an interest group that reinforces the primacy of the nation-state. These sociological processes are a crucial link between the nation-state and international anarchy and war. ₄₉

The West's "spirit" -- common norms, public mores, and political identities -- gives this political order cohesiveness and solidarity. The political spectrum throughout the West looks increasingly like the narrow "liberal" one that Louis Hartz once identified as distinctively American. ₅₀ Compared to the diversity that characterized Europe as recently as the 1930s, political practices and identities within the West have radically converged. At the core of civic identity in Western countries is a consensus around a set of norms and principles, most importantly political democracy, constitutional government, individual rights, private property-based economic systems, and toleration of diversity in non-civic areas of ethnicity and religion. Throughout the West, the dominant form of political identity is based on a set of abstract and juridical rights and responsibilities which co-exist with private and semi-public ethnic and religious associations. ₅₁ Western civic identity and political structures reinforce each other just as do warring states and nationalism. ₅₂

Civic identity within the West is intimately associated with capitalism, and its business and commodity cultures. As Susan Strange argues, capitalism has generated a distinctive "business civilization. ₅₃ Across the advanced industrial world, capitalism has produced a culture of market rationality that permeates all aspects of life. The intensity and volume of market transactions across the industrial capitalist world provides a strong incentive for individual behaviors and corporate practices to converge. This convergence is visible in the widespread use of English and the universality of business attire.

Another cultural dimension of the Western order is the commonality of commodities and consumption practices. Mass produced and marketed commodities have generated a universal vernacular culture that reaches into every aspect of daily existence. The symbolic content of ordinary life throughout the West is centered not upon religious or national iconography, but upon the consumerist images of the good life portrayed by commercial advertising. The demands of mass marketing and advertising place a premium on reaching the largest number of consumers, homogenizing identities and diluting ethnic, religious, and racial polarities. The mass entertainments of television, movies, music, and athletic events also foster a common popular culture. Fueled by prosperity and cheap transportation, international tourism has also become a mass phenomenon. Cumulatively, this popular culture has created similar life styles and values throughout the West. ₅₄

The intensive circulation of elites and educational exchanges has also contributed to a shared identity. ₅₅ Professional and avocational transnational networks -- scientific, technological, medical, artistic, athletic, public policy -- draw members from across the Western world. The increasingly transnational character of study bodies in elite universities, particularly graduate and professional schools, have produced a business, political, cultural, and technical elite with similar educational backgrounds and extensive networks of personal friendships and contacts. ₅₆ These homogenizing and interacting forces have created a powerful sense that "we" constitutes more than the traditional community of the nation-state.

As civic and capitalist identities have strengthened, ethnic and national identity has declined. The West has evolved a distinctive solution to the problem of nationalism and ethnicity that is vital to its operation, which has two related features. First, ethnic and national identity has been diluted to the point where it tends to be semi-private in character. The identities of Westerners are largely secular and modern, thus allowing for many different loyalties and sensibilities -- no one of which predominates. Second, an ethic of toleration is a strong and essential part of Western political culture. This ethic permits -- and even celebrates -- a highly pluralist society in which muted differences co-exist, intermingle, and cross fertilize each other. Unlike the chauvinism and parochialism of pre-modern and non-Western societies, an ethic of toleration, diversity, and indifference infuses the industrial democracies.

The Western political order and Western civic identity are mutually reinforcing. The continued viability and expansion of capitalism, made possible by Western multilateral institutions, sustains the business, commodity, and transnational cultures that in turn make it more politically feasible to sustain these institutions. Similarly, the success of security binding practices in preserving peace among Western countries reinforces the identity of the West as a political community by allowing memories of war, a source of conflicting national identities, to fade. While the Cold War and its construction of a "free world" Western identity contributed to solidarity and helped displace memories of conflict in the West, the Western civic identity has deep sources unaffected by the end of the Cold War.

 

Part II. Constructing an Explanation

This analysis of the Western political order over the last half century has captured its distinctive liberal practices and institutional structures, thus raising the question of explanation: why has this system emerged? Part of the explanation lies in the mutually reinforcing relationship between these different practices and institutions, but a more fundamental explanation requires attention to two other factors and processes: first, the deeper forces of industrialism and the political responses it stimulates; and second, the opportunities, constraints, and preferences of the crucial actors who erected the system in the immediate aftermath of the second world war.

 

Industrialism, Deep Structure, and Function

At the most fundamental level, the industrial revolution has created a set of deep structural constraints and opportunities for which the Western liberal order is a functional adaptation. What fundamentally distinguishes the last century and a half of human development is the transformation of the material conditions underlying economic and political systems. The industrial revolution and its intensification and spread in Europe, North America, and parts of East Asia has created a structuring contexts significantly unlike those that existed prior to this period or outside these regions. At its heart, the industrial revolution constitutes a far-reaching evolution in the ability of human societies to manipulate and exploit material reality for human purposes. Industrialism has produced exponential increases in five ways: violence capability, economies of scale in production, density of interactions, complexity, and scope. This trajectory of industrialism has reached its fullest maturation in the twentieth century, and its intensification and spread has been particularly rapid over the last half century.

The nature of the relationship between industrialism and the Western political order is broadly functionalist. The five features of industrialism have created a set of constraints and opportunities to which liberal practices and institutional structures are an adaptation. It is not determined that these functional liberal outcomes will occur, but it is determined that this particular set of institutions and practices is functional. The set of problems that the liberal order was a response to did not emerge by design and an adaptation to them entailed an episodic process of experimentation, failure, and learning. In effect, industrialism created a set of problems and possibilities for which liberal practices and structures emerged as a viable solution set.

Each of the five features of industrialism has a structural implication which in turn determines which practices and institutions are functional and which are dysfunctional in this context. See Figure Two.

The first feature of industrialism is increased violence capability. The last century has seen great leaps forward in military technology and destructive potential as a result of the development of heavy guns, high explosives, airplanes, submarines, ballistic missiles, and ultimately nuclear weapons. ₅₇ Between 1870 and 1970 the explosive power in the hands of the great powers increased by a factor of 9 billion, marking a quantitative increase in violence capability with qualitative implications. With such destructiveness, war entails extremely high absolute losses for the participants, radically transforming the incentive structure that actors face in contemplating the resolution of conflict through violence. In this context, the practices and institutions of anarchy are dysfunctional because of the risks they entail. Conversely, the prospect of high absolute losses make the security practices and institutions of co-binding functional for security ends. By establishing mechanisms of mutual constraint, co-binding practices serve to immobilize power capacities and neutralize the dynamics that anarchy generates.

The second feature of industrialism is a radical increase in the economies of scale of production. As the industrial revolution has unfolded, there has been a steady increase in optimal size of markets and industrial enterprises, involving larger and more extensive resource extraction, blocs of capital, and quantities of labor. ₅₈ As economies of scale have grown, they have produced an increasing mismatch between the fixed territorial space of particular states and the widening scope of industrial resource consumption, production, and markets. In this context, economic blocs, closure, and autarchy become increasingly costly in foregone economic benefits, while states practicing economic openness are positioned to exploit the gains. ₅₉

A third feature of industrialism is the increase in the density of transactions across interstate borders. Industrial societies both domestically and internationally are characterized by an expansion in the frequency and number of interactions between individuals, associations, and states. ₆₀ The communication and transportation advances in the industrial world create a growing density of contacts and exchanges. In formal terms, this high density entails multiple iterations among actors. Governments must deal repeatedly with their partners in a wide variety of issue areas, and this favors reciprocity and creates disincentives for predation and cheating, despite the absence of a central governmental authority to enforce contracts. ₆₁ In this context, states and institutions that provide mutual and multiple access points are best suited to manage such transaction-dense relationships. This high level of interest entanglement and interdependence are best managed by liberal political systems that offer the actors access to one another's decision making processes.

A fourth feature of industrialism is high complexity. Industrialism has produced societies, polities, and economies characterized by an immense proliferation in role specializations, professional and technical strata, and distinct sectors of activity -- in short, functional differentiation. In this context, centralized hierarchies are dysfunctional because it is impossible for them to manage the diverse actors and their complex interactions, while favoring pluralistic democracies in which numerous actors possess semi-autonomy and the ability to respond efficiently to highly specific constraints and opportunities.

The final feature of industrialism is increased scope. As changes in violence capability increase the size of the viable security unit and as the size of viable markets increase, the number and variety of peoples forced to routinely and intensively interact also rises as well. In short, as the industrial system has unfolded, a great variety of ethnic and national groups have been forced into intimate interaction and association. In this context, political legitimacy and identity based on parochial and exclusivistic ethnicity and nationality are dysfunctional because they are sources of friction and magnify and essentialize interest disputes. Conversely, political authority and identity based on the more universalistic civic model are functional because they smooth transactions and circumscribe conflict.

This functional-structuralist argument centered on industrialism helps connect and deepen several important strains of liberal international theory. Recent theorists, particularly liberal ones, have advanced sophisticated arguments about the consequences of high absolute gains and losses, multiple iterations, and interdependence. But they do not have an explanation for the cause of these features. Industrialism provides a unifying explanation for why it is that these features are so prominent in this place and time. At the same time, this focus on industrialism recovers the kernel of insight in modernization theory and corrects its excesses. ₆₂

 

Power and Purpose in the Postwar Settlement

The structural-functional argument can only be a partial explanation because it specifies what is functional and dysfunctional without explaining how -- or whether -- functional practices and institutions emerge. More generally, structural-functional theory is underdetermined, particularly with regard to timing. Furthermore, the imperatives of industrialism cannot explain the concentration of power in the United States or the use of American power to create a viable system. To complete the explanation requires an examination of the more specific historical contexts and the capacities and purposes of the architects who created the main components of the Western system after World War II.

This second level of explanation is historical junctural, focusing on the particular forces at play in the wake of system-wide war and the rebuilding of international order. Four factors are of key importance in this type of explanation. The first feature of these pivotal junctures is the extent to which the previous international order has been destroyed by the war, creating opportunities and imperatives to build order. In this fluid and unstructured situation, there is no status quo to serve as a bench mark and default option for actors. The second feature is the extent of concentration of power among the victors and the capacities they mobilized during the war. The third key feature of these settlement moments is the goals and preferred practices of the dominant states, whose opportunities are magnified by the absence of external constraints characteristic of more established orders. The fourth feature important for explaining outcomes in these architectonic situations is the set of ideas that the dominant actors hold about the nature of political order and the set of specific lessons that they have drawn about the sources of systemic breakdowns. See Figure Three.

World War II and its aftermath were extraordinary in the extent to which the previous international order was destroyed and the extent to which power among the victors was concentrated in the United States, which emerged not only as the dominant power but also relatively unscathed. In contrast to World War I, the second world war emerged out of the breakdown of economic and security order in the 1930s and the defeated axis powers were much more thoroughly defeated and devastated, and their political systems and ideologies were more discredited. Added to this, the unconditional surrender of Japan and Germany and their wholesale occupation provided an unprecedented opportunity to build both domestic and international order from closer to the ground up than had been possible in modern times. At the same time, American influence was magnified by its commanding position among the allied nations and the creation during the war of strong state capacities that previously had been so difficult for the United States to generate. ₆₃

An examination of the next two factors in historical junctural explanations -- the preferences and practices of the dominant states, and the ideas and lessons that were most influential within them -- provide a clear account of how the postwar settlement in the West came to be characterized by the five distinctive features of co-binding, mutual penetration, economic openness, pluralistic democracy, and civic identity.

In terms of co-binding, the United States had a long-standing aversion to balance of power politics and realpolitik diplomacy and a strong preference for institutional solutions to international problems. The United States preferred hiding and co-binding to balancing, because balancing entailed the creation of a strong central state capacity antithetical to the American tradition of limited constitutional government. ₆₄ In the first world war, the United States was slow and reluctant to balance, and when it was drawn into the war and emerged as the dominant coalition partner in the allied victory, Woodrow Wilson sought to replace the balance of power system in Europe with a co-binding institution, the League of Nations. ₆₅ After this failure, the United States reverted back to its other preferred posture of hiding, and was again a late and reluctant balancer in the years leading up to the second world war. Again the dominant partner in the victorious allied coalition in this war, Roosevelt was determined to pursue the same agenda to replace the balance of power within Western Europe with more binding institutional security arrangements.

The second and third structural features of the Western system -- penetrated hegemony and semi-sovereignty -- emerged out of the interaction the particular circumstances of German and Japanese defeat and characteristics of the American polity. The distinctive mutual penetration characteristic of American hegemony was possible because of the features of the American governmental structure, particularly multiple organs of decision-making, transparency, and numerous points of accessibility. Similarly, because the United States was a constitutional democracy, it had an aversion to imperial and coercive relations with other states, and this produced a premium on building an order that was perceived by the secondary states to be legitimate. ₆₆ The features of American government made access possible and the American preference for legitimate rule made it desirable. This arrangement, combined with the legacy of aversion to German and Japanese militarism, made their semi-sovereign status durable and mutually acceptable.

The fourth feature of the postwar Western order -- economic openness -- was the product of American desires to provide opportunities for American capital and secure access to broader markets and resources as well as the desire to strengthen democracies and promote political cohesion among the major industrial states. The primacy of this agenda emerged as a response to the experience of the great depression and closed competitive blocs, which Americans saw as intrinsically undesirable as well as an underlying cause of the second world war. ₆₇

The fifth feature of the Western postwar order -- civic identity -- was both deeply rooted in the American political tradition and was particularly attractive in the face of destruction wrought by the hyper-nationalism and anti-cosmopolitanism of the Axis powers, particularly Nazi Germany. From its inception, the United States has been exceptional in the emphasis it placed upon abstract and universalistic rights and responsibilities in defining citizenship and political participation, and these principles of authority and identity were crucial in the expansion and maintenance of the American union to continental size. ₆₈ The allied war aims, most clearly articulated in the Atlantic Charter of 1941, elevated universal human rights, and in doing so, strengthened the allied war coalition by providing a rallying point around which diverse coalition members could unite and by setting forth a vision that was highly attractive to captive peoples suffering Axis oppression. ₆₉ In the wake of the war, these universalistic principles privileging civic over ethnic and national identity were particularly attractive in Western Europe and served as the basis upon which post-war liberal democratic coalitions in Western Europe could reconstruct viable societies and political systems. The hegemony of this civic identity has facilitated and in turn been strengthened by the growth of capitalism, and in Western Europe it has helped legitimate the semi-sovereignty of Germany by inoculating it from nationalist resentment and has helped facilitate European integration and union.

In summary, the hegemony of liberal practices and institutions in the West has been explained by the deeper structural-functional imperatives of industrialism and the particular historical junctural features of the American power and purpose in the context of opportunities created by global depression and world war.

 

Part III: Structural Liberalism versus Neo-Realism after the Cold War

Neo-realism and structural liberalism have very different understandings of the nature of the Western political system, and therefore produce very different expectations about the trajectory of Western relations after the Cold War. In principle, it should be possible to test their different expectations -- to demonstrate the superiority of one over the other. However, during the Cold War such a clean test was illusive because both theories expected that there would be cohesion in the West, but for very different reasons. After the Cold War, a sharp clash between the theories is present: neo-realist theories expect the Western system to decay due to the end of bipolarity and the continuing decline of American power, while the structural liberal theory expects Western order to persist, since the factors that gave shape to the West remain. ₇₀ See Figure Four. Events in the first years after the Cold War provide the beginnings of a clean test of the competing theories -- a test that will grow sharper as time passes.

Neo-realist theories generate sharp expectations that Western order will decay with the end of the Cold War, and realist scholars have advanced explicit predictions drawn from these theories. Balance of power theory expects that with the end of bipolarity and the end of the Soviet threat that bases of solidarity will decline and conflicts endemic to anarchy will emerge. Without a unifying threat, balance of power theory predicts that strategic rivalry among the Western powers will reemerge, and specifically that the NATO alliance will fall apart and movement toward European union will halt and reverse. ₇₁ Neo-realist theories of hegemony have long expected Western order to decay in the face of declining American power capabilities relative to its Western allies, and with the end of the Cold War -- and the end of the masking influence of bipolarity -- this theory expects more rapid decay. ₇₂ A corollary expectation generated by realist balance of power theory is that the semi-sovereignty of Germany and Japan will be abandoned and both countries will acquire the full trappings of great power capabilities and ambitions. ₇₃ In the realm of political economy, a corollary expectation of neo-realist hegemony theory is that the liberal trading order will break down and be replaced by trade wars and competing economic blocs. In particular, the U.S.-Japanese relationship is seen to be ripe for increased conflict; with the end of the Soviet threat and the declining significance of the U.S.-Japanese defense alliance, Japan is seen to be free to intensify its mercantilist economic strategies. ₇₄ Finally, neo-realist theory generates the expectations that with the return of anarchy and great power rivalry, nationalism will take a more prominent place in Western identities at the expense of civic identity. ₇₅ The overall prediction of realism is that the future of the West will be much like the pre-Cold War period, characterized by strategic conflict, economic warfare, alliance rivalry, hyper-nationalism, and ultimately the risk of war.

Structural liberal theory expects a very different pattern for the Western system. Because the institutions and practices that give the Western system its distinctive character are driven largely by internal logics, structural liberal expects that the overall cohesion and strength of these institutions will not wane with the end of the Cold War but stand out more clearly.

It has only been less than a decade since the end of the Cold War, and therefore the unfolding of events during this period can only provide preliminary rather than definitive tests of the clash between these competing theories. However, it is striking that the major trends have so far been quite inconsistent with realist expectations and quite consistent with structural liberalism. From the perspective of the last fifty years, it would be difficult to argue that the scope and intensity of conflict between the Western countries have increased measurably since the end of the Cold War.

Across the whole range of test issues, the pattern has followed structural liberal expectations. The NATO alliance has not begun to decay, but rather Western leaders have unambiguously reaffirmed its central place. After the Cold War, NATO's role as the provider of order in Western Europe becomes increasingly dominant in its purpose. ₇₆ France has taken steps to reintegrate into NATO political and military structures. ₇₇ Also, efforts toward greater European unity have not reversed but have continued to show the same pattern of two steps forward and one step backward -- the same pattern evident over the last half century. Reflective of the European view on the relationship between European union and security is Helmut Kohl's defense of further European integration as being necessary in order to avoid a return to anarchy, rivalry, and extreme nationalism. ₇₈ On the question of hegemony, America's major allies have shown no willingness to balance against the United States, and indeed they have evinced continued enthusiasm for American leadership. It is striking that the most pointed European criticism of the United States has not been about coercion or heavy handedness, but rather for their perceptions of American unwillingness to lead. ₇₉ German and Japanese semi-sovereignty has also persisted. The fact that Germany and Japanese defense spending has fallen more rapidly than American spending is a telling indication that these states are not pursuing great power ambitions and capabilities. ₈₀ While Germany and Japan have been seeking a greater political role in international institutions, most notably the UN Security Council, these efforts have been supported and not resisted by the United States.

Similarly, developments in the international political economy follow the expectations of structural liberalism. The successful completion of the Uruguay round and the evolution of GATT into the World Trade Organization mark a major widening and deepening of the international free trade regime. The intensive discussions of a Transatlantic Free Trade Area also indicates that the momentum of trade liberalization remains strong. As a result, expectations of the rapid emergence of exclusionary and antagonistic trade blocs have not been fulfilled. ₈₁ On the critical case of U.S.-Japanese trade relations, realist expectations of enhanced conflict have also been largely confounded. The United States has continued to insist that Japan open its domestic markets and bring its economic practices in line with Western norms, but Japan has not responded with increased intransigence, but rather have taken major steps toward openness and deregulation -- driven by economic necessity as much as American policy. Despite realist expectations that the post-Cold War domestic realignment in Japan would lead to a strengthened commitment to mercantilist policies and a weakening of U.S.-Japan security arrangements, Prime Minister Hosokowa has recently affirmed both a commitment to deregulation and greater openness and the primacy of its security treaty with the United States. ₈₂

Finally, neo-realist expectations that nationalist sentiment would resurge and eclipse civic identities and liberal democratic norms have not been born out by recent developments. The speed with which the liberal consensus among Western countries responded to incidents of illiberal prejudice and right-wing nationalist violence suggests that liberal identities and values are robust and politically dominant. While there has been a effort on the part of Europeans to exclude non-Europeans from North Africa or people for the lands of the former Soviet empire, the relentless homogenization of cultural life, professional accreditation, educational systems, and business practices has marched onward.

Overall, the pattern of events clearly follows the expectations of structural liberal theory rather than neo-realist theory. But the relatively few years of the post-Cold War period precludes definitive conclusions about the ultimate superiority of these competing theories. To escape the implications of these developments, realists might modify their argument with the claim that there has been an overhang in the institutions of the Cold War that account for the absence of balancing conflict and institutional decay. But the fact that key features of the Western system are actually strengthening rather than simply persisting or showing signs of decay must prompt serious doubts about the validity of realist expectations and the theories that generate them.

 

Conclusion

This paper has made three principle contributions to international relations theory. First, it demonstrates that the system of Western states constitutes a distinctive political order that neo-realist theory has failed to capture. The overall Western political order is a complex composite in which five elements interact and mutually reinforce each other. The whole is greater than the sum of the parts: the overall pattern of these elements and their interaction constitutes the structure of the liberal political order. Any picture of the West that fails to bring in all of these components will fail to capture its structural character. Overall, the Western liberal world exhibits patterns of political order that lie between traditional images of domestic and international politics, thus creating an unusual and distinctive sub-system in world politics. Neo-realist theories of balance of power, hegemony, sovereignty, and nationalism fail to capture the core dynamics of the Western political order.

Second, it advances a two-fold explanation for the emergence of this distinctive liberal order. At its most basic level, the Western political order has emerged because it is functionally adapted to the imperatives of industrialism. Conversely, non-liberal orders have declined because of their misfit with requirements of industrialism. This structural and functionalist argument suggests that the Western order is robust because it is congruent with very deep-seated developments in industrial modernity. This argument explains what is adaptive and maladaptive, but to explain the actual emergence of the Western system, a finer-gain junctural argument must be added. This order arose because of a peculiar combination of systemic breakdown, concentration of power in the hands of the United States, a particular set of American preferences and practices, and the domination within the United States of a set of ideas about the origin of the breakdown and institutional designs to preclude its reoccurrence. In this view, the Western liberal order emerged after WWII as much through a process of trail and error in response to crisis and war as through a consensus on the intrinsic superiority of liberal forms. Had this extraordinary confluence not taken place, the direction of Western political life would have been less peaceful and prosperous.

Third, the paper sets out competing explanations derived from structural liberalism and neo-realism for the trajectory of political order in the West after the Cold War. For the last half century, neo-realist theories of bipolarity and American hegemony as well as structural liberalism both expected Western solidarity, but after the Cold War they point in very different directions. Neo-realists expect the Western security order to breakdown because of the end of the Soviet threat, the open economic order to decay because of the waning of American hegemony, and nationalism to reassert itself. In sharp contrast, structural liberalism expects all aspects of the Western liberal order to persist and in some cases strengthen. The first five years of the post-Cold War era can only provide suggestive evidence, but indicators thus far support the expectations of structural liberalism.

There are good reasons to believe that the Western liberal order has a very robust character, but the fact that neither neo-realism nor liberalism captures it very well is troubling in its implications for the maintenance of this system. Because of the Cold War, it is understandable that realpolitik approaches overshadowed liberal ones in policy discourse and practice as well as in academic international relations theory. The dominance of neo-realism marginalized and displaced earlier more pragmatic and more liberal American approaches to international affairs. The neo-realist characterization of liberalism as idealist and utopian belies its "realistic" sophistication and the extent to which the postwar order was created as a response to the earlier failures of both Wilsonian internationalism and the unmanaged anarchy of the inter-war period. After the Cold War, the persistence of neo-realism as a dominant approach to international affairs could have real consequences because of its limited grasp of the Western political order and the inappropriateness of its policy tools. Policy agendas derived from realism could become self-fulfilling prophecies and gradually undermine the Western order, particularly if those agendas stimulate the reversion of Germany and Japan into "normal" great powers.

Liberal theory has also failed to adequately grasp the Western liberal system. Liberal theory is very heterogeneous and it does capture various components of the Western political order, such as the democratic peace, but it fails to appreciate the West's distinctive overall structure and its sources, both deep material and historical junctural. Liberal international relations theory has failed to understand the Western order for three reasons: because of its lack of accumulation and sense of itself as a long tradition with significant historical accomplishments; its conceptual focus on process over structure and "micro" over "macro"; and the deference that it gives realism on security issues and its related focus on "low politics" rather than "high politics." Furthermore, the policy focus of liberals on building global institutions with universal scope, such as the United Nations, has ironically diverted their attention from the Western liberal order. Given the success of the liberal order and its centrality within the larger world system, a liberal international relations theory refocused on structure can compete with realism in explaining the most basic feature of world politics.

---

*: An earlier version of this paper was presented at a conference on "Realism and International Relations Theory after the ColdWar," Harvard University, December 1995, and at the School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University, February 1996. The authors thank Ernst Haas, Ethan Kapstein, Michael Mastandunno, and Norrin Ripsman for helpful comments on earlier drafts. Back.

**: Daniel Deudney
Department of Political Science
The University of Pennsylvania
Stiteler Hall
Philadelphia, PA 19104
215-898-6187
ddeudney@sas.upenn.edu

G. John Ikenberry
Department of Political Science
The University of Pennsylvania
Stiteler Hall
Philadelphia, PA 19104
215-898-7646
ikenberr@sas.upenn.edu
Back.

Note 1: See Kenneth Waltz, Theory of International Politics (Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1979). For extensions and debates, see Robert O. Keohane, ed., Neorealism and its Critics (New York: Columbia University Press, 1986). Back.

Note 2: John J. Mearsheimer, "Back to the Future: Instability of Europe after the Cold War," International Security 15 (Summer 1990), pp. 5-57; Mearsheimer, "Why We Will Soon Miss the Cold War," The Atlantic, 266 (August 1990), pp. 35-50; and Conor Cruise O'Brien, "The Future of the West," The National Interest, 30 (Winter 1992/93), pp. 3-10. Back.

Note 3: See Robert Gilpin, War and Change in World Politics (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1981). Back.

Note 4: For contrasting views, see Robert Gilpin, The Political Economy of International Relations (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987); Paul Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers (New York: Random House, 1987); Joseph S. Nye, Jr., Bound to Lead: The Changing Nature of American Power (New York: Basic Books, 1990); Henry Nau, The Myth of America's Decline: Leading the World Economy in the 1990's (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990); Susan Strange, "The Persistent Myth of Lost Hegemony," International Organization 41, 4 (Autumn 1987), pp. 551-574. See also the articles in David P. Rapkin, ed., World Leadership and Hegemony (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 1990). Back.

Note 5: See G. John Ikenberry, "Creating Yesterday's New World Order: Keynesian "New Thinking" and the Anglo-American Postwar Settlement," in Judith Goldstein and Robert O. Keohane, eds., Ideas and Foreign Policy: Beliefs, Institutions, and Political Change (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1993); and Ikenberry, "Rethinking the Origins of American Hegemony," Political Science Quarterly 104 (Fall 1989), pp. 375-400. Back.

Note 6: Michael Doyle, "Kant, Liberal Legacies, and Foreign Affairs," Philosophy and Public Affairs, 12 (1983), pp. 205-35, 323-53; Karl Deutsch, Political Community and the North Atlantic Area (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1957); Robert O. Keohane and Joseph S. Nye, Power and Interdependence: World Politics in Transition 2nd Edition (Glenview, Ill.: Scott, Foresman, 1989); Richard Rosecrance, The Rise of the Trading State: Commerce and Conquest in the Modern World (New York: Basic Books, 1986). For a survey of liberal theories, see Mark W. Zacher and Richard A. Mathew, "Liberal International Theory: Common Threads, Divergent Strands," in Charles W. Kegley, Jr., ed., Controversies in International Relations Theory: Realism and the Neoliberal Challenge (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1995). Back.

Note 7: See Robert Keohane, After Hegemony: Cooperation and Discord in the World Political Economy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984), Chapter One. Back.

Note 8: Waltz, Theory of International Politics; Steve Walt, The Origins of Alliances (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1987); and Barry Buzan, et al, The Logic of Anarchy (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993), Part I. Back.

Note 9: See Daniel H. Deudney, "The Philadelphian System: Sovereignty, Arms Control, and Balance of Power in the American States-Union, 1787-1861," International Organization (Spring 1995); and Deudney, "Binding Sovereigns: Authority, Structure, and Geopolitics in Philadelphian Systems," in Thomas Biersteiker and Cynthia Weber, eds., State Sovereignty as Social Construct (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996); and Paul Schroeder, "Alliances, 1915- ," in Klaus Knorr, ed., Historical Dimensions of National Security Problems (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1976), pp. 227-62. Back.

Note 10: See Thomas J. Knock, To End All Wars: Woodrow Wilson and the Quest for a New World Order (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992). Back.

Note 11: Mary Hampton, "NATO at the Creation: U.S. Foreign Policy, West Germany and the Wilsonian Impulse," Security Studies 4, No. 3 (Spring 1995), pp. 610-56; Geir Lundstad, The American "Empire" (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990); David P. Calleo, Beyond American Hegemony: The Future of the Western Alliance (New York: Basic Books, 1988), Chapter One; and Joseph Joffe, "Europe's American Pacifier," Foreign Policy, No. 54 (Spring 1984), pp. 64-82. Back.

Note 12: John Duffield, Power Rules: The Evolution of NATO's Conventional Force Posture (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1995); Steve Weber, "Shaping the Postwar Balance of Power: Multilateralism in NATO," in John Ruggie, ed., Multilateralism Matters: The Theory and Praxis of an Institutional Form (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993), pp. 233-92; and Martin H. Folly, "Breaking the Vicious Circle: Britain, the United States, and the Genesis of the North Atlantic Treaty," Diplomatic History, Vol. 12 (1988), pp. 59-77. Back.

Note 13: Faced with this argument, realists might point to significant conflicts between the United States and its allies, such as the 1956 Suez crisis, the Vietnam war, the 1982-83 Euromissiles controversy, and the 1982-83 gas pipeline crisis. But most of these conflicts had their roots not in conflicts internal to the West, but rather in the larger Cold War competition, thus pointing out that bipolarity was as much a source as conflict in the West as it was a source of cohesion in the West. The underlying cause of these conflicts was the fundamental discrepancy between the American perception of the requirements for a global strategy of containment and Asian communism, and the more narrow, regional perspective of the Europeans. Moreover, these conflicts were resolved often in ways that resulted in closer ties, thus both revealing and reinforcing the robustness of Western relations and linkages. Most importantly, the end of the Cold War reduces this systematic irritant in Western relations. Back.

Note 14: Michael Hogan, The Marshall Plan: America, Britain, and the Reconstruction of Western Europe, 1947-1952 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1987). Back.

Note 15: Alberta Sbragia, "Thinking about European Future: The Uses of Comparison," in Sbragia, ed., Euro-Politics: Institutions and Policymaking in the "New" European Community (Washington, D.C.: Brookings, 1992). Back.

Note 16: See Gilpin, War and Change in World Politics; also Gilpin, The Political Economy of International Relations, esp. pp. 72-80. Back.

Note 17: See Stephen D. Krasner, "American Policy and Global Economic Stability," in William P. Avery and David P. Rapkin, eds., America in a Changing World Political Economy (New York: Longman, 1982). Back.

Note 18: The realist argument that secondary states will balance against American hegemony is made by Christopher Layne: "Proponents of America's preponderance have missed a fundamental point: other states react to the threat of hegemony, not the hegemon's identity. American leaders may regard the United States as a benevolent hegemon, but others cannot afford to take such a relaxed view." Layne, "The Unipolar Illusion," International Security, 17, 4 (Spring 1993), p. 35. Back.

Note 19: Interestingly, some realists and others have faulted the United States for lacking a centralized and autonomous capacity to make and implement foreign policy. But it could be argued that it is precisely the absence of these features that have made possible the reciprocal and consensual exercise of American power -- and, hence, the stability of the Western order. Back.

Note 20: Geir Lundstad, "Empire by Invitation? The United States and Western Europe, 1945-1952," in Charles Maier, ed., The Cold War in Europe: Era of a Divided Continent (New York: Wiener, 1991), pp. 143-68. See also G. John Ikenberry, "Rethinking the Origins of American Hegemony," Political Science Quarterly. Back.

Note 21: These features of the American polity have been emphasized by pluralist and neo-pluralistic scholars, such as David B. Truman, The Governmental Process (New York: Alfred Knopf, 1952); Robert A. Dahl, Who Governs? (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1961); Grant McConnell, Private Power and American Democracy (New York: Alfred Knopf, 1967); and Theodore J. Lowi, The End of Liberalism: Ideology, Policy, and the Crisis of Public Authority (New York: Norton, 1969). See also Gianfranco Poggi, The Development of the Modern State: A Sociological Introduction (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1878), esp. Chapter 6, "State and Society Under Liberalism and After," pp. 117-49. Back.

Note 22: For an important argument about the role of democratic political institutions in providing mechanisms for conveying credible commitment and "hierarchical contracting," see Peter Cowhey, "Elect Locally -- Order Globally: Domestic Politics and Multilateral Cooperation," in John Ruggie, ed., Multilateral Matters, pp. 157-200. See also David A. Lake, "Anarchy, Hierarchy, and the Variety of International Relations," International Organization, Vol. 50, No. 1 (Winter 1996), pp. 1-33. Back.

Note 23: The importance of liberal state institutions for the effective functioning of a hegemonic system has been noted by scholars who focus on Japan's potential for hegemonic status. The incomplete nature of Japanese liberalism and the difficulty that transnational forces have in influencing the Japanese policy process suggest that Japanese hegemony would be more resisted and more coercive. See Richard Rosecrance and Jennifer Taw, "Japan and the Theory of Leadership," World Politics, Vol. 42, No. 2 (January 1990), pp. 184-209. Back.

Note 24: On the connection between domestic structures and transnational relations, see Thomas Risse-Kappen, ed., Bringing Transnational Relations Back In: Non-State Actors, Domestic Structures and International Institutions (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995). Back.

Note 25: See Thomas Risse-Kappen, Cooperation among Democracies: The European Influence on U.S. Foreign Policy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995). Back.

Note 26: See Peter J. Katzenstein and Yutaka Tsujinaka, "'Bullying,' 'Buying,' and 'Binding': U.S.-Japanese Transnational Relations and Domestic Structures," in Risse-Kappen, ed., Bringing Transnational Relations Back In, pp. 79-111. Japanese corporate representatives have extensively accessed the Washington policy-making process and have been able to influence American decision making in areas that effect Japanese interests, particularly with regard to trade policy. See Pat Choate, Agents of Influence: How Japan Manipulates America's Political and Economic System (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1990). This Japanese access has not been reciprocated, but this asymmetry helps compensate for the subordinate role of Japan as an ally. From the Japanese perspective, this access and influence helps Japan cope with the enormous power the United States has over Japan, and thus adds legitimacy and stability to the relationship. Viewed from the perspective of the American state, this Japanese access is a weakness; viewed from the perspective of the American system, it is a strength. Back.

Note 27: For an exception, see Susan Strange, "Toward a Theory of Transnational Empire," in Ernst-Otto Czempiel and James N. Rosenau, eds., Global Changes and Theoretical Challenges: Approaches to World Politics for the 1990s (Lexington, Mass.: Lexington Books, 1989), pp. 161-76. Back.

Note 28: See Samuel P. Huntington, "Transnational Organizations in World Politics," World Politics, Vol. 25 (April 1973); and Robert Gilpin, U.S. Power and the Multinational Corporation (New York: Basic Books, 1975). Back.

Note 29: See, for example, Wolfgang Handreider, "Dissolving International Politics: Reflections on the Nation-State," American Political Science Review, Vol. 72, No. 4 (1978), pp. 1276-87; and James Rosenau, "The State in an Era of Cascading Politics: Wavering Concept, Widening Competence, Withering Colossus?" in James Caparaso, ed., The Elusive State: International and Comparative Perspectives (Newbury Park, CA: Sage. 1989), pp. 17-48. Back.

Note 30: See Michael Ross Fowler and Julie Marie Bunck, Law, Power, and the Sovereign State: The Evolution and Application of the Concept of Sovereignty (University Park, PA: Penn State University Press, 1995). Back.

Note 31: See Hedley Bull, The Anarchical Society (Columbia University Press, 1977); Barry Buzan, "From International System to International Society: Structural Realism and Regime Theory meet the English School," International Organization, 47, 3 (Summer 1993), pp. 327-52. Back.

Note 32: See Leopold von Ranke, "The Great Powers," in Theordore von Laue, ed., The Writings of Leopold von Ranke (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 19xx); Jack Levy, War in the Modern Great Power System, 1495-1975 (Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 1983); and Martin White, Power Politics, edited by Hedley Bull and Carsten Holbraad (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1978). Back.

Note 33: See Peter J. Katzenstein, Policy and Politics in West Germany: The Growth of a Semi-Sovereign State (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1987). Back.

Note 34: On American and Western efforts to liberalize postwar German and Japanese political institutions, see John Montgomery, Forced to Be Free: The Artificial Revolution in Germany and Japan (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1957); John Herz, ed., From Dictatorship to Democracy: Coping with the Legacies of Authoritarianism and Totalitarianism (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 1982); Thomas A. Schwartz, America's Germany: John J. McCloy and the Federal Republic of Germany (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1991); Robert E. Ward and Sakamoto Yoshikazu, eds., Democratizing Japan: The Allied Occupation (University of Hawaii Press, 1987); and Tony Smith, America's Mission: The United States and the Worldwide Struggle for Democracy in the Twentieth Century (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994), chapter six. Back.

Note 35: See Ian Buruma, The Wages of Guilt: Memories of War in Germany and Japan (New York: Meridian, 1995). Back.

Note 36: On the Japanese peace constitution, see Theodore H. McNelly, "'Induced Revolution': The Policy and Process of Constitutional Reform in Occupied Japan," in Ward and Yoshikazu, eds., Democratizing Japan, pp. 76-106; and Tetsuya Kataoka, The Price of a Constitution: The Origins of Japan's Postwar Politics (New York: Crane Russak, 1991). Back.

Note 37: Robert Gilpin, "The Politics of Transnational Economic Relations," International Organization 25 (Summer 1971); Charles P. Kindleberger, The World in Depression (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973); Kindleberger, "Dominance and Leadership in the International Economy: Exploitation, Public Goods, and Free Riders," International Studies Quarterly 25 (1981), pp. 242-54; Stephen Krasner, "State Power and the Structure of International Trade," World Politics 28 (April 1976), pp. 317-47; and Robert O. Keohane, "The Theory of Hegemonic Stability and Changes in International Economic Regimes, 1967-1977," in Ole R. Holsti, Randolph M. Siverson, and Alexander L. George, eds., Changes in the International System (Boulder: Westview Press, 1980). Back.

Note 38: See Gilpin, "Economic Interdependence and National Security in Historical Perspective," in Klaus Knorr and Frank Trager, eds., Economic Issues and National Security (Lawrence, KS: Regents Press of Kansas, 1977), pp. 19-66. Back.

Note 39: For variations of this argument, see Joanne Gowa, Allies, Adversaries, and International Trade (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994); and Edward D. Mansfield, Power, Trade, and War (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994). Back.

Note 40: See John Gerard Ruggie, "International Regimes, Transactions, and Change: Embedded Liberalism in the Postwar Economic Order," in Stephen D. Krasner, ed., International Regimes (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1983); and Ruggie, "Embedded Liberalism Revisited: Institutions and Progress in International Economic Relations," in Beverly Crawford and Immanuel Adler, eds., Progress in International Relations (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991). See also Eric Helleiner, States and the Reemergence of Global Finance: From Bretton Woods to the 1990s (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1994). Back.

Note 41: Conversely, if states abandon their commitment to the welfare state then this motivation for their support of a liberal economic system would decline. Or structural changes in the international economy might be less congenial to domestic welfare commitments, in which states would also pull back from the pursuit of open foreign economic policies. In either case, the liberal order would become "disembedded" and much less robust. See John Gerard Ruggie, "At Home Abroad, Abroad at Home: International Liberalism and Domestic Stability in the New World Economy," Millennium: Journal of International Studies, Vol. 24, No. 3 (Winter 1995), pp. 507-526. Back.

Note 42: The most systematic discussion of this logic is Joseph Grieco, "Anarchy and the Limits of Cooperation: A Realist Critique of Neoliberal Institutionalism," International Organization 42 (1988), pp. 485-507; and Grieco, Cooperation Among Nations (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1990). For additional discussion and debate, see David Baldwin, ed., Neoliberalism and Neorealism (New York: Columbia University Press, 1994). Back.

Note 43: An example of this phenomenon is the high technology sectors. In the late-1980s, Germany and Japan were leading the United States in many areas, but in more recent years this pattern has been reversed. Back.

Note 44: This is a variation on the argument made by Snidal, that multiple actors (in this case sectors and firms rather than states) complicate the simple calculation of relative gains and therefore mitigates its influence over policy. See Duncan Snidal, "International Cooperation Among Relative Gain Maximizers," International Studies Quarterly 35, 4 (December 1991), pp. 387-402. The sector focus also yields mixed results in Michael Mastanduno, "Do Relative Gains Matter? America's Response to Japanese Industrial Policy," International Security, 16 (Summer 1991), pp. 73-113. See also Jonathan Tucker, "Partners and Rivals: A Model of International Collaboration in Advanced Technology," International Organization, Vol. 45, No. 1 (Winter 1991), pp. 83-120. Back.

Note 45: Not all national identities are virulent and xenophobic but rather vary widely in their intensity and expression. See Charles A. Kupchan, ed., Nationalism and Nationalities in the New Europe (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1995); Anthony Smith, The Ethnic Revival: Theory and Comparison (London: Cambridge University Press, 1981); Edward A. Tiryakian and Ronald Rogowski, eds., New Nationalisms of the Developed West (Boston: Allen and Unwin, 1985); and Paul Brass, Ethnicity and Nationalism: Theory and Comparison (London: Sage Publications, 1991). Back.

Note 46: Montesquieu, Spirit of the Laws (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989). For a modern formulation, see Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities (London: Verso, 1983). Back.

Note 47: In earlier realist theory, the national community had a more central and explicitly articulated role. See Hans Morgenthau, Politics Among Nations (New York: Knopf, 1948). Back.

Note 48: George Mosse, The Nationalization of the Masses (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 199x). National identities are also mobilized as collective memories through the use of myths and symbols. See Andreas Maisinger, "Coming to Terms With the Past: An International Comparison," in Russell F. Farnen, ed., Nationalism, Ethnicity, and Identity: Cross National and Comparative Perspectives (New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers, 1994), p. 169-75. Also Paul Brass, Ethnicity and Nationalism; and Anthony Smith, The Ethnic Revival. Back.

Note 49: See Michael C. Desch, "War and Strong States, Peace and Weak States?" International Organization, Vol. 50, No. 2 (Spring 1996), pp. 237-68. Back.

Note 50: Louis Hartz, The Liberal Tradition in America (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1955). Back.

Note 51: An early attempt to conceptualize this common political culture is Seymour Martin Lipset, Political Man (New York: Doubleday, 1963). See also Morris Janowitz, The Last Half-Century: Societal Change and Politics in America (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978). Back.

Note 52: See Yael Tamir, Liberal Nationalism (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993); and Adam Seligman, The Idea of Civil Society (New York: Free Press, 1992). Back.

Note 53: See Susan Strange, States and Markets (New York: Blackwell, 1988). Back.

Note 54: For an analysis of global cultural formations, see Mike Featherstone, ed., Global Culture (Newbury Park: Sage, 1990). Back.

Note 55: This second form of common identity is less extensive and institutionalized than the parallel emergence of domestic liberalism, but it is significant in the cohesion it gives the Western system. Back.

Note 56: The United States is the hub of this increasingly open and circulating system of elites. In discussing the globalization of the world economy and rising American competitiveness within it, one reporter argues: "The increased openness of American society appears to be an advantage as well. U.S. graduate schools continue to attract leading foreign students, and entrepreneurs from around the globe often consider the U.S. the best place to launch an innovative concern. Foreign-born managers are far more prevalent at U.S. companies now than 20 years ago. The top executives of both Apple Computer Inc. and Compaq Computer Corp. are German nationals. Goodyear's Mr. Gibara -- born in Egypt -- says, "It's a big strength that we have a cadre of multinational managers. We can better relate to other cultures." G. Pascal Zachary, "Behind Stock's Surge is an Economy in which Big U.S. Firms Thrive," Wall Street Journal, 22 November 1995, p. A7. Back.

Note 57: See Bernard and Fawn Brody, From Crossbow to the H-Bomb (Bloomington: University of Indiana Press, 1973); and J.F.C. Fuller, Technology and the Conduct of War. Back.

Note 58: David S. Landes, The Unbound Prometheus: Technological Change and Industrial Development in Western Europe from 1750 to the Present (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969); W.W. Rostow, The World Economy: History and Prospect (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1978); and Alfred D. Chandler, Jr., Scale and Scope: The Dynamics of Industrial Enterprise (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1990). Back.

Note 59: For calculations of economic gains from recent global trade liberalization, see Warwick J. McKibbin and Dominick Salvatore, The Global Economic Consequences of the Uruguay Round (Brookings Discussion Papers, No. 110), February 1995. Even the Soviet Union felt impelled by the late 1980s to integrate itself into the world market to obtain technology, capital, markets necessary for continued growth. See Timothy W. Luke, "Technology and Soviet Foreign Trade: On the Political Economy of an Underdeveloped Superpower," International Studies Quarterly, 29 (1985), pp. 327-53. Back.

Note 60: See Karl Deutsch, Tides Among Nations (New York: Free Press, 1979), and Karl Deutsch, et al, Political Community and the North Atlantic Area (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1957), Marion Levy, Modernization and Industrialization of Societies: A Setting for International Affairs (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1966). Back.

Note 61: On the role of multiple interations in providing disincentives for cheating, see Robert Alexrod, The Evolution of Cooperation (New York: Basic Books, 1984). This argument is also developed in Keohane, After Hegemony. Back.

Note 62: Less recent effort by others to connect modernization with a post-Westphalian political order suffered from three limitations -- the underdevelopment of the intervening variables which more recent and less ambitious theorists have clarified, its modernization argument in its breadth misses the industrial core and conceptually over-reaches, and the structural and functional elements of earlier modernization theorists tended toward teleological and progressive determinism and neglected the very real occurrence of dysfunctional outcomes. See Edward Morse, Modernization and the Transformation of International Relations (New York: Free Press, 1976). Back.

Note 63: On the building of American state capacity during the war, see Michael S. Sherry, In the Shadow of War: The United States since the 1930s (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995). Back.

Note 64: See Deudney, "Binding Sovereigns: Authority, Structure, and Geopolitics in Philadelphia Systems," in Biersteker and Weber, eds., Constructing State Sovereignty. Back.

Note 65: Arthur S. Link, Wilson the Diplomatist (New York: New Viewpoints, 1974); and Arthur Walworth, Wilson and His Peacemakers: American Diplomacy at the Paris Peace Conference, 1919 (New York: W.W. Norton & Co, 1986). Back.

Note 66: This point is made in G. John Ikenberry and Charles A. Kupchan, "Socialization and Hegemonic Power," International Organization. Back.

Note 67: See Robert Pollard, Economic Security and the Origins of the Cold War, 1945-1950 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1985); and Melvyn P. Leffler, A Preponderance of Power: National Security, the Truman Administration, and the Cold War (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1992), Introduction. Back.

Note 68: See Hans Kohn, American Nationalism: An Interpretative Essay (New York: Macmillan, 1957); and Liah Greenfield, Nationalism: Five Roads to Modernity (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1993). Back.

Note 69: See Lloyd C. Gardner, "The Atlantic Charter: Idea and Reality, 1942-1945," in Douglas Brinkley and David R. Facey-Crowther, eds., The Atlantic Charter (London: Macmillan, 1994), pp. 45-81. Back.

Note 70: For a similar argument, see Gunther Hellman and Reinhard Wolf, "Neorealism, Neoliberal Institutionalism, and the Future of NATO," Security Studies, Vol. 3, No. 1 (Autumn 1993), pp. 3-43. Back.

Note 71: See John Mearsheimer, "Back to the Future," International Security. See also Kenneth Waltz, "The Emerging Structure of International Politics," International Security, 18 (Fall 1993), pp. 44-79; Samuel P. Huntington, "Why International Primacy Matters," International Security, 17 (Spring 1993), pp. 68-83; Pierre Hassner, "Europe Beyond Partition and Unity: Disintegration or Reconstruction?" International Affairs, Vol. 66 (July 1990), pp. 461-475; Hugh DeSantis, "The Graying of NATO," Washington Quarterly, Vol. 14 (Autumn 1991), pp. 51-65. Back.

Note 72: Robert Gilpin, "American Policy in the Post-Reagan Era," Daedelus (Summer 1987), pp. 33-67. Also, Paul Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers: Economic Change and Military Conflict from 1500-2000 (New York: Random House, 1987). Back.

Note 73: Christopher Layne, "The Unipolar Illusion," International Security. For a review of this argument, see Robert Jervis, "The Future of World Politics: Will It Resemble the Past?" International Security, Vol. 16, No. 3 (Winter 1991/92), pp. 39-73. Back.

Note 74: Chalmers Johnson, "History Restarted: Japanese-American Relations at the End of the Century," in Johnson, Japan: Who Governs? The Rise of the Developmental State (New York: Norton, 1995). See also Edward Luttwak, "From Geopolitics to Geo-Economics: Logic of Conflict, Grammar of Commerce," National Interest, No. 20 (Summer 1990); Edward Olsen, "Target Japan as America's Economic Foe," Orbis, Vol. 36, No. 4 (Fall 1992), pp. 491-504; and Erik R. Peterson, "Looming Collision of Capitalisms," Washington Quarterly (Spring 1994), pp. 65-75. Back.

Note 75: See Conor Cruise O'Brien, "The Future of the West," The National Interest, 30 (Winter 1992/93), pp. 3-10; and Owen Harries, "The Collapse of 'the West,' Foreign Affairs, Vol. 72, No. 4 (September/October 1993), pp. 41-53. Back.

Note 76: John Duffield, "NATO's Functions After the Cold War," Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 119, No. 5 (1994-95), pp. 763-787. Back.

Note 77: Roger Cohen, "France to Rejoin Military Command of NATO Alliance," New York Times, December 6, 1995, p. A1. Back.

Note 78: Alan Cowell, "Kohl Casts Europe's Economic Union as War and Peace Issue," New York Times, 17 October 1995, p. A10. Back.

Note 79: In the most pointed remarks, President Chirac of France complained during the summer of 1995 that "the Western alliance had no leader." This helped galvanize the Clinton administration to play a more active role in ending the conflict in the former Yugoslavia. Back.

Note 80: As a recent analysis indicates: "Germany, of all the states in Europe, continued to promote its economic and military security almost exclusively through multilateral action. . . . [B]edrock institutional commitments were never called into question, and many reform proposals, notably in connection with the EC, aim to strengthen international institutions at the expense of the national sovereignties of member states, including, of course, Germany itself." Jeffrey J. Anderson and John B. Goodman, "Mars or Minerva? A United Germany in a Post-Cold War Europe," in Robert O. Keohane, Joseph S. Nye, and Stanley Hoffmann, eds., After the Cold War: International Institutions and State Strategies in Europe, 1989-1991 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1993), p. 34. Back.

Note 81: See Miles Kahler, "A World of Blocs?" World Policy Journal, 1995. Back.

Note 82: New York Times. Back.