Bipolarity, Multipolarity, and Domestic Political Systems

Domestic factors have become increasingly important with the erosion of bipolarity in international relations. Together with the transnationalization of the world economy and civil society, this change has weakened the state apparatus: and yet the latter is expected to act more effectively for domestic and global governance. The ensuing dilemma of state action is particularly acute in countries like Italy and Japan, where the alliance relationship with the United States has been propped up by conservative political parties. In socialist countries the bipolar international order was closely associated with the one-party state. The lack of accountability by governments in East and West has not been replaced by a new democracy, but rather by a new political volatility reflected in changing coalitions and populist policies. Political imperatives of the Cold War are about to be replaced by the imperatives of the market place. This in turn requires that peace and war issues be analyzed in a new key.