Post-Bipolar Structure of the International System

Abstract

The random and indeterminate nature of the current unipolar world is marked by a condition of increasing entropy. This claim is maintained by two assumptions. First, relative capability advantages under unipolarity do not translate as easily as they once did into power and influence over others. Second, systemic constraint is a property that limits actors’ freedom of action by imposing costs and benefits on certain kinds of actions. Unlike past multipolar and bipolar systems, the current unipolar system exerts only weak, systemic constraints on the unipolar power and all other actors as well. Thus, polarity has become a largely meaningless concept. Today, system process rather than structure best explains international politics, and this process is one of entropy. Finally, the author suggests two pathways from unipolarity to a more balanced international system: one is fairly consistent with standard balance-of-power realism; the other restores equilibrium by means of entropy. This current unipolar moment may become transcendent when the most powerful international actor, - the United States of America, - would choose to adapt to and to harness the social power of numerous nonstate international actors that are due take over the leading role in the future world’s politics.