The war in El Salvador is over. On January 16, 1992, in Mexico Citys ornate Chapultepec Castle the government of President Alfredo Cristiani and the rebel Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN) formally signed a comprehensive peace treaty, putting an end to 12 years of conflict.

As 1992 began, the scene of Americas most prolonged military involvement since Vietnam presented images unimaginable just a few months before. In Mexico City, after unexpectedly signing the peace agreement in person, President Cristiani strode across the podium to shake hands with all five FMLN commanders as participants on both sides cried openly. In El Salvador a sea of FMLN flags filled San Salvadors Civic Plaza in front of the Metropolitan Cathedral, where the army once massacred political dissidents; the cathedral itself was draped with an enormous banner of the assassinated Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero. A ceremony held to observe the commencement of the formal ceasefire was especially poignant: army officers and rebel commanders stood together at attention to sing the Salvadoran anthem on a dais decorated with the flags of El Salvador, the ruling Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA) and the FMLN. The rival commandants then accompanied President Cristiani to light an eternal flame in commemoration of the more than 75,000 Salvadorans who died in the tiny countrys war.

As the world moves away from the familiar bipolar cold war era, many international relations theorists have renewed an old debate about which is more stable: a world with two great powers or a world with many great powers. Based on the chief assumptions of structural realism - namely, that the international system is characterized by anarchy and that states are unitary actors seeking to survive in this anarchic system - some security analysts are predicting that a world of several great powers will lead to a return to the shifting alliances and instabilities of the multipolar era that existed prior to World War II.

The American policy of assisting "freedom fighters" in their struggle against "Marxist" regimes in the Third World- the so-called Reagan Doctrine- represents one of the most significant foreign policy innovations of the Reagan presidency. By the close of the Reagan administration, the policy appeared to have achieved sweeping results in forcing communism to retreat in Afghanistan, Angola, and Kampuchea. Proponents of the policy have attributed the 1988 peace settlement between Angola, Cuba, and South Africa, and subsequent discussions on Angolan national reconciliation, to the Reagan doctrine"s success.

In Volume 3 of the four-volume Democracy in Developing Countries, the authors follow a common analytical framework to trace the experiences with democratic and authoritarian rule and assess the underlying causes of democratic success and failure in ten Asian countries. Volumes 2 and 4 of the set cover Africa and Latin America. In Volume 1, Professors Diamond, Linz, and Lipset weigh the evidence from these case studies together with a wealth of other theoretical and comparative literature to present a comprehensive theory of the social, cultural, economic, and political factors that foster stable democracy. Eschewing reductionist and monocausal interpretations, they emphasize the interplay between constitutional and party structure, ethnic conflict, socioeconomic change, international constraints, political values and beliefs, and the behaviors, choices, and policies of political leaders. Both the case studies and the theoretical conclusions draw new attention to the relationship between state and society and the autonomy and vitality of social interest groups as important determinants of the democratic prospect.

A perceptive synthesis of the major issues and concepts relating to Third World development and North-South relations. Its breadth is impressive. -Choice

Conceptually sophisticated and intellectually challenging. -Third World Quarterly

In this volume, fourteen distinguished specialists in international policy economy thorougly explore the concept of international regimes--the implicit and explicit principles, norms, rules, and procedures that guide international behavior. In the first section, the authors develop several theoretical views of regimes. In the following section, the theories are applied to specific issues in international relations, including the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade and on the still-enduring postwar regimes for money and security.