"Globalism" and "globalization" are suggestive and vague terms so that extreme caution is required when using them to define phenomena. There is no doubt there are certain actual issues due to which the world on the whole is becoming an object of attention to a bigger extent than it used to be. However, when the consequences and implications of these issues are concerned, it is easy to give free reigns to imagination and overestimate their farreaching repercussions, just as it is possible to underestimate them, believing "there is nothing new under the sun". (SOI : PM: S. 8)
After World War Two there have been opposing views of the role and the importance of the state in international affairs. Some think that the importan the state is slowly decreasing, since the increasing interdependence of the wo has an enormous influence on internal and foreign policies of a state. On the hand, some point out that the state has not lost any of its importance and tha the contrary, this importance will only be enhanced since the world community has not as yet come up with a model by which to replace sovereign state entities. States generate the structure which has a significant influence on individual group security. This particularly applies to the post-cold-war period since th problems and the threats of the present-day world - economic collapse, politic oppression, poverty, ethnical conflicts, nature degradation, terrorism, crime diseases - directly affect many other elements of security. It is these very problems that turn our attention to the state as the most important institution of the day world which still has at its disposal the resources for reducing or eliminating these threats. (SOI : PM: S. 43)
Following the disintegration of the socialist system in Europe and the end of the bloc-based relations, American politics has changed the course of its operation. In present-day circumstances, Southeastern Europe is becoming increasingly prominent in American foreign-policy projections, particularly during Clinton's administration. Clinton has defined a clear-cut policy towards Europe's southeast due to its vicinity to certain neuralgic points of American engagement (Near East, the Caspian region, the Gulf, eastern Mediterranean). In this way American politics has proved its leading global role. At the time of scarcity of foreign-policy events, Clinton's team has thus been served on a platter a major foreign-policy arena, in which its engagement - which has all the symptoms of a long-lasting one - has not proved too costly. (SOI : PM: S. 20)
The author analyzes the current trends of the globalization of trade, capital, mass media, communication, transport, tourism and economic migrations. However, there is the backlash to the globalizing processes: cultural particularism which has mobilized traditions and triggered violent outbreaks of hostilities. Political scientist Francis Fukuyama has pointed out that today the key challenges to liberal democracy are a miscellany of particularistic fundamentalism, national extremism, totalitarism and authoritarian paternalism. Samuel Huntington also warns about the dangers of particularism. Within such a framework, the phenomenon of "ethnic cleansing" is only an extreme form of the trend which has marked the 20th century - ethnical homogenization as a reaction to the problems of multiethnic communities. The author is of the opinion that this development need not represent an obstacle for the dialogue and communication among cultures. (SOI : PM: S. 168)
More than a decade has passed since the momentous events of 1989 that changed the world order and redefined the geopolitics of Central Europe. This is just the right moment to assess the results of these changes and discuss the future of that region. Based on the past comparative studies or those currently going on, we may say that Central Europe differs from the post-communist East (the former Soviet Union) and the South-East (the former Yugoslavia with the exception of Slovenia) and Albania. First, Central-European states overthrew their communist regimes earlier and in a more decisive manner than the USSR; second, the economic transformation of Central Europe, though not completely smooth, is nevertheless much smoother than the transformation of the member countries of the CIS; third, the post-communist societies differ in the pattern by which their systems of social stratification have changed after the collapse of their communist regimes; fourth, there are big differences between the Central-European post-communist states, including the Baltic states on the one hand, and the CIS members and Serbia/Montenegro-Yugoslavia on the other regarding their international orientation. The author highlights three significant events that are going to leave their trace on the regional geostrategic situation: NATO's eastern expansion, NATO's campaign against SKY and the election of Vladimir Putin for president of Russia. The regional geopolitical picture may become more stable with closer ties between the states of Central Europe and Germany. (SOI : PM: S. 11)
