ABSTRACT
A crucial date in recent international political economy (IPE) was 15 August 1971, when the US administration decided to suspend the Bretton Woods monetary system. Not only did this unilateral decision change the way the international monetary system was run, but the USA was perceived to have officially declared its power position as challenged. After the 1973 crisis, observers began to link the erosion of US power with the recession and the increasing protectionism. US academics began for the first time to apply analyses of the decline of power to their own country. The oil shock and the accrued influence of economic weapons moved economic issues to the level of ‘high polities’, i.e. to questions of diplomacy and war. A scholar relatively well prepared to respond to these issues was Robert Gilpin. One reason was that he had not specialized in the core of International Relations with its emphasis on narrowly defined security, strategy and traditional diplomacy. Gilpin specialized in the role of science and technology both for domestic and foreign policies. At the time of the 1971 watershed, his most recent book was a detailed analysis of the social and political responses of one former great power (France) to the challenges of the after-war period (1968a).
