Revised version of paper presented at the Tenth World Congress of the International Political Science Association in Edinburgh, Scotland, 21 August 1976. (Section 21: The Future of World Politics: Functionalism or Territoriality?) Based on research first undertaken at the Center for International Affairs, Harvard University, in 1973–74.

¹ On political fluctuations and periodicity in international affairs see Wright, Quincy, A Study of War (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1942), pp. 1271–76.Google Scholar

² For clear definitions see Schumpeter, Joseph A., Business Cycles (New York: McGraw- Hill Co. 1939), vol. I, p. 200.Google Scholar

³ For the concept of global political system see Modelski, George, Principles of World Politics (New York: The Free Press, 1972), ch. 13. Tl.e basic point to bear in mind is that the global political system concerns questions of allocation of authority (who governs?) and the production of public services (to what purpose?) with respect to global, but not national or local, processes.Google Scholar

⁴ This date is widely accepted as a turning point, as, e.g., in McNeill's, WilliamThe Rise of the West (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1963)Google Scholar, Part III; Dehio, LudwigThe Precarious Balance (New York: Knopf, 1962).Google Scholar

⁵ Wallerstein, I., The Modern World-System: Capitalist Agriculture and the Origins of the European World Economy in the 16th Century (New York: Academic Press, 1974), p. 15.Google Scholar

⁶ Wallerstein, I., ‘The Rise and Future Demise of the World Capitalist System: Concepts for Comparative Analysis’, Comparative Studies in Society and History, 16:4 (09 1974), 391.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁷ That is, world (or global) powers control (or substantially control) the global political system and hence also have the capacity to regulate other global processes (such as long-dis- tance travel). But they do not control national, or local, political systems or processes.

⁸ Modelski, , Principles, p. 291.Google Scholar

⁹ So far as can be ascertained the concept of a long cycle of global politics, some hundred years in length, is new to the literature. Wright (A Study of War, p. 1272)Google Scholar notes ‘a longer political cycle of from forty to sixty years’ suggested, inter alia, by ‘the periodicity of general wars during epochs dominated by an expanding economy and a balance of power system’ (see also pp. 227 ff.). Nikolai Kondratieffs ‘long wave’ of economic activity and Schumpeter's long cycle (which he called the Kondratieff) are also about 50 years in length (Schumpeter, , Business Cycles, pp. 164, 170 ff).Google Scholar

¹⁰ Wallerstein, , The Modern World System, p. 328.Google Scholar

¹¹ Mahan, Alfred, The Influence of Sea Power upon History 1660–1783 (New York: Hill-Wang, 1957, reprinted from the 1890 ed.), p. 83; the last sentence quoted from Lefevre-Portalis.Google Scholar

¹² Braudel, F., The Mediterraneanxsx (New York: Harper & Row, 1972), vol. I, pp. 636–42.Google Scholar

¹³ Wolf, John B., The Emergence of the Great Powers 1665–1715 (New York: Harper, 1951), p. 91.Google Scholar

¹⁴ Cf. Modelski, G., ‘World Order-keeping,’ in Goodwin, Geoffrey and Linklater, Andrew, eds., New Dimensions of World Politics (London: Halsted Press, 1975, pp. 54–72)Google Scholar; John K. Galbraith argues that ‘the market system, like the classical combination of competitive firms and small-scale monopoly of which it is the modern prototype, is broadly stable. Fluctuations … are self-limiting and eventually, self-correcting. The planning system [of large corpora- tions] … is inherently unstable.’ Economics and the Public Purpose (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1973), p. 179.Google ScholarPubMed

¹⁵ Dahl, Robert A., Modern Political Analysis, 3rd ed., (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1976), pp. 88–89.Google Scholar

¹⁶ For the two-power standard as a British decision rule see Moll, Kendall, The Influence of History upon Seapower 1865–1914 (Stanford: Stanford Research Institute, 1969), pp. 11 ff.Google Scholar

¹⁷ Data on post-1945 trends in power concentration may be found in Modelski, G., World Power Concentrations (Morristown, N.J.: General Learning Press, 1974).Google Scholar

¹⁸ Monopoly in the global system was not incompatible with a European balance of power which in its later form was a form of oligopoly: competition among the few. Such a balance could be a way of sharing in the gains of global monopoly. The concept of monopoly is analytically more versatile and preferable to those of core and periphery. A classic analysis of the advantages accruing to a ‘dominant economy’ is Francois Perraux, ‘Esquisse d'une theorie de l'economie dominante,’ Economie Appliquee, I: 2–3 (04–09 1948), 243–300.Google Scholar

¹⁹ Modelski, , Principles, pp. 173 ff, 284–85.Google Scholar

²⁰ Boxer, C. R., The Portuguese Seaborne Empire 1415–1825 (New York: A. A. Knopf, 1969), p. 4.Google Scholar

²¹ Tilly, Charles, The Formation of National States in Western Europe (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1975), p. 38; a question to which Tilly provides a complex answer, the most important part of it being ‘success in war,’ or as we would say, success in global warfare.Google Scholar

²² Modelski, , Principles, ch. 7.Google Scholar

²³ Carr, E. H., Conditions of Peace (London: Macmillan, 1942)Google Scholar, ch. 3; also his Nationalism and After (London: Macmillan, 1945)Google Scholar; Herz, John H., ‘Rise and Demise of the Territorial State,’ World Politics, 9:4 (07 1957), 473–93CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Lippman, W., U.S. Foreign Policy (Boston: Little Brown, 1943), ch. X.Google Scholar