Аннотация:The rise and decline of hegemonic states remains a central concern of scholars and policy makers. To be sure, most international relations scholars long ago abandoned the quest for a simple causal relationship between the distribution of power and major political phenomena like war and cooperation. But as Robert Gilpin wrote three decades ago, one need not "accept a structural or systems theory approach to international relations such as Waltz's in order to agree that the distribution of power among the states in a system has a profound impact on state behavior." Witness the outpouring of commentary and analysis following the 2008 financial crisis and subsequent great recession debating the extent and possible effects of American decline. For many, the world seemed to stand before a "Gilpinian moment," when the basic material underpinnings of the American-led global order were rapidly shifting toward some new as-yet undefined equilibrium.
