Suchergebnisse

This article is the fifth in a series in which the political careers of civilizations/world systems receive snapshot codings of their overall power structures at feasible intervals. The narratives are produced by collating histories with large frames of reference. The codings are done using a nominal variable, polarity, with seven available values. Previous articles in the series have examined the Indic system 550 bc–ad 1800, the Far Eastern 1025 bc–ad 1850, the Southwest Asian c. 2700–1500 bc, and the Northeast African c. 2625–1500 bc. The Northeast African and Southwest Asian systems and sequences merge c. 1500 bc to form the Central system. In the current article, the power structure of the Central Civilization/ World System is appraised over its first 800 years at 10–year intervals, from 1500 bc to an arbitrary stopping point of 700 bc. The systemic power structure is evaluated in terms of its predominant forms andtheir stability. During this 8-century period, the Central world system showed a distinct individuality, or "character": multipolar and unipolar structures predominated; there was limited variety in structure, with extreme forms excluded; there was substantial structural stability. Over time, the Central system "aged": its already limited structural variety further diminished, while its structural stability increased. The sequence of power configurations in the Central system is compared to the expectations of several theories. Toynbee's revised civilizational model fares best, but leaves dynamical issues unaddressed; the classical European balance of power model matches the kinematics (the sequence of forms), but not the dynamics, of behavior of the Central system. Alternative future directions of inquiry are discussed.

T. Chandler's city data are used to inquire whether, and when, East Asia was a world system in itself, or part of a larger Old World world-system; and whether, and when, the east end of the Old World oikumene was more "advanced" than the west end. On the available data, (1) A.G. Frank's thesis of a single Old World world-system is less well supported than the thesis of a long coexistence of a plurality of world systems, including a separate Far Eastern system; (2) Frank's thesis of the general economic lead of "China" over "Europe" is supported; (3) there is evidence of an interesting medieval outrunning of the "west end" by the "east end" economy, which begs further investigation.

Pressure for reform and change in the public services will continue irrespective of the political composition of governments. There are many interrelated pressures for change, some of the key ones being the need to contain public spending (to under 40 per cent GNP?) in the face of ever increasing global competition, changing demographic and employment patterns, increasing need and demand for services, and the need to find innovative solutions to obdurate problems of local levels ‐ health, housing, community safety, unemployment and so on. Above all, this will require greater productivity; changing skill boundaries, demarcations and mixes; far greater applications of technology and innovative community‐based multi‐agency working ‐ beyond rhetoric. Unfortunately, much current research, scholarship and commentary is "locked into" individual public sectors ‐ health, education, public administration and so on. This means that it is likely to be informed by existing frames of reference which already lie within these sectors. A wider flow of ideas, theory and critical analysis across private and all public sectors could lead to the development of new paradigms of insight, understanding and practice. This would prove a further impetus for a bottom‐up social movement with a communitarianist agenda. Unfortunately this is most unlikely to be promoted top‐ down because most politicians are also "locked into" the binary thinking of Fordist modernism.

This is one in a series of papers on civilizational issues. Its predecessors have argued for the existence of a world system/civilization, "Central Civilization," born regionally in the Middle East about 1500 B.C. in the collision of two smaller, expanding local civilizations, expanded throughout the globe, engulfing all competing civilizations to become the unique global social system in the last 100-150 years. If continuing social struggles both are and imply continuing social entities, there is social continuity-stabilities, trends and cycles--in the struggles forming and maintaining Central Civilization.ill A consequence of accepting Central Civilization as a genuine entity, or a reason for treating it as a fruitful heuristic, is, in particular, the finding that it possesses a political cycle (states system--univcesal empire) characteristic of other entities commonly treated as civilizations (Wilkinson, 1986; 1987, 53-56; 1988) as well as a political evolution (from multistate anarchy to balance-of-power) incipient but never successfully established in other world systems (Wilkinson, 1985).

The noted comparative civilizationist and world-historical systems analyst Carroll Quigley, whose theorizing rested on the whole historical span from Mesopotamia to the 1960's, was a teacher well-remembered by his student Bill Clinton. Quigley, by an intensive process of reduction, or rather idealization, of masses of historical data, derived a procedure for the diagnosis and therapy of ailing civilizations/world-systems, especially the one which he inhabited. The coherent, persistent and personal motifs of the policy discourse and variant initiatives of his student, the President, bear more than a passing resemblance to the hopeful, idealistic, voluntaristic, intellectual, scientific, economistic, demi-materialistic propensities of the civilizationist and teacher.