This book is a comprehensive study of cooperation among the advanced capitalist countries. Robert Keohane analyzes the institutions, or "international regimes," through which cooperation has taken place in the world political economy and describes the evolution of these regimes as American hegemony has eroded.

This book is a comprehensive study of cooperation among the advanced capitalist countries. Robert Keohane analyzes the institutions, or "international regimes," through which cooperation has taken place in the world political economy and describes the evolution of these regimes as American hegemony has eroded. Refuting the idea that the decline of hegemony makes cooperation impossible, he views international regimes not as weak substitutes for world government but as devices for facilitating decentralized cooperation among egoistic actors. The new preface addresses cooperation in an era of renewed American dominance in security issues.