Suchergebnisse

In international politics the situation tends to swing between affirming values and defending one's own interests, national interests first and foremost: in some periods certain values and principles are championed, such as free trade, democracy, socialism and peace, while in others the pursuit of national interests by means of power politics prevails, as happened in the first half of the last century. If we consider "the short century" - the time period proposed by Hobsbawm - immediately after the end of the First World War two opposing conceptions of international politics emerged: the American view, which proposed the League of Nations, to make the world a safe place for democracy, and that of the Communist International, which framed the Soviet Union as the forerunner for the emancipation of the world's proletariat. After the Second World War, these two conceptions shaped the ideological conflict between the two superpowers. The thirty years since the Cold War have seen firstly the breakdown of the Soviet Union, then the slow decline of the US as a superpower. We are now witnessing the birth of a new multipolar world order, with the rise of major new powers, the most important of which is China. Yet it is impossible to say whether we are heading into a period of unstoppable disorder, or experiencing a transition, and if so, what to? The 2020 pandemic has highlighted both the presence of international solidarity, with doctors and researchers around the world doing their utmost to fight the virus, and signs of worrying rivalries between national governments, which have taken advantage of the emergency to increase their power both domestically and internationally.