With the end of the Cold War, the nations of the world were forced to rethink their strategies of development. Disintegration or Transformation? looks at eight of the world's most highly industrialized nations, the decisions they made, and continue to make, and the reaction of the society which they govern in the face of a constantly-changing international scene. The end of the Cold War signalled the victory of liberal democracy over competing forms of government, most notably communism. Nevertheless, victory has given way to change and not to the celebration one might have expected. National publics, unsatisfied with being simply among the best, ask why their lives are not better, why their economies are not more competitive, and why their governments are not more responsive. McCarthy and Jones analyze this problem by treating the state as a building block for advanced industrial society, emphasizing national state traditions and the distinction between national time and world time.