探究世纪的世界政治

1.探究21世纪的世界政治　Exploring 21st Century World Politics^[1]

本节导读

在人类大步迈进21世纪的今天，世界政治是一番怎样的景象？新世纪是否昭示着一个全新世界秩序的来临？

面对人类社会日新月异、一日千里的发展步伐，面对国际关系风云变幻、错综复杂的总体形势，探究国际政治、认清发展趋向对我们来说是一大挑战。历史经验表明，诸如第一次世界大战、第二次世界大战等重大战争之后的国际关系毫无例外地进入大变革大调整时期，而在东西方冷战结束、全球化迅猛推进的大背景下，空前深刻的变化、更深层次的调整是否意味着新的国际体系正在孕育产生中？对此，《世界政治：趋势与变革》一书作者借用美国著名国际政治学者斯坦利·霍夫曼的观点，提出三个问题：构成国际体系的是哪些基本行为体？这些行为体面临的主要任务是什么？其具备的军事、经济能力能对其他行为体施加怎样的影响？对这些问题的回答有助于我们更好地把握国际政治的客观现实和发展趋势。正如《世界政治：趋势与变革》的书名所指，延续与变化并存，两种力量互相作用，共同塑造着当代的国际政治。

《世界政治：趋势与变革》一书的作者还提出决定21世纪全球未来的若干重大问题，如新形势下主权国家和国家主权前途如何，全球化对人类来说是福是祸兮，国际冲突和战争呈现出怎样的新特点，发展是否必须以牺牲自然环境为代价，等等。这些问题正是国际关系界学者研究的热点和重点，无疑也值得我们去深入探究和思考。

THE INVESTIGATIVE CHALLENGE

The American poet Wall Whitman wrote in 1888,“I say we had best look at our times and lands searchingly,like some physician diagnosing some deep disease.”His advice is as timely today as it was then.We must search to find,diagnosing our perceptions of our times in order to best understand the political convulsions^[2]that confront the globe’s 6.4 billion people every day.How can we anticipate what lies in store for the global future?As the twenty-first century began,we were engulfed in futurist talk.We were forced to use unfamiliar language—“new century，”“new millennium，”“new world”—and to speculate:What will the new world be like?Will it be different?As global conditions change,will the human victims and beneficiaries change in the process?Or will past patterns endure?

To visualize our probable human destiny,we must look beyond the confines^[3]of our immediate time.It is important to appreciate the impact of previous ideas and events on current realities.As philosopher George Santayana cautioned,“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”Similarly,British Prime Minister Winston Churchill advised,“The farther backward you look,the farther forward you are likely to see.”Thus,to understand the dramatic changes in world politics today and to predict how they will shape the future,we will view them in the context of a long-term perspective that examines how the global political system—the patterns of interaction among international political actors—has changed and how some of its fundamental characteristics have resisted change. What do evolving diplomatic practices suggest about the current state of world politics?Are the episodic^[4]shock waves throughout the world clearing the way for a truly new twenty-first-century world order?Or will many of today’s dramatic disruptions ultimately prove temporary,mere spikes^[5]on the seismograph of history?

We invite you to explore these questions with us.To begin our search,let us explore how the differences between continuities,changes,and cycles in world history can help us orient our effort.

Every historical period is marked to some extent by change.Now,however,the pace of change seems more rapid and its consequences more profound than ever. To many observers,the cascade^[6]of events today implies a revolutionary restructuring of world politics.Numerous integrative trends point to that possibility.The countries of the world are drawing closer together in communications,ideas,and trade,as the integration of national economies has produced a globalized market, forming interdependent bonds among countries and cultures.Globalization is changing the way the world works.Likewise,disintegrative^[7]trends are shaking the globe and restructuring the way it operates.The proliferation of conventional and unconventional weapons,global environmental deterioration,and the resurgence^[8]of nationalism and ethnic conflict all portend^[9]a restructuring marked by disorder. The opposing forces of integration and disintegration point toward a transformation in world politics as extensive and important as the system-disrupting convulsions following World Wars I and II,the Cold War between the United States and the former Soviet Union and its allies,and,possibly,the 9/11 attacks that began the“new age of terrorism.”

Distinguishing meaningful transformations(true historical watersheds^[10])from temporary changes(sudden changes that at first shock and scare everyone,but then，with the passage of time,fade in importance)is difficult.The movement of transformation from one system to another is not immediately obvious.Still,certain times are especially likely candidates.Major turning points in world politics usually have occurred at the ends of major wars,which typically disrupt or destroy preexisting international arrangements.In the twentieth century,World Wars I and II and the end of the Cold War stimulated fundamental breaks with the past and set in motion major transformations,providing countries with incentives to rethink seriously the premises underlying their interests,purposes,and priorities.Similarly,many concluded that the terrorist attacks on September 11,2001（9/11）produced a fundamental transformation in world affairs,when many felt that 9/11 changed everything,perhaps forever.

Despite all that appears radically different since the 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001,much also remains the same in world politics.In fact,as political journalist Robert J.Samuelson noted on the first anniversary of 9/11,“What is most striking about the past year is how little has changed…What no one can know is whether September 11 marked the beginning of the end for global terrorism…We are swamped with hypotheticals.Whether September 11 becomes a defining moment in history or just an isolated tragedy depends on how all the hypotheticals turn out.”

We often expect the future to automatically bring changes and later are surprised to discover that certain patterns from the past have reappeared.Headlines are not trend lines.Given the rapid changes that are occurring alongside enduring continuities,it is dangerous to make firm predictions about the global future,and it is risky to assume or assert that a major transformation in world politics is under way.

What criteria can help determine when an existing pattern of relationships gives way to a completely new global system?Following Stanley Hoffmann^[11](1961),we proceed by assuming that we have a new international system when we have a new answer to one of three questions:（1）What are the system’s basic units?(e.g.,states or supranational^[12]institutions for global governance);（2）What are the predominant foreign policy goals that these units seek with respect to one another?(e.g.,territorial conquest or material gain through trade);and（3）What can these units do to one another with their military and economic capabilities?

These criteria might lead us to conclude that a new system has now emerged. First,new trade partnerships have been forged in Europe,the cone^[13]of South America,North America,and the Pacific Rim,and these trading blocs may behave as unitary,or independent,nonstate actors as they compete with one another. Moreover,international organizations,such as the World Trade Organization and the European Union,now sometimes flex their political muscles in contests with individual states,and transnational religious movements,such as Islamic fundamentalism,challenge the global system itself.International law still defines this system as being composed primarily of states consisting of various nationality groups who perceive themselves as unified by a common language,culture,or ethnic identity. At the same time,some states have disintegrated into smaller units.In 1991,the former Soviet Union fragmented into fractious political entities searching for national identity and autonomy.Other national units could disintegrate as well—peacefully,like the former Czechoslovakia,or violently,like the former Yugoslavia.

Second,territorial conquest is no longer the predominant goal of most states’foreign policies.Instead,their emphasis has shifted from traditional military methods of exercising influence to economic means.Meanwhile,the ideological contest between democratic capitalism and the Marxist-Leninist communism of the Cold War era no longer comprises the primary cleavage^[14]in international politics,and a major new axis has yet to become clear,even though many conclude that 9/11 marks the beginning of a new age dominated by a global war between terrorists and those who resist them.Still others conclude that the rise of the United States to the status of the globe’s sole superpower marks a new age punctuated by other states’efforts to resist U.S.domination or potential challengers to U.S.global dominance such as China(Zakaria 2005b)or Europe(Reid 2004).

Third,the proliferation of weapons technology has profoundly altered the damage that enemies can inflict on one another.Great powers alone no longer control the world’s most lethal weapons.Increasingly,however,the great powers’prosperity depends on economic circumstances throughout the globe,reducing their ability to engineer growth.

The profound changes in recent years of the types of actors(units),goals,and capabilities have dramatically altered the power ranking of states that define the structure of international politics.Still,the hierarchies^[15]themselves endure.The economic hierarchy that divides the rich from the poor,the political hierarchy that separates the rulers from the ruled,the resource hierarchy that makes some suppliers and others dependents,and the military asymmetries^[16]that pit the strong against the weak—all still shape the relations among states,as they have in the past.Similarly,the perpetuation^[17]of international anarchy,in the absence of institutions to govern the globe and continuing chronic national insecurity still encourage preparations for war and the use of force without international mandate.Thus,change and continuity coexist, with both forces simultaneously shaping contemporary world politics.

The interaction of constancy and change makes it difficult to predict whether the future will bring a wholly new and different international system.What is clear is that this interaction will determine future relations among global actors.This,perhaps,explains why cycles so often appear to characterize world politics:periodic sequences of events occur that resemble patterns in earlier periods.Because the emergent global system shares many characteristics with earlier periods,historically minded observers may experience déjà vu^[18]—the illusion of having already experienced something actually being experienced for the first time.

The challenge,then,is to observe unfolding global realities objectively in order to describe and explain them accurately.

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FACING THE FUTURE:SOME KEY QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER

●Will independent and sovereign territorial states remain the globe’s primary political unit,or will the era of state sovereignty fade as nonstate actors such as international organizations like the European Union or powerful multinational corporations challenge the continuing power of the state?

●Is globalization—the escalating interdependence of all countries and peoples that is spelling the“death of distance”and eroding the meaning of borders—best interpreted as a cure or a curse for human destiny?

●Will a single hegemon superstate emerge to dominate twenty-first-century world politics,and,if so,which is most likely to win that contest for supremacy:the United States,China,or the European Union?

●Will geopolitics,the distribution of strategic military and political power among states with one another,be replaced by geo-economics,the distribution of wealth, as the major playing field on which the competition and cooperation occur to determine each actor’s future destiny?

●Can environmental protection preserve an ecologically fragile planet,or will sustainable development be sacrificed as the struggle for wealth encourages people to make the pursuit of property an all-consuming value?

●How are the various modes of warfare—from civil wars and wars between states to terrorism—changing in frequency and importance,and how are changes in military capabilities(such as the potential proliferation of weapons of mass destruction) influencing these trends?

●Does the acquisition by states of more weapons increase national security,a collective freedom from fear of aggression,or are competitive preparations for war and military expenditures responsible for the security dilemma that reduces the security of states engaged in arms races.

●How should the human factor—people and human rights—be included in the analysis of world politics that traditionally examines relationships between or among groups such as states and international organizations?

●To interpret the unfolding global trends that are transforming world politics,which of the two major theoretical traditions,realism and liberalism,provides the lens that is most capable of describing,explaining,and predicting the future of international relations,and which of these,or another theory,provides the most constructive set of policy prescriptions for dealing with the challenges facing the world?

This list does not exhaust the menu of questions and concerns that are likely to be priorities in the global future.A complete inventory of trends creating the future could include over 50(Cetron and Davies^[19]2005).

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思考题

1.How do the forces of change and continuity interact in today’s world politics?

2.What are the author’s observations on the basic units of the current international system and their goals and capabilities?

3.Does the author believe that the future will bring an entirely new international system?

4.Among the key questions of the 21st century world politics,which ones are you most interested in academically?

5.Please read 55 Trends Now Shaping the Future,select the 10 trends you believe most significant and rank them in order of importance.