Japan: A new world power in a new world order?

This essay hasn't yet been marked by one of our teachers

You can view 9 essays on International Politics that have been Marked by Teachers

The first 200 words of this essay...

Japan: A new world power in a new world order?

The political events of 1989 seem to signify the dawn of a new era of global politics. With groundbreaking negotiations between the superpowers and the liberation of the last remaining communist bastions the bipolar division of international relations that has existed since the end of World War Two has now totally disappeared. Consequently, the current state of world affairs and the position of individual nation-states within the new world order is uncertain.

This essay attempts to shed some light on this uncertainty via reference to theories of cyclical international politics which espouse the coming of a new global hegemon. It goes on to briefly assess the viability of a variety of states deemed to be the most likely inheritors of this crown, before providing justification of the final selection.

BIPOLAR - MULTIPOLAR - UNIPOLAR

When international affairs underwent a metamorphosis in 1989 the pattern that emerged constituted, for many, a multipolar new world order. Some people see this multipolar world economy being organised around a triad of regional blocs (North America, the European Union and East/South-East Asia) that dominate trade and manufacturing activity (Dicken, 1992). Figure