Abstract
1989 brought an end to a world system of bi-polarity in which the poles were the United States and the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics. The question addressed in this paper is whether that system will be followed by a new bipolarity between the United States and the European Union (EU). It leaves aside a number of problems which the writer is not competent to discuss: the possibility put forward by Samuel Huntington (1993) that the world will encounter a clash of civilizations, including eruptions in the Middle East and South Asia, and the rise of China to the world-power status. It focuses on economic issues, whereas the US-USSR confrontation was mainly military and diplomatic. The central issue is whether the new bi-polarity, if it takes form, will be stable.
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Kindleberger, C.P. (2000). A New Bi-Polarity?. In: Mundell, R., Clesse, A. (eds) The Euro as a Stabilizer in the International Economic System. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-4457-9_1
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