This Time It Is Different: Civilisational Life Cycles, Societal Decline And Renewal
Humans are historically arrogant. The present, to us, is the most precious and important time, driven by interests, which, in turn, are based on our immediate needs. “Especially, these days…” is the motto of how we look at our times of living, thinking that today is the time where something has been the most, least,...
The Cultural Revolution in China, 1966–1976
The cultural revolution was a political movement in the People’s Republic of China that lasted, by the official reckoning later adopted by the Chinese state, from 1966 until 1976. Its full name in the documents of the period was the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. Launched by Mao Zedong, then Chairman of the Communist Party of...
The Global History of International Law
International law is the body of rules and principles that governs the conduct of states and, increasingly, of international organisations and individuals in their relations with one another. Unlike the law of any single state, it has no global legislature to enact it, no global police to enforce it and no court whose jurisdiction is...
Game Theory in Political Science
Politics is, at its core, a matter of interaction. Voters respond to candidates, candidates respond to one another, states respond to the moves of other states and legislators respond to the rules under which they bargain. Whenever the outcome for one participant depends on what others choose to do, the situation invites a particular kind...
The Monroe Doctrine
On 2 December 1823, President James Monroe delivered his seventh annual message to the Congress of the United States of America (hereinafter USA). Buried within a long routine address — much of it concerning fiscal accounts, post roads and tariffs on hemp — were several paragraphs that would, over the following two centuries, be elevated...
The Problem Of Communism
The idea of communism is now a little less than 200 years old, and since then, it has had a remarkable history. It is one of the fastest proliferated ideologies in political history. More interestingly, however, is that since its emergence, communism has been able to inform many, and also large, state systems, such as...
