Thematic analysis: A practical guide

Charles Kupchan is a distinguished academic (professor of international relations at Georgetown University), a respected researcher (senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations), and author of many publications and has bridged the gap between academe and government (through service on the National Security Council during the first Clinton administration). He is also a clear-eyed Eur-optimist, more hopeful about the prospects of the European Union (EU) than most Europeans. The title of this provocative book tells it all. The author believes we are at the end of the American era. In the immediate past, he contends, the United States as the only superpower dominated the global scene. But this “unipolar moment” could not last, which is probably a good thing. Particularly under the Bush administration, argues this veteran of the preceding administration, American policy has become unilateral, relying too heavily on military force, disregarding international institutions, seeking to be free of the salutary restraints imposed by international law and diplomacy. The United States consequently has alienated world opinion and provoked resistance to its policies. But even discounting the unilateral proclivities of the Bush administration, for Kupchan undue concentration of power in one country (echoing a central theme of The Federalist Papers) is unhealthy. A diffusion of power is as necessary on the global level as it is within the political system of any nation. The ascending power in the world today, he contends, is the European Union. In the future, East Asia will also ascend and will have to be dealt with in its turn. America’s task is to welcome the EU, with which it shares basic values, as an equal partner. Together the United States and the EU should reinforce rule-based international cooperation through international law, the United Nations, and financial and trade institutions in order to facilitate the integration of East Asian and developing countries into a peaceful global system. Who could object? What could possibly be wrong with this picture? At least four points upon which the argument rests call for a closer look.