Growing Apart?

Steinmo, SvenProfessor Sven Steinmo holds the Chair in Public Policy and Political Economy at the European University Institute (EUI) in Florence, Italy. He is also a Professor at the University of Colorado, Boulder, and an Honorary Professor at Odense University, Denmark. His writing includes Taxation and Democracy (Winner, 1994 Best Book Prize, Political Economy Section of the American Political Science Association), Structuring Politics (coedited with Kathleen Thelen), and Political Evolution and Policy Change (coedited with Bo Rothstein).Kopstein, JeffreyJeffrey Kopstein is Professor of Political Science and Director of the Centre for European, Russian, and Eurasian Studies at the University of Toronto. He is the author of The Politics of Economic Decline in East Germany 1945-1989, and coeditor of Comparative Politics: Interests, Identities, and Institutions in a Changing Global Order.

Many thought the 21st century would witness political, economic and even ideological convergence amongst the countries of the West. This has not happened. Today we see America 'growing apart' from her democratic allies and neighbors. Growing Apart shows how the social, political, and economic forces shaping advanced democratic states are pushing America in different directions from the rest of the democratic world and argues that these changes are not the product of any particular president or government. This volume brings together a set of leading scholars who each examine the evolution of different social, political, and economic forces shaping Europe and America. It is the first book to unite the international relations scholarship on transatlantic relations with the comparative politics literature on the varieties of capitalism. Taken together, the essays in this volume address whether the 'West' will continue to remain a coherent entity in the 21st century.

Scholars analyze why and how the United States pulled away from its democratic allies following the Cold War.

Introduction: growing apart? America and Europe in the 21st century Sven Steinmo and Jeffrey Kopstein; 1. The religious divide: why religion seems to be thriving in the United States and waning in Europe Steven Pfaff; 2. Value change in Europe and North America: convergence or something else? Christopher Cochrane, Neil Nevitte and Steve White; 3. On different planets: news media in the U.S. and Europe Donald Morrison; 4. One ring to bind them all: American power and neoliberal capitalism Mark Blyth; 5. Spreading the word: the diffusion of American conservatism in Europe and beyond Steven Teles and Daniel Kenney; 6. Work, welfare, and wanderlust: immigration and integration in Europe and North America Randall Hansen; 7. Lost in translation: the transatlantic divide over diplomacy Daniel W. Drezner; 8. The Atlantic divide in historical perspective: a view from Europe Laurent Cohen-Tanugi.