American Power after the Financial Crisis

233 Pages·2014·1.29 MB·English

by  Jonathan Kirshner

American Power after the Financial Crisis
A volume in the series
Cornell Studies in Money
edited by Eric Helleiner and Jonathan Kirshner
A list of titles in this series is available at www.cornellpress.cornell.edu.
American Power after the
Financial Crisis
Jonathan Kirshner
Cornell University Press
Ithaca and London
Copyright © 2014 by Cornell University

All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or
parts thereof, must not be reproduced in any form without permission in
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Press, Sage House, 512 East State Street, Ithaca, New York 14850.

First published 2014 by Cornell University Press
Printed in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Kirshner, Jonathan, author.
American power after the fi nancial crisis / Jonathan Kirshner.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-8014-5099-0 (cloth : alk. paper)
1. Global Financial Crisis, 2008–2009—Political aspects. 2. United
States—Foreign economic relations—21st century. 3. United States—
Foreign economic relations—20th century. 4. National security—
Economic aspects—United States. I. Title.
HF1455.K56 2014
337.73—dc23 2014008088
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Cloth printing 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
To ABS, EJL, DKS, TJC, and REA

Contents
Preface ix
1. The Global Financial Crisis as World Politics 1
2. Learning from the Great Depression 18
3. From the First to the Second US Postwar Order 37
4. Seeds of Discord: The Asian Financial Crisis 59
5. The New American Model and the Financial Crisis 82
6. The Crisis and World Politics 106
7. The Crisis and the International Balance of Power 131
8. Conclusions, Expectations, and Speculations 157
Notes 173
Index 209

Preface
T his book, like all books, refl ects the intellectual trajectory of its au-
thor, and it is especially worthwhile in this instance—or at least, I think,
clarifying— to call attention to aspects of my own analytical orientation
that provide context for its main arguments. Three elements in particular,
all notably unfashionable, have shaped my perspective: my specialization
in the economics of national security, an emphasis on the weight of history,
and the infl uence of some elements of the writings of Keynes.
Trained initially as an economist, I switched to political science in grad-
uate school. As a specialist in international relations, I retained an active
interest in macroeconomics, and, more specifi cally, I was not surprisingly
drawn toward questions that considered the role of economic factors in
questions of war and peace. At that time, scholarship in international r ela-
tions was strictly divided between “security studies” and “international po-
litical economy,” an academic vestige of the Cold War, which I erroneously
predicted would be unsustainable in the post–Cold War environment. 1
Nevertheless, when the fi nancial crisis developed, I was irresistibly drawn
to the question of its effects on national security questions.