Systems in Crisis: New Imperatives of High Politics at Century's End

by Charles F. Doran

• ISBN13: 9780521054782
• ISBN10: 0521054788
• Edition: Revised
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2008-01-21
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

Uncertainty is the watchword of contemporary world politics. Monumental changes are occurring throughout the international system and statespeople are wrestling with peaceful solutions to the transformation in relative power of the USA, Soviet Union and China, Japan and in Europe. In this book, Charles Doran proposes a managed solution to peaceful change. He presents a bold, original and wide-ranging analysis of the present balance of power, of future prospects for the international system and of the problems involved in this transformation. Professor Doran demonstrates why such change has often been accompanied by world war, providing new insights into the causes of the First World War. But, he argues, systems change can be both peaceful and secure. Developing a theory of the power cycle, the author reveals the structural bounds on statecraft and shows how the tides of history can suddenly and unexpectedly shift against the state.

Table of Contents

Preface

Acknowledgements

Introduction: new perspectives on the causes and management of systems crisis

Dynamics of State Power and Role: Systems Structure

What is power cycle theory? Introducing the main concepts

Measuring national capability and power

The cycle of state power and role

Dynamics of Major War and Systems Transformation

Critical intervals on the power cycle: why wars become major

Systemic disequilibrium and world war

Dynamics of General Equilibrium and World Order

Prerequisites of world order: international political equilibrium

World order and systems transformation: guidelines for statecraft

Systems Transformation and World Order at Century's End

Systems change since 1945: instability at critical points and awareness of the power cycle

Is decline inevitable? US leadership and the systemic security dilemma

Systems transformation and the new imperatives of high politics

Appendix: mathematical relations in the power cycle

References

Index

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