Suchergebnisse

Reflecting the political climate and preoccupations of the time, structural examinations of international politics in the 1950s and early 1960s tended to focus on East-West interaction patterns and associated questions of global polarity and polarization. A major exception to this statement has been provided by an eclectic group of regional subsystem analyses which were, at least initially, intended to counteract the distortions perceived to be associated with an exclusively global, bipolar perspective.

Eight generalizations are extracted from two partially competing perspectives (Johan Galtung's "feudal interaction" and Jorge Dominguez's "international fragmentation") on center-periphery interaction patterns. Seven of these generalizations are tested by examining head of state, governmental and ministerial visits to and from the Arab world between 1946 and 1975. Neither perspective is fully supported or disconfirmed by the data. Dominguez's emphases on limited resources and local problems, however, which lead in turn to relatively high intra-subsystemic interaction between peripheral actors and changing center-periphery patterns, appear to provide a more accurate analytical base than does the static model, with its emphasis on high levels of asymmetry and concentration, advanced by Galtung. Further tests of the two perspectives will be necessary in order to assess fully the geographical scope and the type of interaction patterns covered by these diachronic findings.

In partial response to the renewed explanatory emphasis on the role of corporate grievances in bringing about military coups, this article operationalizes and tests the hypothesis that a significantly higher proportional frequency of apparent corporate motivations arc associated with coups executed against civilian governments as opposed to coups executed against military governments. Using a 1946–1970 data base encompassing 229 military coups, no statistically significant differences between the two types of government targets emerge at the world level. At the regional level, only Asian coups provide any real support for the hypothesis. The article concludes with a brief discussion of the possible reasons for the general lack of support for the hypothesis and its implications for the analysis of military coups.

15,000 Years of Climate Change in MENA : Big History, Big Questions -- Climate Change from the Younger Dryas to the Little Ice Age -- The Origins of Agriculture, Drought, and Ancient Empires -- Drought and Political-Economic Transformations in the Ancient Near East -- Cooling, Water Scarcity, and Societal Crises in Ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt -- Environmental Fragility in MENA from Late Antiquity to Early Modern Eras -- Global Warming in MENA Today and In the Coming Decades -- Climate Wars -- Canaries in the Coal Mine? -- Water, Food, and Adaptation -- The End of MENA?

Over the past two millennia, one state has tended to lead as the foremost producer of energy and new technology. While it has not been fully recognized, these leads have become increasingly reliant on energy transitions that make new technological innovations relatively inexpensive. Since the edge of the incumbent system leader (the United States) appears to be eroding, the question is what might come next. This work examines this topic.