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Shaping a New World Order: Political Capacities and Policy Challenges*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2014

Andrew Gamble
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Extract

ONE OF THE MOST NOTICED FEATURES OF OUR TIME IS that global problems are increasing at a faster rate than the evolution of the political capacities to manage them. This is not a new observation, or even a new condition. It has long been part of a pessimistic assessment of the prospects for modern industrial technological civilization that can be traced back to its origins, but has been particularly strong throughout the twentieth century. H. G. Wells's famous comment that ‘human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe’ is even more apposite to the contemporary mood than it was when first written. The spectre of communism no longer haunts Europe, but other spectres now haunt the global civilization which developed out of Europe. Some of the key trends of this global civilization threaten at best an era of mounting disorder and chaos in the world system, at worst the survival of the human species itself. The problems are increasing far faster than the ability to find solutions for them.

Type
Original Articles
Information
Government and Opposition , Volume 28 , Issue 3 , 01 July 1993 , pp. 325 - 338
Copyright
Copyright © Government and Opposition Ltd 1993

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References

1 The conference papers and discussion were published in the special issue on Globalization, Government and Opposition, Vol. 28, No. 2, Spring 1993.Google Scholar

2 ibid., pp. 152‐69.

3 Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, the Communist Manifesto, London, 1888.

4 Held, David and McGrew, Anthony, ‘Globalization and the Liberal Democratic State’, Government and Opposition, Vol. 28, No. 2, Spring 1993, pp. 261–85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

5 Wallerstein, Immanuel, The Modern World System, New York, Academic Press, 1974 Google Scholar; The Capitalist World Economy, Cambridge, Cambridge Press, 1979.

6 Rostow, W. W., The States of Economic Growth: A Non‐Communist Manifesto, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1960 Google Scholar.

7 Arrighi, Giovanni, ‘World Income Inequalities and the Future of Socialism’, New Left Review, 189, Sept.–Oct. 1991, pp. 39‐65. Google Scholar

8 See Government and Opposition, special issue on Globalization, op. cit.

9 Fukuyama, Francis, The End of History and the Last Man, London, Hamish Hamilton, 1992 Google Scholar.

10 Giovanni Arrighi, op. cit.

11 ibid.

12 Hirschman, Albert, Exit, Voice and Loyalty, Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press, 1970 Google Scholar.

13 ’Political Science, Political Theory and Policy‐Making in an Interdependent World, Government and Opposition, Vol. 28, No. 2, Spring 1993, p. 242.

14 Michael Spicer, A Treaty Too Far, London, The Fourth Estate, 1992.