Historical roots, cultural selection and the ‘New World Order’

Marcus Miller

CAGE Online Working Paper Series from Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy (CAGE)

Abstract: Francis Fukuyama’s bold prediction that Western liberal democracy is ‘the final form of human government’ was promptly challenged by Samuel Huntington, who foresaw the future as a continuing clash of civilisations. This latter view has found support in the recent Beijing declaration by China and Russia of a ‘New World Order’ with distinct spheres of influence for different cultures. After discussing the contrast between such historical perspectives (of ‘immaculate convergence’ versus cultural diversity), we outline two accounts of how forms of governance emerge from competitive struggle (either domestically or between nation states). However, to set the scene for applying these perspectives to current events, the paper begins with a summary of three eras of political economy post World War II - including the current ‘age of the strongman’, to use the terminology of Gideon Rachman. Subsequently, these various perspectives are employed to see what light they may throw on the disastrous turn of events following the Beijing declaration, with a focus on Russia, where the history of a powerful central state has played a crucial role. How enduring the Russian example may prove in the Darwinian struggle of cultural competition is, of course, a key issue for our time.

Keywords: Individualism; Collectivism; Culture; Social Contracts; Social preferences; Neofeudalism; Despotism; New World Order. JEL Codes: C70; C73; N00; P00; P50; Z10; Z13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cis, nep-evo, nep-gro and nep-his
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/research/c ... tions/wp647.2022.pdf

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cge:wacage:647

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in CAGE Online Working Paper Series from Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy (CAGE) Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Jane Snape ().