1992/01/01 by John Gerard Ruggie · 1,155 citations
Social Sciences · #Cold war #Development economics #Economics #Empire #Geopolitics #Global Peace and Security Dynamics #Institution #International Development and Aid #International Relations and Foreign Policy #International relations #Law #Multilateralism #Political economy #Political science #Politics #Sociology
paper · doi:10.1017/s0020818300027831
published in International Organization 46(3), 561-598 (University of Cambridge)
openalex publication_date 1992/01/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
In 1989, peaceful change, which a leading realist theorist had declared a very low-probability event in international politics less than a decade before, accommodated the most fundamental geopolitical shift of the postwar era and perhaps of the entire twentieth century: the collapse of the Soviet East European empire and the attendant end of the cold war. Many factors were responsible for that shift. But there seems little doubt that multilateral norms and institutions have helped stabilize their international consequences. Indeed, such norms and institutions appear to be playing a significant role in the management of a broad array of regional and global changes in the world system today.