The End of the West?

by Anderson, Jeffrey, M.D.; Ikenberry, G. John; Risse, Thomas

• ISBN13: 9780801474002
• ISBN10: 0801474000
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2008-04-01
• Publisher: Cornell Univ Pr

Summary

The past several years have seen strong disagreements between the U.S. government and many of its European allies, largely due to the deployment of NATO forces in Afghanistan and the commitment of national forces to the occupation of Iraq. News accounts of these challenges focus on isolated incidents and points of contention. The End of the West? addresses some basic questions: Are we witnessing a deepening transatlantic rift, with wide-ranging consequences for the future of world order? Or are today's foreign-policy disagreements the equivalent of dinner-table squabbles? What harm, if any, have recent events done to the enduring relationships between the U.S. government and its European counterparts? The contributors to this volume, whose backgrounds range from political science and history to economics, law, and sociology, examine the "deep structure" of an order that was first imposed by the Allies in 1945 and has been a central feature of world politics ever since. Creatively and insightfully blending theory and evidence, the chapters in The End of the West? examine core structural features of the transatlantic world to determine whether current disagreements are minor and transient or catastrophic and permanent.

Table of Contents

Contributors	p. vii
Acknowledgments	p. ix
Explaining Crisis and Change in Transatlantic Relations: An Introduction	p. 1
Inevitable Decline versus Predestined Stability: Disciplinary Explanations of the Evolving Transatlantic Order	p. 28
The Ghost of Crises Past: The Troubled Alliance in Historical Perspective	p. 53
Iraq and Previous Transatlantic Crises: Divided by Threat, Not Institutions or Values	p. 82
The Atlantic Order in Transition: The Nature of Change in U.S.-European Relations	p. 111
Trade Is No Superglue: The Changing Political Economy of Transatlantic Relations	p. 127
The Ties That Bind? U.S.-EU Economic Relations and the Institutionalization of the Transatlantic Alliance	p. 157
Crisis, What Crisis? Transatlantic Differences and the Foundations of International Law	p. 186
The Sovereign Foundations of Transatlantic Crisis in the Post-9/11 Era	p. 210
Passions within Reason	p. 229
American Exceptionalism or Western Civilization?	p. 247
The End of the West? Conclusions	p. 263
Index	p. 291
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