George Modelski

The Long Cycle of Global Politics and the Nation-State

Let us define a cycle as a recurrent pattern in the life (or functioning ) of a system . The concept implies that over a certain period of time the system, in some meaningful sense, returns to its starting point, that it regains a state occupied at an earlier stage. If such behavior is demonstrably regular and if recurrence takes place in a pattern that is potentially predictable, such behavior may appropriately be called cyclical or periodic. Cycles are commonly distinguished from trends.

Democratization in long perspective

Introduction Democracy is a mechanism of collective choice and a form of social organization that can be considered a superior substitute for other such mechanisms or forms of organization. As such, democracy may be expected to grow, or diffuse, over time among the world’s population, and the question posed in the present study is: does that growth follow a regular pattern, according to the Fisher-Pry substitution model of technological change? Our inquiry finds that, prior to 1800, democratic development was experimental in character, but it has been growing fairly rapidly since the middle of the 19th century, generally fitting quite closely the model of diffusion. At the present time, -40% of the world’s people live in democracies; by extrapolation, the model suggests that the democratic community might reach the 90% level toward 2100.

Power law behavior and world system evolution: A millennial learning process

Abstract Is social change on the scale of the human species a millennial learning process? The authors answer in the affirmative, demonstrating that world system evolution, viewed as a cascade of multilevel, nested, and self-similar, Darwinian-like processes ranging in “size” from one to over 250 generations, exhibits power law behavior, which is also known as self-organized criticality. World social organization, poised as it is on the boundary between order and chaos, is neither subcritical nor supercritical, and that allows for flexibility, which is a necessary condition of evolution and learning, and these in turn account for the major transitions marking world history and serving as the general framework for long-range forecasting. A literature review confirms the close affinity between evolution and learning, mathematical analysis reveals the crucial role of the learning rate as pacemaker of evolutionary change, and empirical evidence supports the concept of a cascade of evolutionary processes. The general equation describing world system emergence shows it to be a project whose current period is now 80% complete, suggesting that its major features might now be in place.

Evolutionary Paradigm for Global Politics

The evolutionary paradigm for global politics here presented consists of four key propositions: (1) The global political system is a population of policies or strategies; (2) global politics constitutes a complex system that evolves in specifiable conditions; (3) accounting for global political evolution is a four-phased learning process whose key operators are variation (innovation), cooperation, selection, and reinforcement; and (4) global politics coevolves with global economics, community, and opinion et cetera. The evolutionary paradigm sheds light on two processes in particular: the formation of institutions at the global level, and the rise and decline of world powers (the long cycle). Two propositions are central to this article: 1. The institutions of world politics evolve, that is, they undergo change subject to identifiable evolutionary processes; and 2. The rise and decline of world powers (the long cycle) is a mechanism of global political evolution. By institutions of world politics we mean constitutive and widely accepted arrangements in respect to war and peace, nation-states, alliances, and international organization, and to global leadership and international law. If we consider these arrangements in a sufficiently long perspective, say, over the span of the past millennium, we cannot but help noticing significant changes that have occurred in relation to these, that continue to affect them, and that therefore need to be understood and explained. We need a structural-historical theory of world politics. The rise and decline of world powers, which has been the lead story over the past few centuries of world politics, also needs to be understood in a wider framework. It is not the case of some eternal struggle for power but rather that of a mechanism that in the recent past has mediated major changes in world political and social organization. We need to see the long cycle not in isolation but as a feature of world institutional growth. That is why, to better understand world politics in its time dimension in particular, we require an evolutionary framework. What might be the salient features of such a paradigm?

What causes K-waves?

Abstract This commentary on the Devezas-Corredine paper raises three questions: how do we think and how do we need to think about K-waves, what causes K-waves in the Devezas-Corredine model, and in what sense do social and biological factors add to a better understanding of large-scale structural changes in the world economy.

“Democratization in long perspective” revisited

Abstract The worldwide spread of democracy experienced in the past century and a half may be understood as a nonlinear (learning) process of innovation-diffusion. A Fisher–Pry test of this proposition was first reported by Modelski and Perry in a 1989 paper (published in this journal in 1991) on the basis of a data set that covered the period 1837–1986. A retest of the innovation-diffusion thesis has now been performed with basically the same methodology but on a refined data set and with data including the year 2000. It reaffirms the earlier result, and confirms that the 50% saturation point (flex-point) has been attained. It also reaffirms the earlier forecast that the 90% saturation level for democracy would not be reached until early in the 22nd century. The time constant (the time elapsing between 10% and 90% saturation) of this learning process is now estimated at 228 years.

Evolutionary Paradigms in the Social Sciences

Change usually occurs imperceptibly and out of sight, so that it becomes hard to grasp and think about in a systematic fashion. We are most effectively alerted to the fact of change when its pace accelerates, and in particular when change manifests itself in the form of crises. The recent collapse of the Communist system in Eastern Europe is one such sign of crisis, because for a time that system stood for one of the directions of social change, a systemic alternative that at times it seemed a permanent feature, possibly even embodying a winning strategy. Another development of wide portent is rapid economic expansion of East Asia. At such times minds search for explanations of what they observe happening but cannot handle and seemingly can do little about. To some, such crises herald the dawn of a new age of democracy and peace; others observe a flare-up of ethnic strife and anticipate world chaos. That is when new theories of transformation arise and old ones are refurbished for the occasion. That is when and how new social science paradigms are either built or rediscovered. One such paradigm that might help us comprehend rapidly changing reality is an evolutionary one. It is distinguished by a well-grounded intellectual tradition in almost all the major disciplines, among them sociology (August Comte, Herbert Spencer, Talcott Parsons), archaeology (Gordon Childs), and philosophy (Karl Popper, Donald Campbell). Among the most elaborated contributions to such thought have been those in economics, involving such major figures as Thorstein Veblen, Friedrich von Hayek, andJoseph Schumpeter. Evolutionary economics has experienced a particularly notable growth in recent years. While rich, this tradition might not currently possess the coherence and the complexity of other paradigms in the social sciences. The present collection, a sample of papers presented at two workshops held at the University of Washington, in May 1994, and May 1995,1 represents a step in the direction of increasing that coherence, and adding to the complexity. It does so both by undertaking comparative assessments of paradigms and of the state of the field, and by attacking some recent problems in international relations and international political economy.

The Long and the Short of Global Politics in the Twenty-first Century: An Evolutionary Approach

Forecasting the future of world politics requires both some acquaintance with possible alternatives, and a definite theoretical foundation. We first consider five other sets of arguments (associated with Waltz, Huntington, Kennedy, Fukuyama, and Wallerstein), and use them, collectively and individually, as contrasts with our own positions. Based on an evolutionary perspective that emphasizes the mechanisms of variation, selection, cooperation, and amplification, a model of global politics in the past millennium is employed for making a projection of institutional developments into the twenty-first century. These changes are expected to coevolve with developments in the world economy, democratization, and public opinion. Over the next two to three phases of global politics, the possibilities for expanded global organization evolving around a United States-European Union nucleus are considerable but yet tempered by some likelihood of the repetition, in the coming century, of earlier patterns of intensive global conflict over leadership selection.

Understanding Global War

While the problem of war in general deserves continuing scholarly attention, it seems appropriate to single out the systemwide—that is, global—war for intensive analysis as the kind of war that poses the gravest threat of catastrophe. Such a war can best be understood as an integral part of a long cycle, a recurring pattern in the development and operation of the global layer of the international system. From this perspective the design of a solution to the problem of global war requires either disruption of the long cycle or the development of a functional substitute for the leadership selection process that these wars have provided for the global system. The dominant contemporary solution to the problem, nuclear deterrence, ignores this perspective, and thereby overestimates the long-term utility and viability of deterrence. Deterrence theory also fails to provide a satisfactory explanation as to why and how deterrence works. Thus we must search for a creative alternative; and while its exact nature cannot be described, some relevant lines of inquiry can be identified.

The Portuguese as System-builders in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries: A Case Study on the Role of Technology in the Evolution of the World System

Abstract World system evolution may be viewed as a cascade of multilevel, nested, self-similar and Darwinian-type processes poised on the boundary between order and chaos that allows for innovation. A framework developed by Devezas-Modelski opens the door to conceptualizing globalization as part of that evolutionary cascade, and as a process of system-building of which the Portuguese enterprises of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries provide an illuminating case. Analysis is focused on two components of that cascade: the Portuguese long cycle, and the two (economic) K-waves and their related innovations. In this period preceding the Industrial Revolution, innovations focused on navigation and shipbuilding and formed the technical support for such activities. Quantitative analysis of empirical evidence on Portuguese expeditions and naval-military campaigns, the global network of bases, and of scarce data on the gold and pepper trades in this period supports the notion of long cycles and K-waves as system-building, and the more general conception of globalization as an evolutionary learning process.