A TALE OF 2 WORLDS - CORE AND PERIPHERY IN THE POST-COLD-WAR ERA

Many structural realists have argued that a future multipolar international system will be less stable than the bipolar system of the cold war era. This article suggests that arguments based on the stability of a bipolar or multipolar system are misplaced. Focusing instead on democracy, economic interdependence, and technology as factors making war or peace more likely, the article argues that the future will best be described as a tale of two worlds. In the core states, the growth of shared norms concerning democracy and markets will not only make balance-of-power politics among the great powers a thing of the past but will also make nuclear weapons less important for maintaining stability than they were during the cold war. In the peripheral states, however, the absence of absolute deterrents to war as well as an absence of shared norms about democracy and markets will make old-style balance-of-power politics the norm. A new research agenda is needed to consider the relations within the liberal core and the realist periphery as well as between these two worlds.