Understanding a Changing World

Book excerpt: The world is becoming more complex, fraught with increasing possibilities for conflict over national rivalries, economic competition, and cultural and ideological fault lines. This clear-eyed text offers a structured and theoretically grounded way to think about the forces that animate change and the alternative futures they may create. Donald Kelley views both contemporary reality and the future we face through the perspective of four different paradigms that shape our way of thinking about the world: The nation-state paradigm, built on the assumption that the traditional Westphalian nation-state remains the key building block of the present and the future, which leads us to predict the future in terms of the nature and alignment of nation-states The economic paradigm, built on the assumption that economic factors are increasingly important, which leads us to see the future in terms of factors such as interdependence, globalization, and trade as well as the growing opposition to these developments and the prioritization of national economic needs The identity and culture paradigm, built on the distinct identities and cultures of nations and regions, which leads us to view the future in terms of conflicting culture-based communities transcending formal national or economic interests The ideology paradigm, based on a post-cold war reemergence of ideological conflict within and among nations, which leads us to view a world based on ideology-based conflict From these paradigms and their interactions, Kelley builds a series of possible alternative futures of the international system. His framework provides a unique way of looking at how and why the world is changing and the many different “futures”—some peaceful and productive, some warlike and destructive, and others simply dysfunctional—in which we might live.