The Long and the Short of Global Politics in the Twenty-First Century: An Evolutionary Approach Author(s): George Modelski

and William R. Thompson Reviewed work(s): Source: International Studies Review, Vol. 1, No. 2, Prospects for International Relations: Conjectures about the Next Millennium (Summer, 1999), pp. 109-140 Published by: Blackwell Publishing on behalf of The International Studies Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3186382 . Accessed: 17/03/2012 12:57
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The

Long

and

the
in

Short the

of

Global

Politics

Twenty-first Century:
An EvolutionaryApproach George Modelski

Department of PoliticalScience, Universityof Washington

WilliamR. Thompson'
Department of PoliticalScience, Indiana University

Forecasting the future of world politics requiresboth some acquaintancewith possible alternatives,and a definite theoretical foundation.We first considerfive othersets of arguments(associated withWaltz,Huntington, and Kennedy, Fukuyama, Wallerstein), and use them, collectively and individually,as contrastswith our own positions. Based on an evolutionary perspectivethatemphasizesthe mechanisms of variation, selection, cooperation,and amplification,a model of global politics in the past millennium is employed for of into makinga projection institutional developments thetwenty-first These changes are expected to coevolve with developcentury. mentsin the worldeconomy, democratization, publicopinion. and Over the next two to three phases of global politics, the possibilities for expandedglobal organizationevolving arounda United States-European Union nucleus are considerablebut yet tempered by some likelihood of the repetition, in the coming century, of earlierpatternsof intensive global conflict over leadership selection.

and for 'We wish to thankDavis B. Bobrow,Robert J. Denemark, Stuart Kaufman theircareful on versionof thisessay. commentary anearlier
? 1999 International Studies Association Publishedby Blackwell Publishers,350 Main Street,Malden, MA 02148, USA, and 108 Cowley Road, OxfordOX4 1JF,UK.

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thoughtsof many now turnto the prospectsahead,for the next 100 years and maybe even furtherinto the future.What is the likely shape of world affairs in the twenty-firstcentury,and what can an evolutionaryapproachcontributeto clarifying such reflection? The focus of this essay is global politics and in particular arenaof global the political evolution because that is the field of the authors'recent interest. The first part recapitulatesthe essence of five representativeforecasts of the world system's future, as a foundationfor differentiatingamong alternativeforecasts and distinguishingbetter our own effort vis-a-vis those of others. The second part briefly lays out the theoreticaland methodological groundingof our own evolutionaryanalysis and goes on to advanceargumentsaboutthe likely course of short-and long-termglobal political evolution. The shortrunis here understoodto be the next thirtyyears of political developments.The long run takes us deeperinto the twenty-firstcenturyand perhaps even beyond. The argumentis, of course, tentative, and eminently discussible, both on groundsof theoryand method,and of the initial conditionsassumedand of specific predictionsmade: its immediate purpose being to stimulate debate along lines that are hopefully rigorousas well as explicitly evolutionary. The approachis evolutionarybecause it rests on the twin premisesthatworld politics is subject to evolutionaryprocesses, and that these processes might be best understood with the help of evolutionarytheory(withoutembracingbiological determinism).It focuses on longer-term,institutionalchange and contrasts with, and complements,rationalchoice approachesthatilluminateshorter-term, ends-meansdecisionmaking.Componentsof it might be recognizedin the tenets of both the realistandthe liberalschools of international relations,but the line of inquiryemployed here is capableof combiningthese in a broaderframework,as will be shown in the next section and those thatfollow. FIVE FORECASTS OF THE FUTURE We cannot assume that all our readersare sufficiently and equally aware of the various efforts currentlyunderway to fathom the futureof global politics. One way to quickly establisha foundationfor furtherdiscussion is to introduceat the outset some alternativeargumentsthat are alreadyavailable for contemplation. Obviously, an exhaustive survey of twenty-firstcenturyforecasts would not be to appropriate our immediate task. Instead, we are aiming for a representative introduction by focusing on the arguments of Kenneth Waltz, Samuel Huntington,Paul Kennedy, Francis Fukuyama,and ImmanuelWallerstein, all made since the end of the Cold War. These five authorsconstitute an eclectic group spanning the ideological and paradigmaticwavelengths. They all have interestingthings to say about possible futures. We are hardly in a position to

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insist emphaticallythatany one of theirpredictionsis likely to be wrong.We can claim no betteraccess to crystal balls and time machinesthan they have. We do claim, however, that our theoreticalperspective gives us, in relation to them, a centristposition, and being explicitly groundedin an evolutionaryapproach,it allows us to encompass in one conception a wider range of issues and a longer period of the global system's historical experience. Partiallyas a consequence, our forecasts will overlap in some respects but also diverge substantiallyfrom the visions of the futuresummarizedbelow.

Waltz
KennethWaltz's interpretation vintage structural is realism familiarto students of internationalrelations, and begins with anarchy and self-help as the basic featuresof world politics. Since the end of the Cold War,the United Statesis the one strongmilitarypower but with declining relativeeconomic clout, Russia is a substantially weakened military power with little economic capability, and several other states have impressive economic gains that are not yet linked to equivalentmilitarygains. As a consequence,"Inthe fairly nearfuture,say ten to 20 years, three political units may rise to great-powerrank:Germanyor a West Europeanstate, Japan, and China" (Waltz 1993:50). The internationalsystem thus returnsto multipolarity.(The multipolaralternativeis usually contrasted with bipolarity[which ended in1989] andunipolarity[i.e., primacyof the United States] that some fear and otherswish to avoid.) The development of nuclear weapons, however, has altered the traditional way in which states were expected to demonstrategreatmilitarypower. Impressively large armies and navies have been largely supersededby the requirement that one now needs only a second-strikenuclearcapabilityto surpassthe minimal threshold for a militarily competitive position. This has some interesting behavioralconsequences.As long as the focus is placed on whethera state has or does not have a second-strikecapability,misperceptionspertainingto the weakness of one's opponentare less likely. Alliances amongthe greatpowers become less attractive.Greatpower militaryconflict grows less likely. Simplifying the military requirementsfor a competitive position may not preventoverkill in developing a nucleararsenal,but it should facilitate a greater focus on developing nonmilitary and especially technological capabilities for competition. Accompanying this greater focus on economic competition, one should expect the most powerful states to organize their immediateregions and other areas on which they are economically dependent.Asia, Europe, and the Americas might be expected to emerge as regional economic blocs with Japanese, German,and United States leadership,respectively. The rest of the world will become increasingly dependent on these three core regions in terms of technological developments.

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Russia will continueto be a greatpower of sorts,but its militarycapabilityis unlikely to be matched by successful economic innovation. The United States will continue to lead in military power and economic productivity.The Japanese- and German-ledblocs will be slow to catch up. In the interim, however, Russianweaknessmeansthe lack of an effective check on the UnitedStates.As a consequence, balance-of-power propensities will encourage the other major powers to coalesce against the United States or to at least politically distance themselves from Americaninitiatives. Just how this might be expected to play itself out remainsto be seen. Waltz expects Germanmovement towardEastern Europe and Russia, Russian movement toward Germany and Japan, and the gradualwithdrawalof the United States from Europe,along with the demise of that "makesno sense in the long run." the NorthAtlanticTreatyOrganization

Huntington
is The key to Samuel Huntington'scivilizational paradigm2 a distinctive interof "theevolution of global politics afterthe Cold War"(1996:13) in the pretation context of which a new and unique situation is emerging. Bipolarity is giving way to multipolaritythat gains its substance from the seven or eight different civilizations that are now in regularcontact with one another.If the Cold War was about superpowerrivalry, the early twenty-firstcentury will be structured around the clash of a half dozen great powers emanating from five different cultural traditions.But this paradigmmight not necessarily be helpful by the century. mid-twenty-first Culturalidentity will be the central motor force in the foreseeable future. Groups and states located within a single culture will become more highly integrated and cooperative, especially if the civilization in question clusters around a core state. These core states are in a position to order their cultural domainsthanksin partto theirown strengthsandin partto the tendencyfor other states within the same cluster to bandwagon around the core. States encompassing multiple cultures will either disintegrate or experience considerable differentculturesor civilizations will become increasstrain.Statesrepresenting ingly conflictual, especially along the fault lines that constitute civilizational boundaries. The once dominant Western civilization will retain its primacy a while longer but its relative strengthis in decline. Its belief in the Cold Wartriumphof liberal democracy is unlikely to diffuse successfully beyond its culturalorbit. with his Huntington (1996:3 contrasts own civilizational 1ff) paradigm fourothers: Two Us and OneWorld: (Fukuyama); Worlds: andThem(e.g.,rich Euphoria Harmony and andpoor,Kennedy); States:Moreor Less (statist); SheerChaos:a Worldin 184 Anarchy.
2

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Modernizationdoes not lead to Westernizationand globalization;in general, it only aggravates cultural self-consciousness. Other civilizations will be encouragedto balance against the West. An intensive global war pitting whole civilizations againstone anotheris not all thatprobablebut could come about in one or both of two ways. A fault-line conflict between two neighboringstates from antagonisticcivilizations might escalate if the fighting encouragedthe participation of other states rallying to the defense of one of their culturalkin. The of escalation would be particularly dangerousif it broughtabouta confrontation core states from differentcivilizations. Alternatively,core-stateconfrontation is itself more probableif the balance of power among the majorcore statesis shifting away from one grouptowardanother. Huntingtonmakes a number of other fairly specific predictions.The most dangerous conflict fault lines will be found between Islam and Orthodoxy (centered on Russia), Islam and Hindu (centered on India), Sinic (centeredon China)and Hindu,Islam and African,and Islam andthe West-but not necessarily in thatorder.The AfricanandLatinAmericancivilizations,both of which lack indigenouscore states,arelikely to remaindependenton the West. LatinAmerica and the West may become more closely integrated.There is some likelihood, however, that the West will find itself competing with civilizational coalitions composed of groupsfrom the rest of the world and/ora Sinic threatlinkedpossibly with an Islamic alignment.Japanshould be expected to gravitatetoward an increasingly powerful China. India and Russia could be expected to coalesce against China. If China becomes the focus of Sinic ascendanceto a position of and global preponderance, it is thoughtto be the most probablechallengerat this of point in time, a polarization the United States,Europe,Russia, andIndiaversus and a numberof Muslim states is plausibleor at least possible. China,Japan,

Kennedy
Paul Kennedy's (1993) position is the easiest to represent. The population explosion, technological change, and economic developmentcause increasingly serious problems. The fast pace of revolutionary scientific innovation and escalating levels of environmentaldegradation,demographicimbalances, and inequality threatento transform,and perhaps overwhelm, the way we do and think about things. Some groups may benefit while everybody will lose to varying extents. Winnerswill differentiatethemselves from losers dependingon societal attributes pertainingto collective attitudestowardchange. Nevertheless, it is conceivable thattalking aboutwinning and losing will prove to be anachronistic. If the forces for change are so great and interactive, their combined pressuremay move us far beyond the "carrying capacity"of existing institutions, such that an entirely new and disastrousworld awaits us in the twenty-firstcentury.The trendsin problemareasare not propitious.Capabilitiesfor adjustingto change will need to develop at an equally astoundingrate merely to stave off

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impending chaos. Whetherthat is likely to happen is impossible to say at this point in time. Kennedy's view is in effect an agenda of what he regardsas the pressing global problems of the next thirty years, but it is short on solutions, political and institutional.

Fukuyama
FrancisFukuyama's(1992) celebratedemploymentof the Hegelian phrase"end of history"masks a more complex model and argumentthan is implied by the catchy but simplisticmotto. It is not conventionalhistorythathas ended. Rather, of Fukuyamahas a very distinctive understanding that phrase. History for him is about a progressive macrosocietal evolution toward the development of new basic institutions and operatingprinciples. He answers in the affirmative the question:Does it make sense to speak of a "coherentand directionalHistory of Mankind that will eventually lead the greater part of humanity to liberal democracy?"(1992:xii). History, or, in this sense, the ideological conflict over how best to organize society, ends when one ideology has triumphedover its competitors. Fukuyama's ideological winner is liberal democracy which, he believes, cannot be improved upon, at least in terms of its ideal state. Any persisting to societal problems are most likely attributable an incomplete applicationof liberal democratic principles than they are to defects associated with liberal democracy. Indeed, because it had fewer defects than its primarycompetitors, liberaldemocracytriumphedover theocracy,hereditarymonarchy,fascism, and communism. That triumphwas also assisted by economic modernizationand populardemandsfor recognitionof individualself-worth. The economic changedriverhas generateda momentumfavoringcapitalism. The legitimacy/self-esteem driver has generateda momentumfavoring liberal democracy.As the world system becomes increasinglypopulatedby capitalistic, liberal democracies,there will be less incentive for war owing to the increasing tendency to bestow legitimacy on similarly organized political-economic systo tems. In this respect, the individual'sdesire for recognitionis transferred the internationallevel of analysis. States fought historically to achieve dominance over other states. Reciprocal recognition of other states' autonomy and rights removes the inclinationto demonstratecoercively one group's superiorityover another.A liberaldemocraticpeace is the outcome in a world increasinglycharacterized by a genuinely global culture generated by the restructuring imperativesof technologicalchange.

Wallerstein
ImmanuelWallerstein's(1995, 1996; Hopkinsand Wallerstein1996) position is the most complex of the five. While the world system argumenthas remained

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faithful to certain core propositions,it continues to evolve. Emphasis is placed on six "vectors"of the world system:production,labor,welfare, social cohesion, knowledge, and the interstatesystem, each of which representsa majorcomponent of systemic structure,as well as a complex of processes subsumedunder as each label. The vectors coevolve or develop interdependently they describe historical trajectoriesand as they move in and out of equilibrium.One type of disequilibriumcan be resolved by cyclical rhythms. For instance, hegemonic decline (i.e., disequilibrium)leads to a new hegemony (equilibrium),which in turnbringsabouthegemonic decline. The other,in a secularprocess thatcan take half a millennium,is structural leads away from equilibriumtowarda crisis and and the birthof one or more new systems. In chaos theory, such turningpoints are called "bifurcations." the point of At bifurcation,it is not possible to know in which directionchange will move the evolving structures.The possible futures are multiple. Observerscan only wait out the transitionto see what happenswhile various actors attemptto influence vector trajectoriesalong pathsthey prefer.In the interim,however, it is possible for observers to calculate the probability of a looming bifurcation point. Wallersteinthinks the world system is approaching such a juncture. just The analyticalproblemis to distinguishthe effects of cyclical processesfrom the effects of seculartrends.The 1950s and 1960s possessed a numberof normal features.But leading sector growthpeakedin the periodbetween 1967 and 1973. As the world economy entered a phase of stagnation, competition ensued between core states and their corporations.Such competitionusually reduces to two principalcontendersfor hegemonic succession. Assuming a numberof ascending powers (Japan,Europe,and China) and a declining United States, Wallerstein forecasts, for the 2000-2025 era, a Japanese-U.S.-Chinesealliance versus a European-Russian lineup. He sees a continuation of the Japanese dependence on U.S. military power for another generationand an attenuationof U.S.-Europeanlinkages as Europeansseek to reduce their militarydependence.A Japanese-Chinese connection is logical but plagued by historical antagonisms that may be ameliorated somewhat by a alliance member(the United States). Because both Russia and China third-party constitutesimilartypes of actors(largepopulations,militarypower, large import markets,and cheap labor),they are unlikely to have much to offer each other. It is also unlikely thatthe United States,Europe,or Japancan createa coalitionthat includes the two. As a consequence, Wallerstein'spredictedgeopolitical cleavage is influenced strongly by geographical proximity with a Pacific-Eurasian team pitted against an Atlantic-Eurasian alignment. Within this interstatecontext, the normalexpectationwould be a movement into a phase of economic expansion beginning aroundthe year 2000. Between 2000 and 2025, we should expect economic expansion and majorpower rivalry with one actor moving into the lead towardthe end of the phase. The following

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entrenchphase, normally,would be a period of world war and the triumphant ment of a new hegemonic power. But Wallersteinis not convinced that things will play themselves out "normally" because the disequilibrating forces appear to be overwhelmingthe abilityof the system to re-equilibrate. Threeprocessesor vectors, in particular, are especially noteworthy. Coercive colonization, he believes, is no longer an option. The second one is the increasing pressureon governmentalprovision of welfare at a time when the demand for it is rising economic situations,migrationpressures,and democrabecause of deteriorating tization.The thirdprocess refers to extensive environmentalproblemsthat may no longer be containable. As selected vectors "reach their asymptotes,"the problems will become increasingly unmanageable.The capability to contain the conflictual consequences of the problemswill be overwhelmed.Chaos can be expected to ensue. After several decades of this increasedand widespreadnastiness,some new type of system will emerge. We cannotknow what it will look like or whetherit will be an improvementon the presentsystem. But it is unlikely to be describedas a capitalistworld economy.

Comparingthe Forecasts
Most generally we observe that these five social scientists exhibit no marked reluctanceto peer into the future and to communicatetheir insights about the likely course of global change. In doing so, they implicitly defy Karl Popper's warning (1961:vi) that "it is impossible to predictthe futurecourse of history." Of course, their predictions concern not "history"as such but only certain specified trendsover defined periods of time. of Table 1 summarizessome of the majorcharacteristics these scenariosfor of features which one the twenty-firstcentury. There are, of course, a variety might single out for attention.Table 1 records their respective time horizons, both short and long, and focuses on the following points: overall image of the twenty-first century, primary model drivers, prediction of future economic expansion, prognosis of future conflict levels, agenda of policy problems, and the majorpolitical cleavages that are foreseen. The pessimistic models are those of Samuel Huntington,Paul Kennedy,and ImmanuelWallerstein.While two of the three models assume economic expansion, all threeforecast some potentialfor chaos and fragmentation, althoughnot necessarilyfor the same reasons.For KennedyandWaltz, policy problemsmight overwhelm political management capabilities while Huntingtonbelieves that such problemswill be framedby appealsto culturalidentity, therebybecoming even less tractable.Whereasall threesee some potentialfor increasedmultipolar conflict, differentalignmentsare envisioned. Huntingtonfavors a West versus a Chinese-ledSinic-Islamiccoalition. Wallersteinsuggests a much differentalignment: Japan-theUnited States-Chinaversus Europe and Russia. For Kenneth

TABLE1: Forecasts For Twenty-first-Century World Politics (by auth MODELFEATURES

Waltz
Short

Huntington
Short (early twenty-firstcentury) Regional/ cultural fragmentation Cultural affinity

Modelskiand Thompson Kennedy

Twenty-first-century image

Nuclear multipolarity Self-help in anarchyvia Balancing, Bandwagoning n.d. Multipower rivalry restrained n.d.

Primarymodel drivers

Global economy expansions Conflict prognosis

n.d. Threatof clashes of civilizations Cultural identity and primacy The West vs. Islamic/Sinic civilizations

Possible chaos Emerging democratic community Evolution Demography Information Technological Revolution change; Democratization Uneven World opinion development Assumed High growth 2000-2026 Critical Potentially macrodecision higher 2026-2050 Integration Global organization Within and without democratic community Population Inequality Environment n.d.

Global problemagenda

Coalitions/alignments

United States vs. the rest possible

n.d. not discussed;n.a. not applicable.

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Waltz it is the United States versus the rest; his model might also be considered pessimistic were it not for his faith in nuclear deterrencerestrainingmilitary conflict in an increasinglymultipolarworld. The most optimisticis Fukuyama's argumentthat the evolution of humanityis leading toward liberal democracy, thereby toward resolving societal problems ultimately in the best fashion imaginable. Two other features,not found in Table 1, also call for discussion. We must ask of all of the authors:To what extent are these scenariosrooted in history and explicit theory?Kennedy'smodel appearsweakest in these two respectsbecause it lacks such an explicit grounding.Huntingtonand Waltz are both anchoredin realist theories with the former injecting a multiculturalfilter and the latter relying on an equally strong structuralfilter (as befitting a neorealist). Realist perspectives,by definition, tend to be fairly ahistorical,and these examples are no exceptions. Huntingtonbasically ignores what happened in the past, even though one would have expected the "clash of civilizations" to have been in evidence throughouthuman history. Waltz's perspective is his own version of with nuclearweapons. The forecasts realism:"incipientmultipolarity "structural of Fukuyama and Wallerstein are certainly theoretically grounded, but their theories are not equally complex, nor are they equally grounded in history. Fukuyama's focus is primarilyon nineteenth- and twentieth-centurypolitical theories and ideological battles over fascism, communism, and liberal democracy. Wallerstein, on the other hand, is well known for his insistence that the modern world system, and the social sciences, can be understoodonly if one begins the story around1500. Finally, still anotherfeature worth emphasizingis the discontinuousnature of these five forecasts. Kennedyfears slipping into chaos, while it seems fair to say that Wallersteinlooks forwardto it if that means an opening for a different type of system. Huntingtonand Waltz see abruptphase shifts in the dominance of the West: to multipolarityfrom bipolarityto multipolarity(with or without culture and nuclear weapons). Fukuyamalooks forwardto the triumphof one ideology after an intense conflict and a resulting worldwide movement toward convergence.They assume the Americaneconomy to be in decline. We We do not claim thatthese forecastsare wrongor wrong-headed. do find, however, that our model generatesa significantlydifferentview of the possible centrist.It sharessome future.The mainreasonis thatourmodel is demonstrably featureswith each of the othersbut combines them in a distinctive fashion. That is because our model is explicitly evolutionary while the other five, at best, encompass implicit, evolutionary-like,arguments.For instance, those of Waltz, Huntington,Fukuyama,and Kennedyall containelements of selection processes based on fitness criteria. Yet these elements are so embedded that it may be unfair to the authorsto call them evolutionaryin spirit. All five appear more comfortablewith a minimalist evolutionaryapproachthat amountsto equating

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"evolution"with "change."To the extent that their argumentsmove beyond the minimalistassumption,they also tend towardnineteenth-century "survivalof the of fittest"interpretations evolutionarysuccess. At the same time, however, only Fukuyamaexplicitly argues for an emphasis on what some might regardas an equally outdatedform of progressiveevolution. More specifically, we observe thateach of these five authorshighlights some trends while passing lightly over, if not altogether neglecting, others. Waltz looks into the rise of new great powers but ignores the rise of new industrial sectors as motorsof the global economy and remainsunconvincedby democratization as a harbingerof change in internationalaffairs. Huntington'sargument is a form of multiculturalrealism that has no place for democracy either. is Kennedy's contribution a full statementof an agendaof global problems,but it has no treatmentof democracyor institutionalchange. Fukuyamaprivileges the "worldwide liberal revolution"but is unconcernedwith the workings of international politics. Wallersteinis sensitized to economic change and forecasts an end to the "capitalistworld-economy"but has little to say aboutpolitical organization. While our model does not accept the premise of multipolarityof either form, it does combinethe elements of these severalmodels into a largerpicture. Possibly the greatest distinction between our version of the twenty-first centuryand the otherfive is thatwe hold out the hope thatin the long run global institutions (both intergovernmental and nongovernmental) that are better capable of managingglobal problemswill continueto emerge. This expectation is groundedin a historicalperspectivethat is at least a millenniumlong (and is actually longer). It is also groundedin a perspectivethatis explicitly evolutionary. As a consequence, our analysis maintainsthe longest claim on the future. That does not guaranteebetteraccuracy,but it does suggest firm theoreticaland historical groundingand, arguablyto be sure, firmer groundingthan the other five forecasts. Still, the ingredientsof our own view of a possible future are yet to be laid out, and it is time that we move on to that task. Before we do so, however, it is only fair that we note the features of the evolutionary model in terms of the format of Table 1. Our image of the twenty-firstcenturyis one of a democratic communityemergingthroughcontinuingcoevolutionarychange, drivenby technological innovation and evolutionary selection. We see some potential for averting conflict between major powers through the expanded global policy managementcapabilitiesof an emerging democraticcommunity.Thatis, for the long run our pictureis one of institutionaloptimism,but for the shortrun we see dangers and counsel caution (and that makes our position centrist). The major question mark hinges on China and on how China may be perceived by the rest of the world. While we do recognize an escalating host of global policy problems,in a world politics analysis, a basic emphasisneeds to be placed on the institutionalization an organizational of capacityfor coping with these problems.

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In the past, thatburdenhas been carriedlargely by a single state. In the twentyfirst century,that approachwill no longer suffice. We assume as well that, over time, escalating global policy problems are quite likely to lead to the expansion of organizationalcapacity for dealing with environmental climate change, populationgrowth,energy and food degradation, and other human needs. The question is whether problems will consumption, expandquickerthanthe institutionalvehicles for solving them, and which of the coming phases of global politics mightbe expected to be most hospitableto such changes. If the policy problems continue to outpace the scope of efficacy of global organization,we are in for a less rosy future.We will proceed, however, with the developmentof our argumenton the positive assumptionthat solutions to the various problems facing the world community will be found, if only belatedly, and possibly only afterthe next macrodecisionphase. EVOLUTIONARY WORLD POLITICS Anyone setting out to predict internationalchange in the twenty-firstcentury ought to be able to explicate the theory and the methodology on the basis of which such a claim is stakedout. The basis of the following analysis is an evolutionaryperspective.That approachis an attemptto answerthe question:How do we describe and explain structuralchange in global politics? The premise of that approachis the assertion that world politics are subject to evolutionary undergochange thatcan be characprocesses. Thatis, global political structures terized as evolutionary.The fact of change is obvious to anyone who undertakes the thoughtexperimentof comparingthe provisionof world orderof one millennium ago with those currently in place. Approaching the year 2000, such structuresare significantly more elaborate,well entrenched,and less primitive and less anarchicthan they were 1000 years earlier,3and the questioncannotbe avoided: What accountsfor thatchange? The simplest and most comprehensive answeris thataffordedby an evolutionaryperspective. An evolutionary perspective is applicable here because global politics of involves social evolution at the level of the macro-organization the human Next to cosmological, biological, and culturalevolution, there is social species. evolution. The product of social evolution is an established patternof social

worldorderat two suchdifferent of for of time?Today'sworldpoliticsservesas a framework order a population points and life expectancy, security sometwentytimesgreater, livingstandards, experiencing than due andmobility, theywerea millennium thatarehigher to increased self-knowledge of of disasters (think the Mongoldevastation mightbe similar ago. Therisksof major of the andthe Great in andof NorthChina the thirteenth Central Asia, Plagues century, and of but fourteenth today. century), themeans anticipating, copingwith,themarebetter

of the andcompare output do 3HoW we measure

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behavior or strategy (e.g., a social institution) in a space of possible social patterns.Social evolution-that is, the selective retentionof some social patterns over others-occurs in conditions of high evolutionary potential: those that privilege policy or strategic innovation, afford opportunities (via parties or alliances) for creating new patternsfor association and cooperation,and those that maintain social selection mechanisms (such as elections or markets),and reinforce, and diffuse the patternsthus selected (by example and emulation). Democracyis a set of conditionsthatoptimizesthe potentialfor social evolution. Global political institutionsarethose behavioraland policy patternsthatgive organization and a degree of stability to internationalrelations. In the past as half-millennium,world politics have been shapedby such arrangements world as well as by nation-states,wars, and coalipowers exercising global leadership, tions; earlier on, that role was played by incipient imperial structureswith aspirationsto worldwide extension. In the past century,public and privateinternational organizationshave come to form an increasingly pervasive network; in that is, the range of actorsparticipating global politics has risen steadily over the millennium. Global political structuresare, roughly speaking, the world's constitutionalorder, actual and potential. But, most importantfor this analysis, that order is neither fixed nor immutable; it changes at a rate that our work to suggests (as observed in Table 2) is roughly proportional time, respondingto the beat of generations and, in a manner expected of a social evolutionary process, it also coevolves with other global processes.4It does so via the operation of the four universal evolutionary mechanisms of variation, selection, cooperation, and amplification (Modelski 1996a, 1996b, 1999). The agents of global political evolution are those thatoperateevolutionarymechanisms. Modem evolutionarytheory recognizes selection as a principalmechanism of evolution. Whereas in Darwinianbiology the mechanismaccountingfor the origin of species is understoodto be naturalselection (i.e., selection by the forces of nature),in the social sciences, without altogetherignoring naturalselection, the focus lies on mechanismsof social selection. Economic competitionamong firms in markets,and electoralcompetitionamong political partiesor candidates in democratic systems, are examples of increasingly well-understoodmechanisms of social selection. Competitionfor global leadershipis yet anotherform of social selection, and has been a crucial, although by no means exclusively important, element of modemrn global politics. Variation as among policies competing for global attention by means of innovation is yet another. Social turnover rateat whichone generation for (the itself)accounts replaces 4 Generational the25-30-yearlengthof thephasesin therowsof Table2. Thefourphasesof a learning for processaccount the 100-120-yearlengthof eachlong cycle of globalpolitics.For full justificationsee, as well, the "Evolutionary WorldPolitics"home page: http: //weber.u.washington.edu/-modelski/evolution.html.

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Modelskiand Thompson TABLE Matrix of Evolutionary World Politics 2: ("a brief history of global politics")

Agenda setting (global problems) PERIODS

Coalitionbuilding

Macrodecision
990 War with Liao 1120 War with China 1250 Mongols conquer China 1350 Genoa, Mongols routed

Execution WORLDPOWER next challenger

A. EURASIAN TRANSITION 930 960 information Sung founded 1060 1090 Reformparties integration 1190 1220 world Mongol confederacy empire? 1300 1320 trade shippinglinks

B. WEST EUROPEAN 1430 1460 1494 1516 Wars of Italy and PORTUGAL discovery Burgundian IndianOcean SPAIN connection 1580 Dutch-Spanish 1606 1540 1560 DUTCH CalvinistInternational wars integration REPUBLIC

LC5

LC6

FRANCE
1640 political framework 1740 industrial revolution 1660 Anglo-Dutch alliance 1760 Tradingcommunity 1688 1714 Wars of Grand BRITAIN I Alliance FRANCE 1792 Revolutionary/1815 BRITAIN II Napoleonic wars GERMANY LC7

LC8

C. POST-WESTEUROPEAN
1878 Anglo-American 1914 1850 WorldWars knowledge special relationship I and II revolution 2026 2000 1973 integration Democratictransition 2110 2080 political framework LC = long cycle of global politics (numbered). 1945 USA 2050 LC9

LC10 LC11

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cooperationthat in world politics takes the form of special relationships,coalitions, and alliances must also be regardedas an evolutionarymechanism in as much as all social structural change calls for common action towardnew goals. social evolutionarychange, a composite of the four mechanisms, is a Finally, learningprocess that involves adoption,reinforcement,and diffusion of innovations. This foursome of evolutionary mechanisms operates at several nested levels of global political evolution, as is arguedbelow. The matrix shown below (as Table 2) presents a schematicmodel of evolutionaryworldpolitics. In the first place, it is a theoretical(or algorithmic)schema that proposes that the evolution of world politics at large is a set of three nested processes, each of which passes at regularintervals throughphases that maximize in turneach of the four evolutionarymechanisms.At each point in time, the global political system might be thoughtof as occupying one of the cells in the matrix,and as passing in a steady, spiraling,movementfrom thatcell to the next one on its right. At this time of writing,global politics may be placed in cell C 10a-that is, in the post-West Europeanperiod C, in long cycle (LC10), and in the phase of agenda setting (a); it is now about to pass to ClOb-that is, into the phase of coalition building (b) of that same cycle. In the second place, the matrix also carriesits own preliminaryverificationor validationof that theoreticalschema: most of its cells (except for the last two rows) contain brief indications of the that intervalin the actualexperience principaltypes of events that characterized of modem worldpolitics. Thatmakesthe completedmatrixnot only a hypothesis about the shape of modem evolutionary change, but also "a brief history of global politics." The matrixis basic to the entire argumentand can be fruitfully consulted at each stage of this analysis. The Matrixof EvolutionaryWorldPolitics depicts threenested evolutionary processes. The first may be described as that of political globalization and accounts for long-run institutionalchange in world politics. The matrix shows three such main periods, which are those identified with the semimillennial divisions of modem world history:the EurasianTransition(say 930-1430), the West European(or Atlantic) (1430-1850), and the post-West European(18502300?) periods, each of which representsa major shift in the location of the world's active zone. Analytically,these might also be describedas phases in the formationof the modemrn worldwidepolitical system:those of preconditions(representing the mechanism of variation),nucleus formation(cooperation),global organization (selection), and (not shown, in the more distant future) consolidation(amplification). EurasianTransition (A) refers to the failed attempts to create a Eurasian world orderincluding China, and based on Mongol conquests. Nevertheless, by diffusing crucial innovations (including printing,compass, and gunpowderthat can be viewed as the variational"preconditions" modernity),they helped to of

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lay the technicalfoundationsfor laterdevelopment. Ouraccountof the inception of the global system broadlyparallelsthatof William McNeill (1982), and starts in Chinabecause thatis where the modem age is now thoughtto have taken off in the tenth to twelfth centuries.5As Morris Rossabi suggests in the title of his 1983 collection ChinaAmong Equals, East Asia then was a multistatesystem, not an empire. The Sung dynastyruled over the most populous, innovative, and productivememberof that system, but treatedon a footing of militaryequality its northern neighbors,the Liao, also the Hsia Hsia, and then the Chin, before in the end, after 1250, succumbingto the Mongols. The treatypaymentsthey made to the Liao, the Hsia Hsia, and laterto the Chin were regardedas a small price to pay to avoid the high cost of a militarycampaign.The concept of hegemony has no applicationin this discussion, nor are the Sung and later Genoa or Venice to be equated with the "world powers" of the West European and succeeding periods. But they were all "presentat the conception"of the global system, they all contributedto the creative mixture of variety from which novelty arose in interstatepractices(includingmodernwarfareand firearms),and they should all be seen as prototypicalof later developments(see also Modelski and Thompson 1996:chaps.9, 10). The global political system, properly speaking, was first put in place by Portugalin cooperationwith the Spanish monarchy,and was comprised of the worldwide network of fortresses, tradingposts, settlements, and missions that took shape between 1450 and 1550 underthe umbrellaof Portugueseseapower. It was then overlaidat first by the Dutch and then by the British,underwhich it reached a high point ca. 1850. The consolidation of the global network went hand in hand with the institutionof the nation-statein WesternEuropethattook it off ca. 1500 in AtlanticEuropeand in Iberia.In particular, was consolidatedin the notions of sovereigntyin the Westphaliansettlements,and thatof the balance of power in Utrecht in 1713-1714, and gave rise to key arrangementsand alliances, and a nucleus of independent states that by the twentieth century successfully achieved worldwidecoverage. Since the mid-nineteenthcentury, the British network has been gradually supersededby the American,while the nation-statehas come to be the constitutive element of international intergovernmental organizationsand the foundation of a variety of international regimes. On that twin foundation,a fuller political frameworkmightbegin to emerge laterin the twenty-firstcentury,once the democratic transitionresolves the problem of the consensual basis of world order. This means, in the context of the presentanalysis, thatglobal organization-that is, the selection of more effective forms of world political organization(such as to we the withChina disclaim intention espousea any sequence 5 By starting modern to Sino-centric approach worldsystemhistory.

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might cope, among others, with the problem of weapons of mass destruction)-is the majorproblemof world politics in the twenty-firstcentury. The second (medium-run) process details, at the level of global politics, the which such majorinstitutionalchanges are accomplished. evolutionarystages by The proposedhypothesisarguesthatsuch crucialinnovationsas the creationof a global nucleus (in West Europeanperiod B) are the product of a four-phased process, each maximizing one evolutionarymechanismper one long cycle, and each cycle focused on a majorglobal problem.In the matrix,the first row in the West Europeansection begins with "discovery"as the majorglobal problem, a problem that in the face of strong competition Portugal resolved with great success over the course of its rise to world power. This first, informational, emphasis is followed by social, political, and economic ones, reflecting the successive ascendanceand salience of the hypothesizedvariational,cooperative, mechanisms(necessarilyin that orderof the learning selective, and adaptational process). Thatis how the evolution of global politics may be seen as paced, and in fact driven,by a successionof leadingpowers,each one of these powersin its turn,and over a periodof some 100-120 years,lendingpriority,in theirglobal policies, to a majorglobal problem,andeach fightingoff a majorcompetitivechallenge,in part througha periodof majorwarfare.These powers,capitalizedin the fourthcolumn labeled Execution, became, after about 1500, the world powers of the modem system. Ourfuture-oriented, analysisconcernsthe thirdperiod(C:Post-European) in which the second row (LC10) describes the principal global problem as that "integration," is the formationof a basis for global civil society. For the purpose of that analysis, a turning point for the entire system is the democratic transition-that is, the attainment majority-status the world's democracies. of for That occurs when togetherthey come to comprise more than 50 percent of the world's population, in a moment that has more than symbolic significance because it adds "democratic" legitimacy to that majority'sright to pursueglobal policies, even while paying heed to the vital interestsof the minority. The third(short-run) with evoprocess maps the steps by which a nation-state lutionarypotentialhas in the past half-millenniumascendedto global leadership. Viewed as (generation-long)phases of the long cycle of global politics of some twenty-five to thirtyyears each, these standonce again, althoughthis time in an even shortertime frame, for the four basic evolutionarymechanisms,Agenda setting, Coalitionbuilding,Macrodecision,andExecution(acme).They represent the successive maximizationsof the four evolutionarymechanismsin the selection of one form of global leadership over its challengers. They comprise a politicallearningprocess by which a claim to leadershipis put forwardandestablished; its phases serve as the main frameworkfor the analysis thatfollows. The Matrixof EvolutionaryWorld Politics succinctly summarizesan evoluof world politics. That understanding both a has tionary understanding modemrn

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repetitive (cyclical) and an innovative (nonlinear)component. The long cycle It clearly appearsin given periods as the locus of recurrence. does not describea line of linear progression because social evolution proceeds by spurts of exponential (nonlinear) growth followed by periods of leveling quiescence; however, it is of course embeddedin a succession of learningsequences.It is the formal structureof the learning cycle that produces the repetitive effect, but strictlyspeaking,therecan be no truerepetition.Each new cycle is differentfrom its predecessor,andit is these differencesthatcumulateinto evolutionaryeffects. That is not, of course, all there is to be said on that subject or even about global political change. Evolution does not occur evenly across the globe but succeeds at first in a set of conditionsthat maximize evolutionarypotential.The successive active zones of the world system have provided the conditions that have favored innovation, and within them, successive world powers found privileged locations where the evolutionarypotential of their time could most effectively be maximized. Free societies, involvement in international exchanges, capacity for the organizationof forces of global reach, and responsiveness to world problems are the conditions that experience has shown, and theorysuggests, will maximize thatpotential.Thatis why an effort to understand world politics must be combined with sustainedattentionto the contextual and transformations the world's economic, social, andcultural that contemporaneous undergothroughcoevolutionaryprocesses. arrangements The presentaccountis one of the broadsweep of global changeof the pastmilla lennium,of a Braudelian-type longue duree (althoughnot exactly Braudelian While the matrixitself is an initialtest of thatconcepbecauseit is evolutionary). tion, the theoreticalexpectationsembodiedin it are in fact supported a variety by of historicaldata (see also Modelski and Modelski 1988). Equallysupportiveare of such tests as those predictingmaximumconcentration seapowerat the phase of betweenpolitical and ecoand those accountingfor the relationship "Execution," nomic processes(ModelskiandThompson1988, 1996, andfootnote3). Here is the upshot of this discussion: if the matrix(Table 2) accuratelyportraysthe main thrustof global political evolution over the past millennium,then it the understanding embodies should also enable us to projectthat process forwardby a least one cycle-that is, to recognize a time patternfor the twenty-first century.Thatis what the presentargumentis all about.But before turningto that project, there is need and opportunityto clarify the contextual, coevolutionary processes that help to frame this analysis: the processes of economic globalizaand tion, democratization, formationof world opinion.

THE COEVOLUTIONARY CONTEXT

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needs to be understoodnot only in its "internal" functioning but also as being related to, and affected by, three other global evolutionary prosignificantly cesses (economic, social, andcultural)thatthereforemight be said to "coevolve" with the political. The world economy, of course, is subject to sustainedevolutionarychange. Approachingthe year 2000, both world outputandworldwidetradearehigherby ordersof magnitudethanthey were one thousandyears ago. Thatis because both reflect the rise of massively productive and market-led economies, from Britain,and eleventh-centurySung China,to eighteenth-and nineteenth-century are the productof rapidlyintensifyinglinks amongthose economies, led by trading cities of RenaissanceItaly, or Americanmultinationalcompanies (Modelski and Thompson 1996). Over the past millennium, a base for a global economic system has been laid, and it is in that sense thateconomic globalizationhas been in preparation a numberof centuriesof the modem era. World tradeis now for "freer"and flourishing more than it has ever and has expandedin a numberof new directions, in particularwith respect to financial marketsand services and the operationsof global corporations. This evolution of the global economy-that is the movement toward freer trade and in the direction of a world market-was powerfully advancedby the tremendous improvement in transportation that followed upon the industrial revolution of railways and steamships. But the crucial thrust was that which paved the way toward an Information(Knowledge) Economy. Just as global political evolution is propelled by the rise and decline of world powers, so is global economic evolution propelledby the successive rise of leading industrial and commercial sectors. About 1850 the chemical industrybecame the first to base its growth on a foundation of scientific research; and so was soon the electric power industry,and in the next greatwave, the electronicsindustryproducing telephones, radio, and then television. Since the 1970s, leadershipin the global economy has been shifting to a new set of leading industrialsectors. This shift, having been underway in a "take-off"phase for some two to threedecades (1973-2000), will aroundthe year 2000, enter upon the phase of "high growth" (2000-2026) thatwill place at the centerof the world economy a set of industries centered on the computerbut including media and communications,which are collectively referredto as the informationindustries.This also means that the take-off phase that has been a troublesome period of recession, malaise, and structural unemploymentmight at the turn of the millenniummake way for an increasingly prosperousera of vigorous growth that could be expected to hold for two or threedecades. Not until the 2030s might therebe a new slowdown, as the global economy begins a shift to a new set of leading sectors. But that slowdown is likely to leave unchanged the fundamentally new elements of the organizationof marketsworldwide.

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The second majorcoevolutionaryprocess is democratization.If democracy is defined as a technology of cooperation,then democratization be seen as can evolutionarylearning,a universalprocess of the humanspecies learningto live with itself cooperatively. Humanityin a cooperative mode would constitute a global community. The underlyingprocess is the spreadof democracy around the globe (Modelski and Perry 1991; Fukuyama1992). Again, the base of that experiprocess was laid earlier in the modem era in a series of trial-and-error ments thatincludedRenaissancerepublics,and in parliamentary proceduresthat were essential preconditions of modem democracy. The Dutch Republic, in and Britain then estabtandem with England, achieved the first breakthrough, lished the liberal base upon which, jointly with the United States, democracy took off as a global process in the mid-nineteenthcentury.About that time, less than4 percentof the world's populationlived in the two democracies;by the end reachedjust over of the nineteenthcentury,that figure, the fraction-democratic, now exceeds 50 10 percent. One hundredyears later, the fraction-democratic and for the first time in the historyof the world, the democraciesconstipercent, tute the majorityof the world population.That event, the reaching of majority At transition." the close status,has previouslybeen describedas the "democratic of the twentieth century, the major established democratic regions are North America and Europe, while the Asia-Pacific region, with India and Japan in forms the new growth area. It cannot, however, be said that as of the particular, year 2000 democracy has, as Fukuyama seems to have claimed, reached its all definitive form or surmounted competition. If democracyis not a Westernuniversalistpretension(as Huntingtonwould have it) but a potent social innovation, a generally applicable technology for effective cooperation,then its continuedfuturespreadmight be estimatedon the basis of well-establishedlaws of diffusion of innovation.Judgingby the trends just described and assuming their continuance,it can be prognosticatedthat a level of 90 percentcoverage of the world populationcould be attainedbefore the end of the twenty-firstcentury. Long-termthinking about world politics might thereforeproceedfrom the assumptionthatthe world system is likely to be democratic, and hence also likely to be free of major war. On such a basis, a global democraticcommunity appearsentirely feasible, twenty-second-century and we need to ask what the implicationof thatmight be for global politics. The thirdmajorcoevolutionarytrendis the rise of an informedworld public. the Worldopinion is usefully seen as a social construction: productof education, art, science, and media strongenough to supportthe world system and to generate variety within it. Aided by the maturing of the Knowledge Economy, founded upon the informationindustries, and by advancing democratization, broad-basedworld opinion is acquiringsolid foundationsin world organization, and is likely to be increasingly importantfor defining global problems. This century,world opinionelevated to analysis suggests thatafterthe mid-nineteenth

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a global high priorityconcerns centeredaroundknowledge, science, and education and communication, steadily eroding age-old barriers to flows of information.More recently, since the 1970s' opinion has begun to shift priorities to problems of integration,that is to strengtheningnew networks of solidarity and forming nuclei of global community, in contrastto those, fundamentalists and others, resisting the possibility of more inclusive relationships.It is on the basis of such a shift of priorities toward integrationthat problems of global organizationwill enter the agendasof world opinion in the next century. To conclude,the contextualevolutionary as changesmightbe summarized follows. In the global economy, a leading role for the informationindustries,that thrive in free societies, to characterizemost of the twenty-firstcentury;in the worldsystem at large,a majoritystatusfor democracyfavoringintegration actiby vating potential for a global democraticcommunity;in the domain of culture, more powerfulworld opinion lending priorityto global problemscenteringupon integration. Coevolutionary processesthusaugmenthumanevolutionary potential, and supportlong-termtrendstowardthe continuedevolutionof worldpolitics. We may now returnto the matrixin Table 2 that proposes a time-pattern to twenty-first-centurypolitical development, and shows the current (political) long cycle (LC10) to be passing, at about2000, from the phase of agendasetting to that of Coalition-building,and then moving, by about 2026, into the phase of macrodecisionthat might be expected to last until the mid-twenty-firstcentury. These arethe categoriesthatserve as the frameworkfor the analysisthatfollows. THE SEARCH FOR NEW AGENDAS Our immediatepast experience of global politics has been that of the phase of the agenda setting that characterized period from 1973 to 2000. Agenda setting was a time of delegitimationin which the world order establishedin 1945, in has the Europeand Eurasiain particular, shown erosion.Most spectacularly, erosion has been manifestedin the collapse of the Soviet bloc andthe Soviet Union in 1989-1991 but also in some retreatfrom world power executed by the United States in the 1970s, combinedwith ebbing supportfor new, or even old, international commitments.The weakeningof establishedorderhas broughtin its train, ethnic and regional conflict that some describe as "pandemonium," surge of a of fundamentalisms varyingkinds, andit has also incitedmanyto an active search for new values. Thatis why handin handwith delegitimation gone the explohas ration of new agendas (and why the term agenda setting is appropriate its as description).Globalenvironmental concernsand humanrights(see also Kennedy andWallerstein, have been one prominent above) exampleof new sets of priorities enteringthe world agenda.The control of nuclearweapons, the role of warfare, and the future shape of world organizationare other more specifically political issues thathave engagedgreatattention.

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Nuclear armamentsand, more broadly, weapons of mass destructionhave been a featureof worldpolitics for the past half-century,and as nothingindicates their imminent elimination, their continued salience in world arsenals and the threatthey pose to human survival continue to place them high on the global agenda. Arms control treaties between the United States and Russia have removed much of the fear of a nuclear conflagrationthat was palpable in the early 1980s, and have broughtabouta reductionin weapon stockpiles (by about one-third),as well as changes in strategic doctrine that reduce the reliance on such weapons. But while world opinion is moving towardthe idea of a nuclearfree world, as shown in widespreadoppositionto nucleartesting, the practiceof nuclear powers has not changed all that much. No major nuclear states have of abandonedtheirnucleararmories,and the proliferation nuclearweapons conin May 1998 by the open entry tinues to pose important problems,as manifested of India and Pakistaninto the nucleararmsrace. As revealed in the negotiations for the NuclearTest Ban Treatyin 1996, in additionto the five "nuclear-weapons states"recognized in the 1968 NPT (Non-Proliferation Treaty) regime, nearly four dozen otherstatesnow have some nuclearpotential.This armscontrolquestion will likely remainunresolveduntil well into the twenty-firstcentury. The experience, and much of the tone, of global politics in the past five hundredyears has been markedby recurrent episodes of majorwarfarereferred to as global war. The matrixshows them in column threeunder"macrodecision" because at least since about 1500, and likely before, each such episode can be regardedas a majorturningpoint in the evolution of the political system, and an occasion on which one power was selected to global leadership, as could be shown most clearly in the following phase of "execution."At the same time, anotherpower identified as the "next challenger"was also emerging, but was also likely to head for defeat in the next global macrodecision. It was in the context of a Europeanwar over Italy that Portugalinitiatedthe naval campaignsthat shortlysecuredits position in the IndianOcean. It was the selection process of World Wars I and II that launched the United States into global leadership. That is, a period of macrodecision decided the question of and constitutionalissues, and the majorpolicies leadership,the basic territorial for the post-globalwar phase of execution. In the periodbefore 1500, thereis no comparablyclear role of global leadership,but it is neverthelesspossible to identify similarly majorincidents of large-scale warfareand majorpowers, such as the Mongols, thatcontendedfor dominionover Eurasia. The questionnow enteringthe global agenda(andto be discussed more fully below) is: Will the macrodecisionphase of the evolutionaryprocess continue to via take the form of global war, or can it be transformed, social learning,into a selection process that dispenses with armed hostilities of global dimensions? That is a complex question whose elements involve the future use of nuclear weapons, the emergenceof alternativeforms of selection for global policies, and

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generallythe spreadof political practicesthatfavor orderlyproceduresand institutionalizedchannels for global action. DEMOCRATIC COALITION BUILDING AND ITS CHALLENGERS The model proposedin the matrixpredictsthat global politics will enter, about the year 2000, a phase of coalition building, and that the length of that phase might be about two to three decades. In past experience, the phase of coalition of building has been markedby a deconcentration economic andpolitical power -that is, by decline, or the loss of the margin of superiorityenjoyed by the sitting world power, and the rise of new centersof economic and political influence. The direct precedent for this situation is the pre-1914 period that in standardtexts is often referredto as a classical example of a balance-of-power system. In such a system, alliances undergoa reshuffling;the majorcompetitors search for new allies and in the process create new alignments,thus reshaping power realities and reordering visions for the emerging agendas of world politics. A likely scenariofor post-2000 coalition building is a reconfiguration the of alliance of democraciesaroundits essentialnucleus thatis constituted, post-1945 at the close of the twentieth century, by the United States and the European Union (EU). That nucleus will likely be expandedby the additionof new members via NATO's (the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's)enlargementthat was initiatedin 1997. The continuedgrowth of the EuropeanUnion resumedin the same year. Opportunities such as thatpresentedin the Groupof Seven (G-7) for by the admission of Russia in 1997, or by the Organization Economic Cooperation and Development, recently roundedout as a global organizationby the addition of Mexico, Poland, and the Republic of Korea, represent other possibilities. Since the 1950s, the EU-including its forerunners-has been the world's most successful regional organization.Looking ahead,the EU is likely to become the focus of a democraticand stable zone thatis no longer a source of major conflagrations.Otherregions have yet a way to go before they might be able to advancesuch a claim,6and thatis the reasonfor supposingthata U.S.-EU is partnership the premierfoundationfor a twenty-firstcenturyworld order. An American-European is partnership a base for a broader,and multiform, nucleus aroundwhich a democraticcommunity could coalesce. Within such a community, a condition of "democraticpeace" might be expected to prevailthat is, absence of armed conflict along with a capacity to reach decisions on
6 TheAsia-Pacific theEastAsia-South (or Asia)regionhasnotyet attained comparable stability, may not do so for severaldecades,even thoughAsiandemocracies, and and of and India,Japan, the Republic Korea,as well as Australia New Zeaincluding a rolein the"cooperative nucleus." land,arealready assuming

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majorproblemsand to settle differences by negotiationsfounded upon a fundamentalconsensus on basic values. Abstentionfrom armedconflict would hardlymean lack of policy debatesor absence of political confrontation.The practiceof such institutionsas the G-7+, of NATO, or the EU, not to mentionthe United Nations and its specializedagencies, shows that policy disagreementsare frequent,and as such bodies acquire more members, the need for parliamentary proceduresand decisionmakingby qualified majoritiesbecome more urgent and also more acceptable. Sooner or later,there is likely to arise within a nascentdemocraticcommunitya stabilized conflict system, mediatedby persistentalignments,or possibly even by a party system. The system will be based on divergent approachesto some important and gradually also in other, global issues, certainly in the intergovernmental and contexts, for the phase of coalition building nongovernmental transnational is likely to continue the experience of rapidgrowth of organizationsand movements aiming to participatein shapingglobal policies. For the sake of this discussion, we might imagine the Frenchstate serving as a focus for issue-coalitions contesting the merits of policies sponsored by the United States, and as a source of alternativeproposalsor policy agendas. In the EU/NATOcontext, such an oppositionalstancemightfind favor, for example, in Germany(whose close collaborationwith Francehas been the motor of European unification for the past half-century) or among the southern belt of members, say Italy or Spain. In the global/UN context, it might attractsupport from governments,in Africa or the Middle East, for example, or from others responsive to argumentsabout "Anglo-Saxon"dominance.The overall tenor of such a system would probablybe peaceable, with a weakness toward inaction ratherthan militantconfrontation,but its effect could be a shift in the locus of global decisions away from a unilateralor bilateralcontext to intergovernmental or transnationalfora. Indeed, as long as the democratic community, or internationalorganizations,remainthe arenaof such controversy,the regularization of methods of resolving policy disputes cannot but be salutaryand contributive to an importantstep in institutionalevolution. It would presentgreaterdifficulties were such disputesto transforminto a traditionalbalance-of-powerconflict and process, outside the confines of institutionalarrangements within the framework of a Waltzianor Huntingtonian multipolarity. Arising too duringcoalition building, and likely to continue into the following phase, will be elements of collaborationfrom which a serious challenge might emerge in the nondemocraticworld. Where might the kernel of such a challenge come from? It could come from the newly forminggrowthareain the Pacific region. Since about 1500, and on all majordimensions that matter,the active zone of the world system has been Atlantic Europe.But beginning with of the "opening" ChinaandJapan,as well as California'sadmissionto the Union in 1850, the active zone has begun to move, via the Easternseaboardof North

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America, in the direction of the Pacific, a region on whose shores can now be found not just the world's most populouscountriesand its largestcities, but also the centers of productive power. If that is the case, then relationshipsin that region will increasinglyhold the keys to world peace in the coming century,and it is from that active zone that a challengerwould be most likely to arise. One possible scenario for the rise of a challenger centers on China, a big countrywith a greathistory,industriousand increasinglyprosperous,but with a nondemocraticsocial andpolitical system. Thereis no need to resorthere to postulating an inherent civilizational conflict. Suffice it to say that as long as in Chinese leadersview the United Statesas a superpower decline, determinedto contain a China that the Chinese regardas a superpoweron the rise, they might be willing to challenge the United States' interestsandpositions in East Asia and in particular alliances andthe legitimacy of its naval and militarydispositions its in the WesternPacific. Indeed,they have done so in 1996-1997, andin particular with respect to U.S.-Japanese military cooperation. A number of other issues might also serve to unsettle the relationsbetween China, its neighbors, and the world; among these are likely to be the status of Taiwan, democracy in Hong Kong, the future of Tibet, Korean unification, and control over islands in the South ChinaSea. Humanrightsand the fate of Chinese democratswould provide (opportunitiesfor contention), not to mention a host of other, more mundane issues that are boundto arise on a routinebasis, togetherwith Americanpolicies that might needlessly upset Chinese expectations. All this does not mean that China has alreadyassumed the position of challenger, or that it must be lodged in that position for the next several decades. It does mean, however, that the conjunction of circumstancesthat gave rise to serious confrontationsin five earlier global wars involving Spain, France, and Germany,and centeredupon Atlantic Europe,could possibly repeatitself in the Pacific area,with ugly consequencesfor all sides. In each of these past cases, the centralcontentionhas been between a globally orientedsea power of the democratic lineage, and a contender for regional supremacy disposing of a strong army threateningthe active zone of the world system (Rasler and Thompson 1994; Thompson 1997). That is a formula that serves to forewarn all those concerned,and it is not too much to expect that social learningof the dangersof such a development should now be in place. Wider awareness of this issue should ensurethat such a prophesyneed not be self-fulfilling. A countercoalition the natureof a challenge would also serve as a rallying in point for those forces that voice dissatisfactionwith the status quo in the AsiaPacific area, and with all that is wrong with the world system at large. Such forces might engage those buffeted by economic dislocation consequent upon globalization, others experiencing national or local turmoil in nondemocratic conditions or on their way towarddemocracy,and those culturallyadrift,inclining toward fundamentalism and/or sensing a loss of values in a period of

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delegitimation. Such a counter coalition could increasingly comprise global public or even secret organizationsfocused on aspects of global politics, such as antiforeign movements or groups attacking the American position in world affairs. A confrontationbetween such forces involving East Asia, South or SoutheastAsia, or the Middle East could conceivably sparka largerconflict and a wider conflagration, especially if andwhen linkedto a majorpower challenger. Adding to such dangerousoccasions for large-scale confrontationwill also be a general backgroundof social tension that might be expected to arise from continuedurbanization a scale never so far experienced,the near-doublingof on the world populationin the next three to four decades, and a leveling off of that growth towardthe middle of the twenty-firstcentury.7The achievement, at the end of that phase, of such a demographictransition-to a populationwith low birth and death rates and a life expectancy of about seventy-five years-will constitutethe stuff of world politics of the next cycle, paving the way for qualitative changes in global organization.At least twice before in the experience of human civilization, in both the ancient (3400-1200 B.C.), and the classical (1200 B.C.-900 A.D.)worlds, millennial periods of rapidgrowth have been followed by equally significant (and equally long) periods of slower growth, general social consolidation, and leveling. TOWARD

DEMOCRATIC MACRODECISION?

The model embodied in the matrixpredictsfor the years, roughly, 2026-2050 a macrodecision phase of global politics-that is, the phase from which, in a systemic selection process, renewed global leadershipemerges and adjustments occur in global political structures.Given the dangers that lie ahead, will that selection process repeat the experience of the past half-millenniumof global politics and bringglobal war, or will it evolve in new directions?8

7The latest United Nations (medium) projection sees the world population rising from 5.7 billion in 1995, to level off at about9.4 billion by 2050 (Economist,March 14,

1998:48). of scenario this is 8A globalwarfor the phaseof macrodecision the majordisaster crisesneed also to analysisbutits linksto economicandalso environmental political of The to be emphasized. precedent bearin mindis theoccurrence theGreat Depression witha wideof 1929-1933in the midstof the WorldWarsI andII period,coinciding The of institutions. 2026-2050 phaseis likelyto be one weakening democratic spread of conducive instability the globaleconomicsystem, to of slow growth,andtherefore viewed On and a slowdownin democratization. the otherhand, fundamentalisms,
as the rejection of the legitimacy of the currentworld order, are likely to continue until the reestablishmentof such legitimacy, possibly as the product of a democratic macrodecision.

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A repetition of earlier practices might be predictedby realist models, and could be expected simply on groundsof systemic inertiaand lack of institutional provision for choosing new leadership, and for deciding upon fundamental departuresin global policies. At times of internationalcrisis and possibly also economic collapse and environmentalcatastrophe,in the context of heightened tension caused by regionalwar, ethnic strife, or by a spectacularact of terror,an outbreakof hostilities among majorpowers is not entirelyinconceivable.9Given the increasingly wide availability of nuclear weapons, such an outcome could also be most disastrous. A conjunction of unfavorable circumstances might thereforeignite a global war,but it also might not. Whatmightbe the groundsfor thinkingthat such an outcome is in fact avoidable and less thanprobable?What might be the conditionsin which a macrodecisionmight not assume a lethalform and a possible global war might be averted? Two such sets of conditions might be distinguished.The first concerns the challenger and the natureof the challenge. Those attemptingto upset the status quo in a centralprecinctof the world system shouldbe remindedof the historical record, which record shows a consistent lack of success for such endeavors. Those of the oceanic persuasion and a democratic lineage have been on the winning side of all five of the past global wars, a point recognized inter alia by Akihiko Tanaka(1983), a Japanesepolitical scientistwho some years ago wrote an article entitled "Don't Be a ChallengerJapan."In 1996 Chinese think tanks were reportedlystudyingthe experienceof the United States' containmentpolicy towardthe Soviet Union. What is more, the challengersmight conclude thatthe United States remains more vigorous than the prophets of "decline" had expected in the 1980s, and that the democraticcoalition is too strong, and that they would have little chance of prevailingin an armedcontest, especially one so risky as to include the possibility of a nuclear exchange. Building upon an increasingly open economy, reformist and democraticforces, and those representing maritimeChina (based, e.g., on Shanghai)might prevail, and they might be moved in the directionof the democraticcommunityby policies that encourage such engagement. But there is also reason to question whether the lessons of history will be heeded by those who matter.In the years before the outbreakof World War I, Germanhistorianswere well awareof the recordof defeats sufferedby Franceat the handsof British-ledcoalitions in two global wars, but theirwarninghad little impacton policy. For to those who emphasizedifferences,circumstancesof each new world political situation appearunique, thus making the experience of the past appear irrelevant. There is also reason to believe that the intelligence the practicesof the challengerstend towarderrorby underestimating wide range of resourcesthatthe democraticcoalition is capableof bringingto bear, over the use of nuclear arsenals outside scopeof thisargument. falls the 9 Thecaseof massive

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long haul, on their opponents(Alexseev 1997). Rapidgains at the regional level tend to blur perceptionsof the largerglobal situation.Whatis more, challengers might succeed in dividing the camp of democracy and fragment it by astute strategizing,both on political and on economic issues. The other set of conditions concerns the alternativesto global war as a structureof macrodecision,one for which substitutesmight be devised or innovated. As a general proposition,the general evolutionarytrendsnoted earlierthe democratization, advanceof the Knowledge Economy, and the rise of world foster conditions favorable to the emergence of such alternatives. opinion-all of So does the strengthening the global layer of interactions,with the significant of marketsand corporations,nongovernmental organizations(e.g., participation of the humanitarian kind), or the world of science and learning. More specifically, alternatives of this kind are most likely to emerge from within the democratic community. For it is in a democratic setting that the notion of a contested but basically negotiated or bargainingoutcome to structural changes the will have to take shape. Furthermore, network of internationalinstitutions within which major powers must operate is, at the opening of the twenty-first century, significantly denser than it was in 1914 when it was virtually nonexistent. Yet in the run-up to World War II, the activities of the League of Nations proved (for good reasons)unavailing,and one wondersto what extent it was the availabilityof the institutionalnetworkof United Nations and European regional organizationsthat in the 1980s helped to point Soviet policies under MikhailGorbachevin a reformistdirection. What is the likely shape of global politics at the close of the phase of macrodecision, that is, about a half-centuryfrom today? That would depend, following the logic of this analysis, on the characterof the macrodecisionphase just completed. If that phase were to have involved substantialhostilities of a regional or even global characteron the patternof earlier global wars, with or without the incidental use of nuclear weapons, then the resulting postwar could be expected to resemblethe more traditionalform of global arrangements leadershipby one world power with some institutionalsupplementation. That is one possible scenario,and on the whole probablythe less likely one. The other proposes a period of turmoil, aggravatedby economic dislocation stemming from the transitionto a new set of leading sectors then under way, which might include regional conflict of a limited characterbut no major war. The political arrangements flowing fromthatset of conditionswould more likely on tend towardgreaterinstitutionalization the basis of the democraticcoalition, role for global leadershipby one worldpower and greater with a less pronounced scope for sharedglobal governance. Wherewill global political leadershipreside at thattime, and which power is likely to hold it? The implicationof this analysisis that,in a repeatperformance, it will probablyagain be the United States (USA II) thatwould be selected in the

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As next macrodecisionfor a second "term." is implied in the evolutionaryargument presented in the matrix, selection for global leadershipis a function of satisfying a set of necessaryconditions;these areresponsivenessto problemsthat dominate the global agenda, a lead economy, a cooperative society, and successful employment of forces of global reach (Modelski 1999). Portugal satisfiedthese conditionsat about 1500, the DutchRepublic,ca. 1620, andBritain twice, ca. 1700 and again at about 1800. On the basis of conditionsprevailingat the close of the twentiethcenturyit appearsthatin the two to threedecades ahead (i.e., on the approachof the phase of macrodecision),the United States is more likely to satisfy all four of these conditionsonce again thanare othermajorpowers, such as China,India,Japan,Russia, or the emergentEuropeanUnion. The United States forces of global reach, includingits fleet of a dozen heavy aircraftcarriers,and with its nuclearmissile andattacksubmarines, togetherwith assets andthe rapiddeploymentforces have been of a superiorkind for the space past half-centuryand, allied with others in the Europeanand Pacific theaters, unmatchedby any rival. The economy has retooled in the 1980s and 1990s, and as the result, the burdenof militaryexpenditureshas been declining just as the U.S. shareof world militaryexpenses has been rising. The United States is leading in the crucial sectors of the information industries (a lead that in turn translatesinter alia into superiorcapacity for informationwarfare). American society has been at the sources of the process of democratization,and is well positionedto continueservingas one of the majornuclei of a futureglobal democratic community. And if the principal global problems will in fact revolve aroundintegrationand communityformation,then the United States is particularly well endowed to be responsiveto them. That also means that such renewed leadershipwill be anchoredin, and limited by, an emerging global democratic community within which relations will need to proceed upon the premise of equality, especially in relation to the EuropeanUnion. That also means that a renewed global leadershipwould assume a differentform thanthat of 1945. Over the next few decades, global politics is now set on an evolutionary trajectorythat will take it furthertoward global organization.We have argued above that this medium-termprocess in fact consists, in the Post-European period,of the century-longphases definedby theirglobal problemssuch as those of Knowledge, Integration,Political Framework(to be followed by one with an economic emphasis).10 The first of these stages-Knowledge (the informational one)-is now complete, and the second-Integration-is alreadyunderway and recallthat(as perTable2) in theEurasian Transition theMongols' era, 10 We might failedbid for a worldempirewas the firstattempt construct globalpolitical,albeit to a In framework the of era, politicalframework. theWestEuropean thepolitical imperial, stateatthenational level was complemented the espousal thebalance with of sovereign in of powerprinciple Europe leadership the globallevel. and at

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is likely to take us throughmost of the twenty-firstcentury.It might be described as laying the basis, by democraticdevelopment,including that of transnational parties and social movements, for a global civil society, in which a few basic of rules come to be seen as expressionsof humansolidarity.The most important these would be a prohibitionon the use of nuclearweapons in warfareand the acceptanceof democraticproceduresas basic to humancooperation.Peace, after all, could be expected to prevail among democracies. Such could be the basic positive outcome of the coming phase of a democraticmacrodecision,ushering in the phase of execution (2050-2080) that would consolidate the democratic transition.Only if and when such a baseline of solidarityis laid down might it be possible to anticipate,in the next cycle, the creationof a firmerglobal political frameworkof a more federalistcharacter,say from 2080 onward,reachingwell into the twenty-secondcentury. MULTIPOLARITY OR COMMUNITY? An idea widely held among studentsof internationalrelationsis that the global politics of the next two or three decades will be (or ought to be?) multipolar (as argued inter alia by Waltz, or Huntington above). The multipolar, or is polycentric,image is one of a world thatin its political structure comprisedof a numberof autonomousmajorcenters, each with its own set of nuclear armaments and space systems, and each claiming to be founded on, or representing, its own distinctculture(or "civilization"?).Each such majorpower centermight be expected to hold primarysway in its own sphere of influence, and to jockey for position against the others by exploring alternativealignmentsin a manner close to the classical notion of the balance of power. That familiarimage has no room for democracy, internationalinstitutions,or the conceptof responsiveness to global problems,but implicitin it is of course the fear thatmajorissues would be ultimately resolved only by means of war and, if deterrencebrokedown, even nuclearwar. Multipolarityholds some featuresthat resonate with the approachingphase of global politics that has been called here that of coalition building, for that is the phase in which old alliances atrophyand new alignmentscoalesce. Indeed, the closest precedent, the well-known previous locus of balance-of-power behavior, is the pre-WorldWar I period that in the evolutionarymatrix is also found under the heading of Coalition building, and that was notable for the that erosion of Britishglobal power (i.e., deconcentration) led to the blossoming of the "special relationship"of Britain and the United States and, in the old world,for the buildupof two rival alliance systems thatinexorablycame to clash in 1914. In other words, the image makes some sense, at least for the relatively shortperiodof twenty to thirtyyears of the next phase of global politics, but it is only one in a set of patternsthat might characterizefutureworld politics; it is a

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static image that in both instances (pre-1914 and post-2000) fails to capture long-termtrendsand the evolutionaryprocesses at work. An idea more in line with an evolutionaryapproachis that of a democratic communityemerging in response to the priorityglobal problemsof integration. In place of rival power blocs or cultureareas, it offers the prospectof a zone of peace based on a consensus for democraticvalues. In the evolutionaryperspective, it is the enhancedcooperationamongthe democracies(i.e., integration)that is the defining problemof the next few decades of global politics. At the heartof it now lies the collaborative nucleus of the United States and the European Union, around which, at the time when democracy is becoming the world's majority condition, the relationshipsamong the democracies will cluster, with particularinterest in developmentsin the Pacific area. Thereinlies the greatest potentialfor democraticpeace, and that is where the foundationis being laid for a global civil society. This path is hardly easy and is likely to be strewn with a multitude of unknown and unanticipatedobstacles. This is the evolutionary challenge thatis the key to understanding twenty-firstcenturyglobal politics. REFERENCES M. ALEXSEEV, (1997) WithoutWarning:ThreatAssessment, Intelligence, and Global Struggle.New York: St. Martin's. FRANCIS.(1992) TheEnd of Historyand the LastMan. New York: FUKUYAMA, Free Press.
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Global Struggle, 1490-1990. Lexington:University Press of Kentucky. MORRIS. ROSSABI, (1983) ChinaAmongEquals. Berkeley: University of California Press. AKIHIKO. TANAKA, (1983) Don't Be a ChallengerJapan.(in Japanese)Shokkun 144-163. (Tokyo), September: WILLIAM (1997) The Evolution of Political-Economic ChalR. THOMPSON, in the Active Zone. Review of InternationalPolitical Economy 4: lenges 286-318. WALLERSTEIN, IMMANUEL. (1995) "Peace, Stability, and Legitimacy: 19902025/ 2050." In The Fall of Great Powers, edited by Geir Lundestad.New York: OxfordUniversityPress. IMMANUEL. WALLERSTEIN, (1996) "The Global Picture, 1945-90, and The Global Possibilities, 1990-2025." In TheAge of Transition:Trajectory the of World System, 1945-2025, edited by Terence K. Hopkins and Immanuel Wallerstein.London:Zed Books. of Politics. N. WALTZ, KENNETH (1993) The Emerging Structure International InternationalSecurity18:44-79.