World Out of Balance

Stephen G. Brooks is associate professor of government at Dartmouth College and the author of "Producing Security" (Princeton). William C. Wohlforth is professor of government at Dartmouth and the author of "The Elusive Balance".

• List of Illustrations ix Preface xi Acknowledgments xiii CHAPTER ONE: Introduction 1 CHAPTER TWO: Realism, Balance-of-Power Theory, and the Counterbalancing Constraint 22 CHAPTER THREE: Realism, Balance-of-Threat Theory, and the "Soft Balancing" Constraint 60 CHAPTER FOUR: Liberalism, Globalization, and Constraints Derived from Economic Interdependence 98 CHAPTER FIVE: Institutionalism and the Constraint of Reputation 148 CHAPTER SIX: Constructivism and the Constraint of Legitimacy 171 CHAPTER SEVEN: A New Agenda 208 Index 219

"Even as pundits are proclaiming the end of the United States' unipolar moment, scholars are still trying to understand the exact nature of U.S. primacy. If the United States is the most powerful state the world has seen, what constrains or disciplines its security pursuits? In this important book, Brooks and Wohlforth survey the leading schools of thought looking for answers."--Foreign Affairs "The authors dispute both the logic and the evidence that has been adduced in support of such claims and make the case so clearly that World out of Balance can be used in upper-division undergraduate courses and also read with profit by members of the profession. It will stand as a major book for years to come."--Robert Jervis, Perspectives on Politics "[T]his book is an important contribution to international relations studies and should be included in any upper-level undergraduate course or graduate seminar that is concerned with issues of power, primacy or polarity."--Patrick Shea, Political Studies Review