Systems in Crisis: New Imperatives of High Politics at Century's End (Cambridge Studies in International Relations)
Cambridge University Press, 8/22/1991
EAN 9780521401852, ISBN10: 0521401852
Hardcover, 312 pages, 22.9 x 15.2 x 2.2 cm
Language: English
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.
Preface
Acknowledgements
Introduction
new perspectives on the causes and management of systems crisis
Part I. Dynamics of State Power and Role
Systems Structure
1. What is power cycle theory? Introducing the main concepts
2. Measuring national capability and power 3. The cycle of state power and role
Part II. Dynamics of Major War and Systems Transformation
4. Critical intervals on the power cycle
why wars become major
5. Systemic disequilibrium and world war
Part III. Dynamics of General Equilibrium and World Order
6. Prerequisites of world order
international political equilibrium
7. World order and systems transformation
guidelines for statecraft
Part IV. Systems Transformation and World Order at Century's End
8. Systems change since 1945
instability at critical points and awareness of the power cycle
9. Is decline inevitable? US leadership and the systemic security dilemma
10. Systems transformation and the new imperatives of high politics
Appendix
mathematical relations in the power cycle
References
Index.
"...a wide-ranging and incisive book...among the most important theoretical and empirical additions to the causes-of-war literature of the past decade." American Political Review