A Look at New Forces and our Ageing International Political System.
Some of the most prominent actors and trends in global politics today have absolutely no affiliation with any recognized nation-state. They often operate outside the jurisdiction of any one government and address issues beyond any one government's control. Are these forces truly new forces, and, if so, what makes them such?.
If it is agreed upon that there are new forces at work in world politics, how does one account for the emergence of those forces in terms of the classical idea of structure within the international system? Do these forces constitute a change in the structure of the system, and, if so, what is the effect of this change on the system as a whole? What are some of the methods scholars have developed for understanding this change, and what are the advantages or problems with these methods? If the structure of the nation-state system is altered, is the entire system doomed to fail? Is a one-world government in the works, or is the world of global politics eventually to be characterized by small, disparate groups who understand themselves not in terms of national identity but in terms of religious, cultural, ethnic, geographical or linguistic identity?.
If one agrees that there are new forces in global politics and that those new forces constitute a change to the structure of the international system; but, does not buy the proposition that such change spells the end of the world as it is currently understood, what, then, is the challenge facing those who seek to better understand the evolving landscape of international relations? Is there a better way to define change? Is there something which all new forces, i.e. agents of change, have in common? What begins the development of new forces? What enables them to sustain themselves? .
This paper attempts to answer all of the above questions by way of proving the following three statements.
