Regent's University London Library
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Ch. One. The nature of political economy: The issues of political economy ; The importance of the market ; The economic consequences of a market ; Market effects and political responses ; Conclusion -- Ch. Two. Three ideologies of political economy: The liberal perspective ; The Nationalist perspective ; The Marxist perspective ; A critique of the perspectives ; Three challenges to a World Market economy ; Welfare capitalism in a non-welfare international capitalist world ; Conclusion -- Ch. Three. The dynamics of the international political economy: Contemporary theories of the International Political Economy ; The political economy of structural change ; The mechanisms of structural change ; Structural change and economic conflict ; Conclusion -- Ch. Four. International money matters: The era of specie money ; The era of political money ; The classical gold standard (1870-1914) ; The interregnum between British and American leadership (1914-1944) ; The Bretton Woods system (1944-1976) ; The dollar and American hegemony ; The non-system of flexible rates ; The issue of policy coordination ; The Reagan administration and policy coordination ; The policy for policy coordination ; Conclusion -- Ch. Five. The politics of international trade: The importance of trade ; The liberal theory of international trade ; The Nationalist theory of international trade ; Free trade versus economic protectionism ; The GATT system ; Emergent trade issues ; New trading patterns ; The Rapprochement of Liberal and Nationalist theories ; The prospects for the Liberal trade regime ; Conclusion.

Ch. Six. Multinational corporations and international production: The nature of the multinational ; The era of American multinationals ; The multinationals and home countries ; The multinationals and host countries ; The new multinationalism ; Conclusion -- Ch. Seven. The issue of dependency and economic development: The Liberal perspective on economic development ; The classical Marxist perspective on economic development ; The underdevelopment position ; An evaluation of LDC strategies ; The process of uneven growth ; Conclusion -- Ch. Eight. The political economy of international finance: Three eras of international finance ; The Eurodollar market ; The debt problem in the 1980s ; Japanese subsidization of American hegemony ; The Nichibei economy and its prospects ; Conclusion -- Ch. Nine. The transformation of the global political economy: Structural changes in the international political economy ; The transition problem ; Conclusion -- Ch. Ten. The emergent international economic order: The problem of political leadership ; The adjustment problem ; International norms versus domestic autonomy ; A mixed system, mercantilistic competition, economic regionalism, and sectoral protectionism ; Conclusion.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

After the end of World War II, the United States, by far the dominant economic and military power at that time, joined with the surviving capitalist democracies to create an unprecedented institutional framework. By the 1980s many contended that these institutions--the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (now the World Trade Organization), the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund--were threatened by growing economic nationalism in the United States, as demonstrated by increased trade protection and growing budget deficits. In this book, Robert Gilpin argues that American power had been essential for establishing these institutions, and waning American support threatened the basis of postwar cooperation and the great prosperity of the period. For Gilpin, a great power such as the United States is essential to fostering international cooperation. Exploring the relationship between politics and economics first highlighted by Adam Smith, Karl Marx, and other thinkers of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Gilpin demonstrated the close ties between politics and economics in international relations, outlining the key role played by the creative use of power in the support of an institutional framework that created a world economy. Gilpin's exposition of the in.uence of politics on the international economy was a model of clarity, making the book the centerpiece of many courses in international political economy. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, when American support for international cooperation is once again in question, Gilpin's warnings about the risks of American unilateralism sound ever clearer."