; Ziya Önis; Koç University; Soli Ozel, Bilgi University, Istanbul; William Quandt, University of Virginia; Jillian Schwedler, University of Maryland, College Park; Jean-François Seznec, Columbia University and Georgetown University; Emmanuel Sivan, Hebrew University; Mohamed Talbi, independent scholar; Robin Wright, Los Angeles Times.
A comprehensive survey of the key debates that shape U.S. foreign policy today. The end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union ushered in a new era of international politics, one that people have been trying to get a handle on ever since. This collection is a record of the best attempts at that task over the last dozen years. It brings together many powerful and well-stocked mindsfrom Francis Fukuyama and Samuel P. Huntington to Fouad Ajami, Fareed Zakaria, and Robert Kaplan all trying to figure out what forces are driving world events and how Americans should respond. What is more important, ideology, culture, or power? What lies ahead, order or chaos? What is democracy? How strong is the United States, and for what purposes should it use its strength? How vulnerable is it, and what must it do for protection? The authors gathered here address these and many other questions, often directly engaging each others' arguments and educating the rest of us in the process. Originally published in Foreign Affairs and eight other leading journals and magazines, the articles constitute an essential reading list for anyone interested in contemporary international relations. Contributors include Fouad Ajami, Richard K. Betts, Ladan Boroumand & Roya Boroumand, Stephen G. Brooks & William C. Wohlforth, George W. Bush, David Dollar & Aart Kraay, Michael Scott Doran, Francis Fukuyama, Samuel P. Huntington, G. John Ikenberry, Kim Dae Jung, Robert D. Kaplan, Charles A. Kupchan, Dani Rodrik, Stephen M. Walt, Fareed Zakaria
The last quarter of the twentieth century was marked by two dramatic political trends that altered many of the world's regimes: the global resurgence of democracy and the collapse of communism. Was the process that brought down communism in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union fundamentally different from the process that gave birth to new democracies in other regions of the world? Were the transitions away from communism mostly like or mostly unlike the transitions away from authoritarianism that took place elsewhere? Is the challenge of building and consolidating democracy under postcommunist conditions unique, or can one apply lessons learned from other new democracies? The essays collected in this volume explore these questions, while tracing how the countries of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union have fared in the decade following the fall of communism.