World politics towards the 21st century

This article adopts a mildly pessimistic stance on exploring the future. Main change factors shaping international politics include rapidly changing technologies, shifts in global economic power and economic crises, growing world populations and ideological shifts. These will produce many negative results, such as easy access to mass-lethal weapons, growing global inequalities and frustrated expectations, geostrategic tensions and fanaticism. Change dynamics will be differential and jumpy, with a high probability of low probability events. The emerging picture is one of turbulence and conflict, even if worst-case scenarios are avoided. Built-in rigidities will prevent adequate adjustments of the global regime, other than perhaps as a result of serious and costly shocks.