Published online by Cambridge University Press: 26 November 2001
In 1987, Paul Kennedy predicted in his best-selling book, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, that the Pacific region, especially Japan and China, would rise in power, while the then Soviet Union, the United States and Europe would decline in power. Except for Russia, his predictions have not fared well. Why? His realist model of international politics ignored the role of national identities. National identities involve domestic institutions and policies that motivate citizens to create and use wealth and power. Nations compete through domestic reforms as well as international military and economic rivalries. Domestic changes in the United States and Europe revitalized American and European power, while delays in domestic reforms doomed Soviet/Russian power and dramatically slowed Japanese and Asian growth.
To send this article to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about sending to your Kindle. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save this article to your Dropbox account, please select one or more formats and confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you used this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your Dropbox account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save this article to your Google Drive account, please select one or more formats and confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you used this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your Google Drive account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.