A Political Economy of American Hegemony
Buildups, Booms, and Busts

In A Political Economy of American Hegemony, Thomas Oatley explores how America's military buildups have produced postwar economic booms that have culminated in monetary and financial crises. The 2008 subprime crisis - as well as the housing bubble that produced it - was the most recent manifestation of this buildup, boom, and bust cycle, developing as a consequence of the decision to deficit-finance the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Earlier instances of financial crises were generated by deficit-financed buildups in the 1980s and the late 1960s. The buildup, boom, and bust pattern results from the way political institutions and financial power shape America's response to military challenges: political institutions transform increased military spending into budget deficits, and financial power enables the United States to finance these deficits by borrowing cheaply from the rest of the world. Oatley examines how this cycle has had a powerful impact on American and global economic and financial performance.

1. The political economy of imbalance; 2. National security shocks and military buildups; 3. Warfare, welfare, and the size of the American state; 4. Buildups and booms; 5. Deflecting the costs of adjustment; 6. The financial consequences of America's postwar booms; 7. The political economy of American hegemony.

Thomas Oatley teaches international politics at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. He has published his scholarly work in many of the field's best journals, including International Organization, the American Journal of Political Science, and International Studies Quarterly. Dr Oatley has also written two market-leading textbooks on international political economy, edited a handbook on the political economy of the international monetary system, and written a number of commentaries on contemporary affairs that have been published in outlets such as Foreign Policy and the Washington Post.