GOVERNANCE, ORDER, AND CHANGE IN WORLD POLITICS
as either wholly original or as
a
reconstituted version of its predecessor?
Put more specifically, should the end of the Cold War be viewed as
systemic change toward a new order, or are these bases for treating this
development as within-system change of the old order?
Much depends, of course, on how the characteristics of the global
system are perceived and identified. If they are conceived in broad
terms which stress the continuing competence and dominance of states
and their anarchical system which accords them sovereignty and
equality, then the end of the Cold War and the replacement of its super-
power rivalry with a more dispersed, less militaristic competition
among many states can be seen as merely a new form of the existing
order. Rearranged relationships, altered hierarchies, and new patterns
of interaction, to be sure, but still the same old state system with the
same old arrangements for conducting and managing its affairs. The
post-Cold War changes are surely profound and extensive, and their
consequences are surely bound to be enormous for decades to come,
but in this interpretation they are nonetheless only within-system
changes.
17
If, on the other hand, emphasis is placed on the diminished
competence of states, the globalization of national economies, the
fragmentation of societies into ethnic, religious, nationality, linguistic,
and political subgroups, the advent of transnational issues that foster
the creation of transnational authorities, and the greater readiness of
citizenries to coalesce in public squares, then the end of the Cold War
and the emergent arrangements for maintaining global life are likely to
be viewed as the bases for a wholly new order. States are still active and
important, to be sure, but their participation in the processes of world
politics is nevertheless of a different, less dominating kind, thereby
leading to the interpretation that fundamental systemic change has
occurred.
18
Is there clear-cut evidence indicating support for one of these
perspectives and rejection of the other? No, not yet; or at least the
matter still seems open-ended. Many of the present global arrange-
ments appear too unsettled in the aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet
empire to warrant one or the other perspective. To repeat, moreover,
much depends on how the key concepts are defined, thus enabling
17
For an elaborate formulation that supports the permanence of the state system -
summarized by "the conclusion that the territorial map [of
a
world of states] has been
frozen into its present shape once and for all" (p. 67) - and that thus allows for only
within-system change, see James Mayall, Nationalism and
International
Society
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), esp. ch. 4 ("Nationalism and the
International Order").
18
For an extensive presentation of this perspective, see Rosenau,
Turbulence
in
World
Politics, ch. 10.
23
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