The introductory piece attempts to set forth as objectively as possible the economic legacy of the Reagan Administration, with emphasis on its international aspects, and thereby to provide the background for the other articles. Gilpin charts the shift in the 1980s from a supply-side, laissez-faire style policy to one that acknowledges a need for cooperation between the United States and its economic partners. While this has been a responsible and productive change, it has also generated ambiguity as to what the U.S. stance on economic international activity should be.

Krasner considers the decline of the global economic power the United States enjoyed from the 1940s through the 1960s and prescribes a policy of specific repricocity that aims not at restoring the country's postwar position but at allowing it to compete effectively in an emerging and changing economic climate. Specific repricocity focuses on short term pay-offs, outcomes, and differences in the domestic institutional arrangements of major economic partners. It aims at maintaining global stability while supporting the national best interest.

Nineteen eighty-seven was a year of financial paradox. During the 1980s there was the strong perception that the Americans, the Europeans, and the Japanese were living well, contrasting with the accounting data that suggested the house of cards was about to fall. Three factors dominated the financial economy of 1987: the 25-percent drop in equity prices in mid-October, the apparent collapse of the U.S. dollar in the foreign exchange market, and the formal recognition by the major international banks that their losses on developing country loans would amount to at least $250 billion. The key question at the end of that year was whether the world economy was moving into a period of inflation or deflation. This essay identifies three possible scenarios. First, the decline in the foreign-exchange value of the U.S. dollar would lead to a rapid increase in U.S. net exports, an excessively large increase in demand for U.S. goods, and a run on the U.S. dollar, which would prompt more contractive monetary policies from the Federal Reserve and an increase in interest rates on U.S. dollars. Second, an increase in U.S. net exports would offset the decline in domestic spending from the smaller fiscal deficit and the less rapid growth of consumer spending. Interest rates on U.S. dollar assets would fall, which in turn would facilitate the expansion of income, and the U.S. fiscal deficit would automatically decline. Or, third, a second stock market meltdown might cause consumer and investment spending to decline more than the increase in net exports, resulting in a recession and a decline in the inflation rate and interest rates.

Heilbroner challenges the concept that capitalism is purely an economic system and asserts it is rather a regime informed by social and political forces. The relentless pursuit of capital is the process by which the social order manifests its historical vigor. Within the regime of capitalism two realms of power and authority, the state and the economy, exist in a dialectic marked, in normal circumstances, by the concession of the incomparably more powerful state to the current interest of capital. However, the rise of international capitalism has changed this dynamic. Heilbroner describes this historical movement and ponders what capitalism will look like after its traditional form gives way.

Late 1980s economic theory failed to account for Japanese-style economies. Leading thinkers ignored the success and achievements of these systems by passing them off as exceptions due to “cultural uniqueness,” or by altering the facts to fit their theories. Chalmers Johnson argues that the success of the Japanese economy is neither random nor a function of culture but due to policy, particularly to Japanese industrial policy.

Korea became known as the Hermit Kingdom at the end of the nineteenth century when it had withdrawn into itself under the threats of its neighbors-China, Russia, and Japan. This characterization has endured through this century even despite Korea's internal war and the involvement of the international community in that conflict. The election of Roh Tae Woo marked the beginning of a new stage in Korean politics: “the period of Korean-style democracy.” Robert Myers follows the historical eras and events leading up to this change and predicts a less threatening, less Confucian politics for the Korea of the future.

The outsider, international approach to ending apartheid in South Africa tends to take an overly moral stance, one that ultimately ignores a complex political, economic and racial situation. Thus effective outside action and intervention fails to help remedy or improve what it finds offensive. Denis Worrall draws on 20th century South African history and his own experience as a South African to show some of the less obvious but extremely important facets of apartheid that bare directly on its dissemination.

The pervasiveness and magnitude of AIDS require that it be addressed on an international, global scale. However, the issues of testing for the virus, and controlling its propagation raise questions of civil rights. Brenda Almond examines different countries' policies and ways of attempting to deal with AIDS, focusing on their positions in regard to rights. Almond makes the case that while discrimination should be avoided and fought, that recognition of the primary right, that of life, demands that public health and civil rights be considered in a less oppositional way. Ultimately, however, the possibility of defeating AIDS lies not in law and regulation but in moral education.

In 1985, forty years after the adoption of the U.N. charter, a reform process was begun that addressed the changes in international relations over the past 40 years and sought to improve budgetary problems that interfered with the U.N. service of “creating a ‘better’ world.” Choudhury, elected president of the General Assembly in 1986, reviews the changes within the UN and reasserts its enduring role as a global instrument of peace.

The classical realist world view places moral standards subservient to the power concerns of international actors. Realists did not make this valuation without some hesitation, as the issue of morality was addressed with seriousness and concern. The neo-realist thinking of today embraces with less hesitation the ultimate conclusion of the realist premises: statesmen never act according to moral precepts, thus such concerns need not be addressed by a political theory. Kegly argues the neo-idealist position that opposes this empirical observation: states consistently act according to values that are based on more than power concerns. Kegley's primary intent is to show that neo-realism ignores factors that influence international actors, and that a theory is needed that expands the notion of self-interest to include the moral sphere.

Reinhold Niebuhr's Cold War stance was a middle ground between the harsh amorality of the realists and the overly hopeful liberal view. His liberal realism “endorsed constructive and seemingly altruistic measures because of his interpretation of the threat posed by communism and because of his philosophy of power.” After developing this stance in regards to Russia-U.S. relations, Niebuhr applied it to China. Sizemore explicates Niebuhr's Chinese position to provide a skeptical criticism of Reagan's Central American policies.