William R. Thompson is Distinguished Professor and Rogers Chair in Political Science Emeritus at Indiana University, Bloomington. He is also Editor-in-Chief of the Oxford Research Encyclopedia in Politics, a past President of the International Studies Association, and twice Editor-in-Chief of the International Studies Quarterly. Recent books include Racing to the Top, Shocks and Rivalries in the Middle East and North Africa, and Power Concentration in World Politics.

• 1. American Systemic Leadership: Its Unparalleled Rise and Slow Retreat


• 2. System Leadership, Rise and Relative Decline in the Global Political Economy


• 3. The Rise of the U.S. Economy


• 4. The 1920-45 Shift in U.S. Foreign Policy Orientation: Theory, Grand Strategies and System Leader Ascents


• 5. The Relative Decline of the United States


• 6. The Dysfunctionality of Domestic Politics: A Form of Absolute Decline


• 7. The Unipolarity Mirage


• 8. Inching Toward the Primus inter Pares Model and the End of Systemic Leadership as We Have Come to Know It?


• 9. The Second Sino-American Rivalry


• 10. The Future of World Order


• References


• Index

Most discussions of US decline in global politics couch their arguments and evidence in the most contemporary context. But the US follows a global lineage that has been emerging and evolving for centuries. In American Global Pre-Eminence, William R. Thompson argues that systemic leadership is based on a pecking order established by leads in technological innovation, energy, and global reach. The ultimate irony is that as it becomes clearer how these variables interact, the processes under scrutiny may be fundamentally transforming. Thompson asks whether it remain possible for a single state to lead the global system as in the past.