Normative Structures in International Politics

Over the past decade the structure of world politics has undergone a number of substantial changes. For the past half-century we have lived in an international system dominated by the bipolar rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union. Although the Cold War system has dissolved as quickly as it emerged, it is still not clear what kind of international structure will take its place. For example, scholars have debated whether the world is moving toward multipolarity with the rise of Europe, Japan, and perhaps China, or whether American dominance is still sufficient to define the international system as unipolar. But while these analysts have been charting trends in relative power to predict the emergence of new rivalries, others have begun to consider the construction of an entirely different kind of systemic structure. Departing from prevailing conceptions of the international system, these scholars have suggested that state leaders’ understandings of their international environment may constitute an international structure that is as influential as the measures of relative power that are traditionally viewed as giving shape to world politics.