1. As the President of the European Parliament, Pieter Dankert, explained: ‘The sheer number of disputes between the United States and Western Europe has gradually eroded the mutual respect and confidence essential to the Atlantic partnership … What has happened is that the Reagan administration’s rigid ideology has effectively polarized a long-apparent [sic]: that because of geographical proximity and historical experience West Europeans have developed close links to Eastern Europe. The resulting political and economic environment has inevitably altered Western Europeans’ perceptions of the so-called Soviet challenge and what is necessary to deal with it … But where ambiguities and differences were left unexplored in the past, the relentless pressure of the Reagan administration has now sharply defined the lines of division.’ (P. Dankert, ‘Europe Together, America Apart’, Foreign Policy, no. 53 [Winter 1983/84]: 20).
2. Joint Studies in Public Policy series;CM Kelleher,1983
3. Susan Strange uses the term ‘structural power’ to refer to the ability of one actor to wield influence by its ability to shape the ‘rules of the game’ or the environment in which actors meet. Thus the power to determine the agenda of meetings is as important as the specific demands made by actors in those meetings. See Susan Strange, States and Markets (London: Pinter, 1988), chapter 2.
4. This study does not presume to arbitrate the scholarly debate about the extent of American decline and its implications for global trade and finance. Rather, the crucial point is that at the time, America was perceived by European allies to be erratic both economically and politically, thus calling into question her ability to offer firm leadership in either sphere. For the exposition that this weakness was evidence of decline see, inter alia, Paul Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers: Economic Change and Military Conflict from 1500 to 2000 (New York: Random House, 1988). For a counter-argument that disputes theories of hegemonic stability and the argument of American decline upon which they are predicated, see Andrew Walter, World Power and World Money (Hemel Hempstead: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1993).
5. For an excellent overview of economic relations between the United States and Europe see David P. Calleo, The Imperious Economy (Harvard: Cambridge University Press, 1982). See also Loukas Tsoukalis, ed., Europe, America and the World Economy (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1986).