Chapter Outline
The Evolving World System: Early Development
The Evolving World System: The 18th and 19th Centuries
The Evolving World System: The 20th Century
The 20th Century: The Years to World War II
The 20th Century: The Cold War Begins and Ends
Toward the 21st Century: Changes and Choices
Political Structure and Orientation: Changes and Choices
Security: Changes and Choices
International Economics: Changes and Choices
The Quality of Life: Changes and Choices
Chapter Objectives
1. Recognize major trends in the evolving world system from the birth
of states to the present.
2. Understand the origin of the current world system and the importance
of the Treaty of Westphalia (1648).
3. Identify the changes that occurred during the 19th and
19th centuries that continue to have an important impact on
the international system.
4. Discuss the pace of world political evolution at the beginning of
the 20th century and describe the weakening of the multipolar
system
5. Discuss what might follow the bipolar system and the most likely
form of a modified multipolar system.
6. Analyze the potential results of a shift in the international system
away from a strictly Western orientation.
7. Identify both international and domestic challenges to the authority
of the state.
8. Discuss the implications of following either the traditional national
security or alternative international security approach in the quest for
peace.
9. Understand the implications of economic interdependence and the counter-pressures
to pursue more traditional national economic policies.
10. Discuss the implications of the growing economic disparity between
the North and South.
11. Analyze the future of human rights and environmental issues in the
face of national resistance to international solutions.
Chapter Glossary
Actors: (International) Individuals or organizations that play a direct
role in the conduct of world politics.
Anarchical political system: A system in which there is no central authority
to make rules, to enforce rules, or to resolve disputes about the actors
in the political system. Many believe that a system without central authority
is inevitably one either of chaos or one in which the powerful prey on
the weak. There is, however, an anarchist political philosophy that contends
that the natural tendency of people to cooperate has been corrupted by
artificial political, economic, or social institutions. Therefore, anarchists
believe that the end of these institutions will lead to a cooperative society.
Marxism, insofar as it foresees the collapse of the state once capitalism
is destroyed and workers live in proletariat harmony, has elements of anarchism.
Economically developed countries (EDC): Industrialized countries, which
are mainly found in the Northern Hemisphere.
Eurowhite: A term to distinguish the whites of Europe and of Australia,
Canada, New Zealand, the US, and other countries whose cultures were founded
on or converted to European culture from other races and ethnic groups,
including Caucasian peoples in Latin America, the Middle East, South Asia,
and elsewhere.
Gross National Product (GNP): A measure of all goods and services produced
by a country's nationals, whether they are in the country or abroad.
Interdependence (economic): The close interrelationship or mutual dependence
of two or more domestic economies on each other.
International system: An abstract concept that encompasses global actors,
the interactions (especially pattens of interaction) among those actors,
and the factors that cause those interactions. The international system
is the largest of a vast number of overlapping political sytems that extend
downward in size to micropolitical systems at the local level.
Less Developed Countries (LDCs): Countries, located mainly in Africa,
Asia, and Latin America, with economies that rely heavily on the production
of agriculture and raw material and whose per capita GNP and standard of
living are substantially below Western standards.
Multipolar system: A world political system in which power primarily
is held by four or more international actors.
Newly Industrializing Countries (NICs): Less developed countries whose
economies and whose trade now include significant amounts of manufactured
products. As a result, these countries have a per capita GNP significantly
higher than the average per capita GNP for less developed countries.
North-South Axis: The growing tension between the few economically developed
countries (North) and the many economically deprived countries (South).
The South is demanding that the North cease economic and political domination
and redistribute part of its wealth.
Popular Sovereignty: A political doctrine that holds that sovereign
political authority resides with the citizens of a state. According to
this doctrine, the citizenry grant a certain amount of authority to the
state, its government, and especially, its specific political leaders (such
as monarchs, presidents, and prime ministers)), but do not surrender ultimate
sovereignty.
Realpolitik: Operating according to the belief that politics is based
on pursuit, possession, and application of power.
Sovereignty: The most essential characteristic of an international state.
The term strongly implies political independence from any higher authority
and also suggests at least theoretical equality.
Third World: A tem once commonly used to designate the countries of
Asia, Africa, Latin America, and elsewhere that were economically less
developed. The phrase is attributed to French analyst Alfred Sauvy, who
in 1952 used this term to describe neutral countries in the cold war. By
inference, the US-led Western bloc and the Soviet-led Eastern bloc were
the other two worlds. But since most of the neutral countries were also
relatively poor, the phrase had a double meaning.
Trilateral countries: The United States and Canada, Japan, and the Western
European countries.
West: Historically, Europe and those countries and regions whose cultures
were founded onor converted to European culture. Such countries would include
Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the US. The majority of the populations
in these countries are also "white," in the European, not the larger Caucasian,
sense. After World War II, the term West took on two somewhat different
but related meanings. One referred to the countries allied with the US
and opposed to the Soviet Union and its allies, called the East. The West
also came to mean the industrial democracies, including Japan.
Thematic Analysis of Chapter
I. THE EVOLVING WORLD SYSTEM: EARLY DEVELOPMENT
A. Origins of the Nation-State
1. Integration
a. Rise of Centralized Monarchies
2. Disintegration
a. The Treaty of Westphalia
(1) Emphasis on state sovereignty within anarchical political system
b. Decline of Papal Authority
c. Collapse of multinational empires
II. The Evolving World System: The 18th and 19th Centuries
A. Popular Sovereignty, Westernization, and Multipolar Balance of Power
1. Rise of Democracy
2. Interplay on Nationalism and Democracy
a. Conceptualization of people as the seat of power-US and French Revolutions
3. Westernization of international system
a. Industrialization
b. Imperialism-emergence of North-South Axis
4. European Multipolar Balance-of-Power System
a. Shifting Alliances
b. Numerous major powers
III. The Evolving World System: The 20th Century
A. The 20th Century: The Years to World War II
1. Rising power of Nationalism
a. Empires collapse
b. States gain independence
2. European Multipolar Balance-of-Power System Ends
a. Loss of fluidity and emergence of two hostile blocs
(1) Fear of weakening Germany
(a ) French domination
(b) Rise of Communist USSR
(c) Horrors of World War I
B. The 20th Century: The Cold War Begins and Ends
1. Shifts in the Polar Structure of the System
a. Collapse of Euro-centered multipolar structure into a bipolar system
b. Rise and decline of bipolar system
(1) Cold War
(2) Containment-globalization of US policy
(3) Confrontation-Cuban Missile Crisis, Vietnam
(4) Détente
(4) End of bipolar system
IV. Toward the 21st Century: Changes and Choices
A. Political Structure and Orientation: Change and Choices
1. Emerging Polar Structure
a. Multipolar
(1) States as major powers
(2) Fluid patterns of alliances
b. Modified multipolar system
(1) Power of states restrained by international organizations, international law, and interdependence
(2) Regional poles
2. Weakening Western Orientation
a. Colonial possessions becoming states
b. Increase in number of non-Western independent states
(1) Strong presence in UN
(2) Different value systems
(3) Lesser developed countries
c. Group of 77
3. Challenges to Authority of States
a. External challenges
(1) Alternative international actors
(a) International organizations and transnational corporations
(b) transnationalism
b. Internal Challenges
(1) Ethnic rivalries
(2) State Disintegration
(a) Former USSR
(b) Chechnya
(c) Yugoslavia
(d) Czechoslovakia
(3) Increased number of refugees
B. Security: Changes and Choices
1. Changes to traditional national security base on self-reliance
a. Costs
b. Failure to protect lives
c. Advent of nuclear weapons
2. Trends
a. Arms control
b. International security forces
C. International Economics: Changes and Choices
1. Increasing Economic Interdependence
a. GATT/WTO
b. Emphasis on free trade
(1) ASEAN, NAFTA, EU
c. Increased flow of investment capital
d. Expansion of monetary exchange
(1) European Union's "euro"
2. Growing Gap Between North and South
a. Lesser developed countries demand New International Economic Order
D. The Quality of Life: Changes and Choices
1. Increasing Importance of Human Rights
2. Emphasis on Environment
a. Idea of sustainable development
b. Earth Summit 1992
Short Answer Questions
1. What major factor led to the decline of the political authority of the Roman Catholic church?
2. What are the major characteristics of an anarchical political system?
3. Why is the Treaty of Westphalia so significant?
4. What were the major features of the post-World War II bipolar system?
5. Name the two confrontations that were a result of the American Containment Doctrine.
6. What was the name of the policy pursued by President Richard M. Nixon in relation to the Soviet Union and China?
7. What was the purpose of Mikhail Gorbachev's policy of perestroika?
8. What effect die the collapse of the imperial Western powers' colonial empires after World War II have on the system of nation-states?
9. List a few characteristics of a modified multipolar system.
10. Identify some of the international challenges to the state.
11. Identify some of the domestic challenges to the state.
12. Name two non-traditional ways of providing security.
13. List three international economic organizations.
14. What are newly industrializing countries (NICs)?
15. What is meant by achieving sustainable development?