Chapter TwoExploring Twenty-first-Century World Politics:Trend and TransformationI.The Investigative ChallengeHow can we best undrstand the political convulsions in the world that confront us almost daily? How can we anticipate their future significance? And how can we uderstand the factors and forces that most influence them? On the eve of the twenty-first century, we are being engulfed in futuist talk. We are forced to use unfamiliar language—“new century”, “new millenium”, “new world”—and to speculate, “what will the new world be like? ”Will it be different? As global conditions change, will the human vicitims and benficiaries change in the process? Or will the patterns of the past endure?How can we visualie our probable human destiny and see beyond the confines of our immediate time? For beginners, it is important to appreciate the interaction of previous ideas and events with current realities. As philosopher George Santayana Cautioned, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. ”Similarly, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill advised, “The farther backward you look, the farther forward you are likely to see. ”Thus, to understand the dramatic changes in world politics today and to predict how they will shape the future, we will view them in the context of a long-term perspective that examines how the international political system—the pattems of interaction among world political actors—has changed and how some of its fundamental characteristics have resisited change. What do evolving diplomatic practices suggent about the current state of world politics? Are the duamatic changes that often have recenly sent shock waves throughout the would clearing the way for a truly new twenty-first century world order? Or will these dramatic developments ultimetely prove temporary, mere spikes on the seismograph of history?We invite you to explore these questions with us. To begin our search, we introduce three concepts that can hellp us orent our effort.Continuity, Change and Cycles in World PoliticsEvery historical period is marked to some extent by change. Now, howerver the pace of change seems more rapik and its consequences more profoud that ever. To many observers, the cascade of events on the eve of the twenty-first century implies a revolutionary restructuring of world politics. Numerous integrative trends point to that possibility. The countries of the would are duawing closer together in communications, ideas, and trade, as the integration of national economies has produced a globalization is changing the way the would works. Likewese, disintgrative trends are shaking the globe and restuctuing the way it perates, The end of stability imposed by the bipolar distubution of power bewenne the Unitied States and the Soviedt Union and their respective allies, the proliferation of conventional and unconventional weapons, global-environmental deterioration, and the resurgence of nationalism and ethnic conflict all portend a restructuring marked by disorder. The opposing forces of integration and distegration point toward a transformation in world politics as extensive and important as the system-disrupting convulsions following world Wars I and II.Distinguishing meaningful transformations(true histouical watershed), from ephemeral changes (those that gradually unfold with the passage of time but sometimes fail to last) is difficult. Transformations do not fall neatly into easily defined periods, signaling that one system has trulyended and a new one has begun. Still, major turning points in world politics usually have occurred at the end of major wars, which typically disrupt or destroy preexisting international arrangements. In the 20th cantury, World wars 1 and II stimulated fundamental breaks with the past, as each set in motion major transformations. The end of the Cold War was a histourical breakpint of no less epic significance. As US President George Bushput it in 1992, the changes stimulated by the end of the cold War were “of bibical proportions”, providing coutuies an opportunity for the first time since 1945, to rethink the premises underlying their interests, purposes, and priorities.Despite all that is radically different in world politics, much remains the same. Indeed, “history usually makes a mockery of our hopes and expectations. ”Thus leaders must “question…the ways and areas in which the future is likely to resemble the past”How can we determine when an existing pattern of relationships gives way to a new international system? Following Stanley Hoffmann(1961), we may proceed by assuming that we have a new intenational system when we have new answer to one of three questions:(1)What are the system’s basic units?(e.g., states or transnational religious movements);(2)What are the predominant foreign policy goals that these units seek with respect to oneanother? (e.g., territorisl conquest or material gain through trade); and(3)What can these units do to one another with their military and economic capabilities?These curiteria might lead us to conclude that a new system has emerge. First, new trade partnerships have been forged in Europe, North America, the Pacific Rim, and these trading blocs may behave as unitary, or independent actors as they compete with one another.Moreover, international organizations, such as the world Trade Organization and the European Union, now sometimes flex their political muscles in contests with individual states; and tuansnational religious movements ,such as Islamic fundamentalism, challlenge the global system itself (a system of state and or national actors, autonomous political units whose people perceive themsives as unified by a common language, culture, or ethnic identity.) At the same time, some states have disintegrated into smaller units. The sovied Union has fragmented into fractious political entities searching for national identity and automony. Other national units could disintegrate as well—peacefully, like the former czechoslovakia, or vilently, like the former Yugoslavia.Second, terriorial conquest is no longer the predominant goal of many states’foreign policies. Instead, theiremphasis has shited from traditional military methods of exercising influence to economic means. Meanwhile, the ideological contest between the democratic capitalism of the United States and the Marxist-Leninist communism of the Cold War-era Soviet Union no longer comprises the primary cleavage in international politics.Third, the proliferationa of weapons technology has profoundly atered the damage that states can inflict on one another. Their economic well-being, however, is sometimes dependent on those with an increasing capacity to destroy.The profoud changes in unites, goals, and capabilities of recent years have duamatically altered the ranking of states in the pecking orders that define the stucure of international politics. Still, the hierachies themselves endure. The economic hierarchy that divides the rich from the poor, the political hierarchy that separates the rulers from the ruled, the resource hierarchy that makes some suppliers and others dependents, and the military asymmetries that pit the strong against the weak all still shape the relations among states, as they have in the past. Similarly, the perpetuation of international anarchy in the absence of institutions togovern the globe, and chronic national inseccurity continue to encourage preparations for war and the use of force wighout inernational nandate. Thus change and continuity coexist, wigh both fouces simultaneously shaping contemporary world politics.The inteaction of constancy and change makes it difficult to predict whether the twenty-first century will bring a sholly new and different international system. What is calear is that this interaction will determine future relations among global actors. This, perhaps, explains why cycles so often appear to characterize world politics; Perildic sequences of events occur that resemble patterns in earlier perilds. Because the emergent international system shares many characteristics with earlier periods, histourically minded observes may experience dejavu—the illusion of having already experienced something actually being experience for th first time.The challenge, then ,is to observe unfolding global realities objectively in ordr to describe and wxplain them accurately,and hence to understand their future impact. It also reuires a set of tools for analyzing the forces of constancy and change that affect our world and that of the future. Thus ,the remaindre of this chapter will briefly examine the role that images of reality play in our undr-standing of world politics, and then will describe the theoretical orientation of the book.。