The United States: Decline or Renewal?

Abstract

In 1988 the United States reached the zenith (or, perhaps more appropriately, ‘nadir’) of its fifth major wave of declinism since the 1950s. The roots of this declinism lie in the political economy literature of the early 1980s which analysed the fading American economic hegemony and attempted to identify the consequences of its disappearance. In time, these themes were picked up in more popular and policy-oriented writings, and the combination of the budget and trade deficits plus the October 1987 stock market crash produced the environment for the spectacular success of Paul Kennedy’s scholarly historical analysis in early 1988. Decline has been on everyone’s mind, and the arguments of the declinists have stimulated lively public debate.²