'The International' in Evolution

In: Millennium: journal of international studies, Band 35, Heft 3, S. 513-527

Abstract

The `international' today should be approached in an evolutionary way. The fixed categories of neo-realism that served well in the past for analysis of the Cold War are no longer adequate in the fluidity of change today. Nor does the Cartesian perspective of an objective world observed by the analyst correspond to reality. In the evolution of world order, the self-organization of social and political power relations has to be understood as a process of evolving consciousness — the ways in which people understand the world they live in and communicate with each other about it. The greatest danger in this process of transformation of mentalities lies in the absolutist thinking encouraged in the extreme versions of monotheistic religion. The evolving historical structures of (American) `Empire', the pluralism of civilizations in the surviving state system and the movement in civil society towards the creation of new forms of structuring social power compete in the process of self-organization of global governance. Legitimacy is the weak point. Efforts at imposing order through `passive revolution' are doomed to fail for lack of legitimacy. A legitimate world order would have to achieve consensus on stopping the destruction of the material, ecological basis of human life; it would have to be based on acceptance of the fact that different world views can coexist; and to gain legitimacy it would have to work towards moderating the existing disparities in life opportunities among peoples so as to give a material basis for coexistence in diversity.