International audience ; With the Covid-19 pandemic, the fragility and vulnerability of the liberal international order became globally visible in an instant. Aspects of everyday life and especially our taken-for-granted views of connectedness have been disrupted in Asia, Europe, and beyond. The pandemic and, more importantly, the political reactions to it, in many ways again underpin the geopolitical significance of connectivity in world politics. This link between geopolitics and connectivity becomes most obvious in a couple of successive initiatives in East Asia and the EU that illustrate the geopolitical turn of connectivity politics in the last decade. What different actors mean by connectivity matters more than ever; getting to the bottom of those meanings gives insights about what geopolitics contains today.
With the Covid-19 pandemic, the fragility and vulnerability of the liberal international order became globally visible in an instant. Aspects of everyday life and especially our taken-for-granted views of connectedness have been disrupted in Asia, Europe, and beyond. The pandemic and, more importantly, the political reactions to it, in many ways again underpin the geopolitical significance of connectivity in world politics. This link between geopolitics and connectivity becomes most obvious in a couple of successive initiatives in East Asia and the EU that illustrate the geopolitical turn of connectivity politics in the last decade. What different actors mean by connectivity matters more than ever; getting to the bottom of those meanings gives insights about what geopolitics contains today
Something unusual happened on 5 March 2009 in the quiet compound of the French school known as Sciences Po, the National Foundation for Political Science, from which most of the past and present French governmental elite graduated. It was the first day of a major conference on "Memory, The Writing of History and Democratization" that assembled political scientists, sociologists, and historians, addressing a vast array of issues related to World War Two, Stalinism and Maoism, and recent African wars. Around one hundred people had gathered in one of the main lecture halls. The first session was ending when a woman from the audience quickly approached the speakers' table. She was not your typical academic conference attendant. A bailiff, she was there to hand one of the speakers a subpoena to appear before the Paris district court at the request of the "French Sasakawa Foundation" (FFJDS).1 The Foundation, having filed a libel suit against that particular scholar, had chosen this flamboyant way to make the case public.
Something unusual happened on 5 March 2009 in the quiet compound of the French school known as Sciences Po, the National Foundation for Political Science, from which most of the past and present French governmental elite graduated. It was the first day of a major conference on "Memory, The Writing of History and Democratization" that assembled political scientists, sociologists, and historians, addressing a vast array of issues related to World War Two, Stalinism and Maoism, and recent African wars. Around one hundred people had gathered in one of the main lecture halls. The first session was ending when a woman from the audience quickly approached the speakers' table. She was not your typical academic conference attendant. A bailiff, she was there to hand one of the speakers a subpoena to appear before the Paris district court at the request of the "French Sasakawa Foundation" (FFJDS).1 The Foundation, having filed a libel suit against that particular scholar, had chosen this flamboyant way to make the case public.
1. On doit au japonologue Pierre Souyri d'avoir présenté pour la première fois en France les travaux de cet historien: Amino Y., Les Japonais et la mer, Annales, mars-avril 1995. Rappelons que l'ordre des noms de personne en japonais est inversé par rapport la pratique européenne: Amino est le nom de famille. 2. Son dernier ouvrage, qui présente ses principales hypothèses, a bénéficié d'une importante couverture médiatique: Nihon shakai-no rekishi (Histoire de la société japonaise), Tokyo, Iwanami shinsho, 1997, 3 volumes. Parmi ses nombreuses autres publications, citons Nihon chûsei-no hinôgyômin to tennô (L'Empereur et les populations non agricoles dans le Japon médiéval), Iwanami shoten, 1984; Nihon shakai saikô. Kaimin to rettô bunka (La société japonaise reconsidérée. Les gens de la mer et la culture d'archipel), Shogakkan, 1994. 3. Hamashita T. et Kawakatsu H. (dir.), Ajia kôeki-ken to nihon kôgyôka 1500-1900 (La sphère asiatique des commerciaux et l'industrialisation du Japon de 1500 1900), Tokyo, Libro, 1991. 4. C'est-dire l'interdépendance croissante, la fois des gouvernements et des sociétés, d'Asie orientale. Le terme a lancé par l'analyste américain Robert Scalapino, et a fait recette en Asie même. Funabashi Yôichi, un essayiste japonais très la mode, l'a par exemple utilisé: The asianization of Asia, Foreign Affairs, nov.-déc. 1993. 5. Le Japon est au premier rang mondial (avant la Suède) pour le nombre de journaux par habitant, et au troisième (après la Grande-Bretagne et l'Allemagne) pour le nombre de livres publiés, dont près de 20% sont des ouvrages de sciences sociales. Cette production n'est pratiquement pas traduite en français, sauf pour quelques romanciers connus, commencer par les deux Prix Nobel de littérature japonais. 6. Hamashita T., Chôkô shisutemu to kindai ajia (Le système du tribut et l'Asie moderne), Tokyo, Iwanami shoten, 1997; Kawakatsu H., Bummei-no kaiyô-shi-kan (La civilisation comme histoire maritime), Tokyo, Chuôkôron-sha, 1997. 7. L'auteur fait un audacieux parallèle entre la victoire des Européens sur les Turcs Lépante (1571) qui favorisa l'expansion maritime des premiers, et la défaite des troupes japonaises de Hideyoshi en Corée (1598) qui a coïncidé avec l'avènement des Tokugawa et donc la réorientation du pays vers la fermeture. On notera toutefois que ce genre d'argument est aux préoccupations historiques non propres Braudel, dont Kawakatsu se réclame pourtant.
The global distribution of power has shifted and the preeminence of the West is receding as new directions for world order emerge. China is rapidly ascending as a peer competitor of the United States, bringing with it a powerful new global narrative of grievance and revision. Political Islam also burst onto the global scene as a multifaceted transnational movement reshaping regional political order and geopolitical alignments. With the rapid advance of climate change, there have arisen new narratives of global endangerment and dystopia. Far from converging, fragmentation and contestation increasingly dominate debates over world order. In Debating Worlds, Daniel Deudney, G. John Ikenberry, and Karoline Postel-Vinay have gathered a group of eminent scholars in the field to analyze the various ways in which the West's dominant narrative has waned and a new plurality of narratives has emerged. Each of these narratives combines stories of the past with understandings of the present and attractive visions of the future. Collectively, the contributors map out these narratives, focusing primarily on their key features, origins, and implications for world order. The narratives prominent on the world stage are a volatile mix of components, but they also differ in scope - some are regional and civilizational without global aspirations, while others cast themselves as globally expansive and universally ambitious. Covering the most influential narratives currently shaping world politics, Debating Worlds is an essential volume for all scholars of international relations.
With the Covid-19 pandemic, the fragility and vulnerability of the liberal international order became globally visible in an instant. Aspects of everyday life and especially our taken-for-granted views of connectedness have been disrupted in Asia, Europe, and beyond. The pandemic and, more importantly, the political reactions to it, in many ways again underpin the geopolitical significance of connectivity in world politics. This link between geopolitics and connectivity becomes most obvious in a couple of successive initiatives in East Asia and the EU that illustrate the geopolitical turn of connectivity politics in the last decade. What different actors mean by connectivity matters more than ever; getting to the bottom of those meanings gives insights about what geopolitics contains today. (author's abstract)
