Governance, order, and change in world politics

Bibliographic Data

ID23157807
AuthorsJames N Rosenau (George Washington University, corresponding author)
Year1992
Pages1-29
Publication date1992-03-26
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeCHAPTER
VenueGovernance Without Government (SOURCE_BOOK)
PublisherCambridge University Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1017/cbo9780511521775.003
OpenAlexW2990103846
ISBN9780511521775
LanguageEN
Citations received204

At a time when hegemons are declining, when boundaries (and the walls that seal them) are disappearing, when the squares of the world's cities are crowded with citizens challenging authorities, when military alliances are losing their viability – to mention but a few of the myriad changes that are transforming world politics – the prospects for global order and governance have become a transcendent issue. As the scope of the transformation widens and as its pace intensifies, the more urgent do questions about the nature of order and governance become. Change means the attrition of established patterns, the lessening of order, and the faltering of governance, until such time as new patterns can form and get embedded in the routines of world politics. Such is the situation today. One senses that the course of history is at a turning point, a juncture where the opportunities for movement toward peaceful cooperation, expanded human rights, and higher standards of living are hardly less conspicuous than the prospects for intensified group conflicts, deteriorating social systems, and worsening environmental conditions. Either set of arrangements – and possibly both – could evolve as leaders and publics get accustomed to the heady realization that some control over the future has been regained as a consequence of all the changes.

Attrition · Business · Corporate governance · Economic system · Economics · Environmental ethics · Geography · Management · Order (exchange) · Pace · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Global Peace and Security Dynamics · International Relations and Foreign Policy · Law