1. The Day the World Changed? Terrorism and World Order
- Author:
- Stuart Harris, William Maley, Amin Saikal, Richard Price, and Christian Reus-Smit
- Publication Date:
- 10-2001
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Australian National University Department of International Relations
- Abstract:
- Change in world politics is generally thought to be more momentous than incremental. The power of social, political and economic structures, combined with habit, routine and sunk costs, favours continuity over change, and practices can persist long after their purpose has declined. It usually takes major shocks to the system 'cataclysmic events that expose the shortcomings of established practices' to license new forms of understanding, empower new sets of actors, and encourage new methods of ordering social, economic and political relations. The Great Depression and the Second World War were cataclysmic events of this import, as were the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union. The story of international relations is thus one of 'punctuated equilibria', not gradual evolution.
- Topic:
- Security and Terrorism
- Political Geography:
- Afghanistan, United States, and Asia