The State of the New World Order• With cross border travel &

trade, transnational capital investment & the internet national boundaries are losing importance as are national governments

• Yet states not provinces or regions maintain armed forces and enter into multinational military alliances.

• Perhaps a multi-polar world will emerge with 5-6 clusters of regions with a dominant power.

Globalization• Expansion of economic, social

and cultural interactions• Financial & trade links tie people

together (US has never bombed a country with a McDonalds)

• Multinational corporations in transnational legal & political environment have taken major roles– Hollywood films worldwide– Italian fashions in Japan– Mexican soap operas in Russia– Southern Mexican activists used internet

to gain world-wide support– Spice Girls were popular in Africa &

Australia

Notions of Democracy• June, 1989 Democracy

Movement in Tiananmen Square led to a massacre

• 1997 British finally democratized Hong Kong before turning it over to the People’s Republic of China.

• 1994 with the end of apartheid, the first universal elections in South Africa.

• However, some African ruling elites see no contradiction in a one-party democracy

Growing Influence of Religion• Ironically in an era of science &

secularism-millions of people are turning to religion

• Religious fundamentalism on the rise in areas of oppression & where prospects of democracy are dim.

• Shiite fundamentalists led to the fall of the Shah of Iran in 1979

• Algeria-Islamic fundamentalists ready to gain majority in 1992 so govt. canceled elections-violence erupted.

Redrawing the Map

• Problem-the antiquated state boundary network.

• Supranationalism & devolution are symptoms of this problem.

• Rapid decolonization after World War II and the collapse of Communism in the late 80s & 1990s drastically changed the boundaries.

• A critical issue is the diffusion of nuclear weapons

The Domino Theory

• The domino theory holds that destabilization from any cause in one country can result in the collapse of order in a neighboring country-a chain of events that can affect a whole region.

• Indochina War (1964-1975) US backed South Vietnam in a struggle against communist North Vietnam-war expanded into Laos & Cambodia-US feared it would lead to communist expansion in Thailand, Malaysia, Burma & so on-didn’t happen.

• Yet domino theory has validity-in 1989 the fall of communism followed the domino effect, instability in Yugoslavia followed the same pattern-other examples religious extremism, economic and environmental causes can cause spreading havoc.

Multinational State – A state with more than one nation.Slobadan Milosevic, leader of Serbia launched 4 Balkan Wars that killed 250,000 & left 2.5 million homeless

The Former Yugoslavia

Multistate Nation – A nation with more than one state.

Transylvania – homeland for both Romanians and Hungarians.

Two Waves of DecolonizationFirst wave – focused on decolonization of the Americas

Second wave – focused on decolonization of Africa and Asia