THE EVOLUTION OF WORLD POLITICS

Indira Cader
3 min readAug 6, 2019

Brown, C., Nardin, T., & Rengger, N. (2002). JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU. In C. Brown, T. Nardin, & N. Rengger (Eds.), International Relations in Political Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

In the early development, the ancient Greece and Rome marked its way as the beginning of international system (about 700 B.C to 300 B.C) and the rise of Rome (500 B.C to 476 B.C). In this period, the most important political characteristics were first seen, which is Territorial state, Sovereignty, Nationalism, and Democracy. After the fall of Rome, political power in the West was divided by 2, Universal Authority and Local Authority. Universal authority consist of Religious belief (the Roman Catholic church) and Secural (Multi-ethnics empire). And the Local authority stimulate the rise of feudal system (The local, microlevel of authority).

Many forces of change in the Middle Ages eroded the feudal system. Those forces are the military technology and economic expansion. While the reason of the erosion in the universalistic authority can be found in the Renaissance period, Protestant reformation, Treaty of Westphalia. The breakdown of feudal and universalistic rises an emergence of state in which the consequences of that is an anarchical political system. In the 18th and 19th century, the popular term of ‘sovereignty’or ‘democracy’ was reborn in the French Revolution, the sovereign state of the European power become dominant and it finally leads to the Industrial Revolution in Great Britain. The European power constitute a Multipolar system (1700–1800) to prevent any single power or alliance from dominating.

The twentieth century, begin with the eclipse of the Multipolar system, where monarchs are being replaced by democracy, and the rising of nationalism affected in the collapse of Europe as global power. The rise of non-European power started to show up where the strongest are United States and China by the help of League of Nations. World War II (1939–1945) finally destroyed the European-based multipolar structure. In its aftermath, a bipolar system dominated by the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR, Soviet Union) and the United States was formed. The infamous ‘cold war’ happened because of a clash in economic and political interest. Things got heated up where Uni Soviet formed Warsaw Pact and United States formed NATO and spread the containment doctrine (doctrine against communism). Mikhail S. Gorbachev became the Soviet leader in 1985 and instituted a range of reforms designed to ease the Soviet Union’s oppressive political and economic system, Gorbachev let Eastern European follow their own domestic policies. The momentum of the end of Cold War are the Germany reunification, communist governments in the region also fell, Warsaw Pact dissolved in early 1991 and finally the collapse of Soviet Union

In the twenty-first century, after the end of cold war, a speculation of unipolar moment that is being held by the United states and United states as a hegemonic power rises. However, there are many obstacles for United States, since many of states disagree by stating their support for a multipolar world by the leaders of France, India, and Russia. The formation of International organisations such as EU and UN are the sign of modified multipolar system, since many states disagree of a hegemonic power being held by one state. Another changes in the International system is the rise of non-western state, China as an example have the potential as the center stage.

Challenges to the authority of the state is mainly globalisation, which marks both integration in the external and disintegration in the internal of states. Because of globalisation, the endgame for every states become similar, their eyes are set to the same heaven, such as world peace, human rights protection, and environment, those are the important issues in the twenty-first century.

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