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In The Changing World

Eduard Solovyov, Ph.D. (Political Science) senior research fellow, Sector of Theory of Politics, Institute of world Economy and International Relations, Russian Academy of Sciences

The notions that the world needs a more just order and a better organization did not emerge by any means in the 1990s. Theoretical studies aimed at helping contribute to enhancing the role of the United Nations within the system of international relations and to shaping, on the foundation of this universally recognized international organization, a new and more just world order grounded in the principles of international law had been made by Western researchers at least since the 1960s. Suffice it to recall here the works by G. Clark, S. Mendlovitz, R. Falk, et al. But the notion of the "new world order" had really become widespread in international relations approximately since the late 1970s.

It was way back at that time and due to a serious crisis of the monetary and finance system, an energy shock, a demographic explosion, and a shortage of foodstuffs in the Third World countries, all of which had drastically lessened the stability of the international system as a whole, that such authoritative non-governmental organizations as the World Federation of UN Associations, the Club of Rome, the International Institute of Applied Studies, the Council for Human Studies, among others, came to the conclusion, on the basis of mathematical modeling, about the need of having the foundations of the then existing world order transformed. Among the works of this kind, J. Tinbergen's report "Reshaping the International Order" that was prepared at the initiative of the Club of Rome became, perhaps, best known. The report substantiated, in particular, the thought that maintenance of the existence of the international system "needs fundamental structural reforms" and the "establishment of a new international social and economic order".¹ The author saw the primary task of such reshaping in the "achievement of a decent life and well-being for all citizens of the world". This goal, in his opinion, could be attained on the basis of a "just social order, both national and international" by affording equal opportunities both for the individuals within the countries and for the various countries in the international arena. Many other theoretical designs of that time also dealt with the need of a "revolution in world solidarity" and of a "new world order".

A different scenario for renewing the world order was being considered in that period by a number of US researchers. S. Huntington, S. Hoffman and many others were associating the "new order" with spreading the influence of the USA all over the world and with establishing the US-suggested model for the world order. S. Hoffman, for example, saw the mission of America in leading the danger-ridden planet to new morals and a political order grounded not in the equilibrium of forces but in the principles of justice, human rights protection, satisfaction of human rights, and in a new equilibrium between national self-determination and global interdependence.²

A drastic aggravation of the situation in the world, and a stronger military confrontation in the early 1980s somewhat pushed the subject under review into the background. The survival of humankind and ensuring a decent future in conditions of the growing confrontation of nuclear powers were associated in that period, first of all, with the prevention of war between the two opposing blocs, between the USSR and the USA. Attention was drawn by the Bush administration at the turn of the 1990s to the need of renewing the world order in consequence of the rapid disintegration of the Warsaw Pact and the erosion of the foundations of the so-called bipolar world order as a whole. The establishment of a more just and, at the same time, sufficiently stable and predictable world order was seen as being linked up to the deideologization of international relations, the obviously growing role and weight of the US-driven "locomotive of democratization" in international relations and a greater importance of international institutions such as, first and foremost, the United Nations. Regional conflicts were being viewed in no way other than the rudiment of the epoch to come to a close, the rudiment doomed to gradual disappearance parallel with the erosion of the ideological context. It seemed that the removal of the fundamental confrontation of the USSR and the USA would help contribute to an earliest improvement of the entire international climate.

Meanwhile, since early as the times when the works by M. Haas, M. Sulliven and other authors³ were published, the concept of the so-called "democratic world" had become widespread sufficiently enough. In the basis of the concept was the postulate, according to which relations between democratic countries are significantly less of a conflict nature than between non-democratic countries. In conditions of the collapse of many totalitarian and authoritarian regimes in the early 1990s the idea of an inevitable and rapid "democratization" of the entire world community became nearly to be prevalent. True, some analysts were giving a warning that in principle, in the foreseeable future, a certain decline in or even a reverse wave of democratization⁴ would, probably, have to be spoken about. However, futuro-optimists who were thinking in terms of the "end of history" were insisting on an impending political homogenization of the world. They launched a genuine "crusade" for liberalism and democracy on the scale of the world community.

It should be noted that the positions of the adherents of a world "liberal and democratic revolution" proved to be firm enough not only among the academic community but also within the political establishment of the countries of the West. These circumstances predetermined in the end the attempts to carry out what A. Bogaturov was witty to call the "expansion of world international society", as H. Bull was understanding it, in the system of international relations and in the sphere of the international community itself.⁵ The concept of "world international society" was formulated by H. Bull way back in the 1960s. In the picture of the world projected by H. Bull the countries that are proponents of this peculiar liberal and democratic spirit and of the idea of "world international society" were making up an indisputable minority among the total number of countries. But notwithstanding the vulnerability of their positions and all possible vicissitudes of their interrelationships with non-democratic powers and their blocs, it is this nucleus knitted together by their adherence to the unified standards of ethics and morals that was proving, in the opinion of H. Bull, to be capable of ensuring the prosperity of each of the political communities that are part of the nucleus and demonstrating a new quality of relations among the main actors - relations free from violence and aimed at respect for such values as freedom, peace and democracy.⁶ Whereas H. Bull was believing, however, that Western democracies, while remaining in the minority in the foreseeable future, were capable, only within certain limits, of determining the structure and character of the system of international relations by means of their own military-technical, economic and indisputable (from the standpoint of a Western liberal-minded observer) moral superiority, the apologists of a "crusade" for democracy seemed to be intent in earnest to reshape the entire structure of international relations in accordance with their own concepts.

In actual fact, however, the situation in the 1990s turned out to be quite contradictory. Disintegration in the East and fragmentation in the South, political and socio-economic destabilization in some regions of the world placed on the agenda the question about international relations "being in chaos". At the same time, in conditions when the USSR was not only becoming simply weak but was literally disappearing from the political map of the world, the USA, remaining the only country to deserve, as for all main parameters, the status of the "superpower", began to develop an ever stronger taste for uncontrollable arbitrariness. As a result, discussions over the notion of the "new world order" shifted into the area of seeking political and procedural solutions that were to ensure and consolidate the dominant role of the USA and the West as a whole in the system of international relations.

Against this background, an extremely fervent, albeit insufficiently well-grounded, euphoria began to run high among both the political circles and the academic community of the West. The aphoristic thesis of F. Fukuyama about the "end of history" was adopted strongly enough, among others, by many researchers in international relations. The correlate of the end of history in this case, against the backdrop of the collapse of the bipolar world order, was a kind of the supremacy of the democratic power that was to be a standard in all respects and also had, as of the moment of waning bipolarity, impressive superiority over all possible competitors in terms of both its military-power and economic potential. In this context, Ch. Krauthammer asserted: "The most striking feature of the world after the Cold War became its unipolarity... In the times to come, powers to the equal to the United States may, possibly, appear, but not now, nor in the next few decades".⁷ The same thought was expressed ever more strongly by Z. Brzezinski who said that the United States "had become the first and the only real world power".⁸ The logic of a "decisive stake" put on ensuring security called for emphasizing a special place and role of the "only world power". In full conformity with this logic, S. Huntington, for example, asserted that the USA is "the most free, the most liberal and the most democratic country in the world". It followed therefrom than any increase in the power and influence of the USA in the international arena is historically progressive and, hence, absolutely justified (because it automatically assists the establishment of freedom, pluralism and democracy the world over). More idealistically-minded observers were going even further and were calling upon the USA to lead the planet to new universal morals and a political order to be grounded in the principles of justice and human rights protection.

Consequently, the "new world order" that is gradually becoming synonymous for unipolarity began to be interpreted in a broader historical context within the framework of a "finalist" and "progress-ist" picture of the world as the natural result of the development of international relations. Unipolarity has been seen in this case as a final point in the evolution of international relations - from the balance of power of individual countries and their alliances, through the bipolar balance of forces in the mid-XXth century to the unity of humankind under the protection of the only hegemonic power as represented by the USA. The stages of this evolution have been marked at the same time by nearly a sign of inevitability. The imperfect balance of forces at the times of the multipolar world, the balance provoking international crises, instability and uncertainty, has been replaced by a far more predictable and stable balance in the period of bipolarity and has been superseded, in its turn, by a perfect design of unipolarity wherein there is already no room left for the balance of power at least in its understanding traditional for international relations.

The advocates of the concept of unipolarity see its advantages, first of all, in the USA being in a position to "design", as it deems it desirable, the outside world - to overthrow disagreeable governments and to install governments to be loyal to the USA and, formally, (proceeding from its own criteria) more democratic in various regions of the world, and literally to create some new and bring down other formerly sovereign countries. In addition to that, the outlines of the new state of affairs have come to light graphically in the resolve of America to project, if need be, force into any region of the world, wherever and whenever the US administration deems it expedient, in the US domination in the most powerful military-political alliance (NATO) that, in essence, meets no competition, in the obvious leading position of the USA in the world economy, in the advanced positions it has firmly taken in the development of modern technologies, and in the influence of the "American way of life" on cultural processes and socio-cultural transformations going on worldwide.

It was quite soon, however, that the concept of unipolarity revealed its quite significant practical defect. Directions for US superhegemony, irrespective of their heuristic value, began to arouse irritation not only among potential opponents but also among the time-tested partners and allies of the USA. This urged the US official circles and academic community in the mid-1990s to somewhat water down formulations and transpose a number of emphases, although the substance of these directions remained absolutely unchanged in strategic terms.

From that time on, an expanded version of the concept of unipolarity began to circulate, according to which the only "pole" has a complex structure and is made up of a totality of "democratic industrial countries" that hold dominant positions within the global system. The role of the USA, given such an interpretation, boils down to the functions of the leader or the peculiar manager of this complex coalition with all its components. The coalition has been viewed as a sufficiently flexible entity that does not have a clear-cut hierarchic structure and does not include an invariable and predetermined selection of countries. It has been suggested that the bloc should incorporate most of the OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) countries that account for 60% of the world aggregate GDP (gross domestic product). In this case, the coalition is to have a bigger part of the worldwide military power. Due to the process of an incessant enlargement (by incorporating a number of Asian and, in future, East European countries), this bloc is to become an ever firm support for the "world order". In this way, the global leading position is to be in place on the ground of an ever-expanding basis with an ever fewer number of powers that remain "outside" and are potential adversaries and the initiators of "revolts" against this worldwide "pax democratica".⁹

America, according to this concept, is still to remain the leading power within the framework of pluralistic unipolarity. This does not mean, however, that the USA can do in the international arena whatever it likes. Apprehensions have crept in now and then that holding leading positions unilaterally and in a too much obtrusive manner can eventually bring about their loss.

In the meantime, the participants in the system of international relations who are outside the "nucleus" have been ever more concerned over the persistent attempts by the West to radically transform and alter the fundamental principles of international law by having expanded arbitrarily in the process the international legal framework of its own activity and severely curtailed the sovereignty of all "other" participants in international communication. It is symptomatic that statements about "outdated" sovereignty being incompatible with the humanitarian principles of the present-day world order impel us to recall the opinion of E. Carr, one of the founding fathers of the theory of international relations, that he formulated more than half a century ago: "The irrelevance of state sovereignty is the ideology of the dominating powers that regard the sovereignty of other states as an obstacle for making use of their own predominant position".¹⁰ The persistent attempts to revise the fundamental principles of international law (the inviolability of borders, the non-use of force or of the threat of force, etc.) and the obvious supremacy of double standards have raised serious and quite well-grounded doubts about the sincerity of those who profess the principles of a "renewed political idealism" and who inscribed the slogans of the "new world order" on their banners.

Certainly, the rules of the game, laid down in the epoch of bipolar confrontation with its precise demarcation lines, and the specifics of theorizing about these rules are somewhat behind the realities of the contemporary world and need to be adapted to the changing reality. It applies, first of all, to excessive state centrism. The state has figured till now as practically the only legitimate political subject that acts in the world arena and has absolute sovereignty. Meanwhile, it was several decades ago that it was pointed out in the works by J. Nye, R. Keohane, et al. that the urbanization and modernization of political communities, and the development of communications and contacts with the outside world assist a significant redistribution of power from governments to non-government and private actors. The role of public opinion is also to grow. Nowadays, it is no less evident that the processes of demodernization can also, no matter how strange it may be, support this tendency. Upon the completion of the decolonization process and, especially, after the fall-down disintegration of the USSR, the system of state-to-state relations began to include poorly structured and unstable formations ("failed" and "newly" independent states), whose sovereignty has been problematic, whose territorial borders have not been demarcated precisely enough (in many cases they have simply not been delimitated or have been strongly disputed by their neighbours) and whose "power" has actually been split up among competing clans or other non-government actors. The activity of actors without sovereignty, of all kinds of national and international organizations, associations, companies, trans-border groups, etc. is simply impossible to assess adequately within the framework of the dominant paradigm.

However, the quaint fusion of realism and idealism being suggested now by the Western political thought has proved in this regard to be in no way more fruitful. One of the most graphic examples is the question concerning human rights. Instead of putting emphasis on real facts and, namely, on the circumstance that human rights are not so much universal as they can be universalized in principle and, trying to find, proceeding from realities, instrumental and gradualist approaches to changes in the existing state of affairs, hundreds of governmental and non-governmental organizations, foundations and scientific institutions have focused their attention on the standardization of procedures for democratic transits, irrespective of the socio-cultural context wherein these reforms are to be implemented. But, as P. Hassner noted, "the point is not to impose a universal definition from outside but to determine the universal effect of the unique experience of various cultures".¹¹ Unfortunately, although the notions of real pluralism and of a plurality of cultures have become widespread enough in the West, they are still marginal as part of discussions on the specific features of the new world order being shaped now.

A new configuration of the system of international relations: a multipolar world or a "global monopoly"?

The world order is one of the most general notions that have been used when characterizing the global aspects of the international political situation. It includes such elements and structures whose relative invariability is impossible not to admit nor to reckon with in practice. At the same time, the idea of the world or regional order needs to be treated with caution. Any order is not only an objective notion but also a relatively subjective political construct (because it has always been perceived unequivocally and in a different manner by various participants in the system of international relations). What is an embodiment of the order for some, can be perceived by others as an utterly intolerable disorder, or, even worse, as a "new order" with all its negative associations linked up to this notion (an illustrative historical example is the Nazi version of a "new order").

The process of transformation that is underway now in the sphere of international relations is going beyond the customary stereotype of shaping the "post-Yalta" or "post-Potsdam" world order. In my opinion, there are all grounds now to speak of the shaping of a system of international relations that is fundamentally new in its substance, the post-Westphalia system. It is not without irony that H. Kissinger made remarks in this regard: "Bush and Clinton were speaking about a new world order as if it is next door. In actual fact, it is still undergoing the period of ripening and its forms will become ultimately visible only within the next century".¹² In the situation like this, structural factors will, undoubtedly, continue to have a quite significant role to play in mapping out the outlines of the system of international relations that is taking shape now. However, in all probability, the role of the factors of a procedural nature will grow especially drastically.

The revolutionary transformation of the foundations of the contemporary world order has been going on over the past decade and a half. The outlines of this order are being determined, for the most part (though it is far from including all of its aspects), by the specific features of the global economy that is taking shape now. However, the main trends here are going in different directions. The paradox of the global economy is that it does not encompass all economic processes on the planet, nor does it include all territories and all humankind in the operation of its well-adjusted economic and financial mechanisms. While its influence has spread to the entire world, its actual functioning and appropriate global structures apply only to the segments of industries, countries and regions on a scale that is directly dependent on the specific position of a given country, region (or industry) in the international division of labour. As a result, within the global economy the differentiation of countries, as for their development level, still continues and is even deepening, and a fundamental asymmetry is being reproduced among countries as to the degree of their integration, their competitive potential and their share of benefits from economic growth.

In this regard, the appearance of the so-called "deep South" or "fourth world" has opened up most disturbing vistas. There is a growing real tendency towards the full degradation of quite a number of countries that can lose altogether their social and mobilization functions as a result of the persistent reduction of their budgetary expenditures on the elementary reproduction of social infrastructure. The paradox is that, given its entire planetary character, the global economy (anyhow at the present-day stage of its development) is stimulating an increase in the number of "isolated" countries and "isolated" regions that are actually being excluded from the processes of globalization.¹³

Therefore, the consequences of globalization have turned out to be quite contradictory and unequivocal. On the one hand, the growing interdependence of various countries and regions of the world is obvious. On the other hand, an unceasing and almost irreconcilable geoeconomic rivalry has been in evidence.¹⁴ It is giving rise to the situation of growing instability. The modularity of relationships and the interchangeability of partner countries are engendering the situation of relative instability and the situational nature of emerging alliances and coalitions. The permanent struggle for obtaining as much resources and opportunities as possible in conditions of globalization (when it is impossible to be simply out of the game for a while - it is only possible to "drop out" of the game) is giving rise to only one real alternative that each of the countries is facing now - either dynamic and faster development that expands the possibilities of influence, including the political one, in geometric progression, or marginalization.

Transition to the "new world order" is leading now to the situation when the interrelations and interactions of the main actors have proved to be ever less stable and firm. Given such a state of affairs, it is quite problematic to speak of the possibility of any long-term configuration of geopolitical forces, a configuration that would determine, like the bipolar structure we have got accustomed to, for a more or less long period of time to come, the political situation in the international arena. It can be expected that there will be permanent fluctuations and the shaping of such a regime of international relations under which interrelationships between countries, regions, politico-economic and other blocs (either with minus or plus signs - confrontation or cooperation, conflict or consensus, respectively) will be subject to permanent changes and will be built ad hoc for coping with specific tasks.

All of this, along with an increased permeability of borders up to ensuring their full transparency, a stronger role of non-governmental actors who assist changes in the parameters of national-state sovereignty, etc. can make it much harder to achieve discipline and put things in good order, both of which are needed, and to ensure any stable distribution of forces among countries, their blocs and regions that have been in interaction with each other.

Further developments can lead in future to the gradual shaping of a genuinely pluralistic system of international relations. But the result may also be otherwise - a disorderly and uncontrollable reciprocal deterrence wherein the threat of the use of force may become a chronic element in the system of international relations.

Unipolarity to be firmly established within the new world order has been regarded by the political top crust and among the expert community in Western countries as a panacea for permanent "turbulence" and "things being in chaos". At the same time, the possibility of a stronger controllability over stochastic processes and developments has been associated, as a rule, with maintaining tendencies towards the consolidation of the developed, advanced states, that is, pax democratica in its own way, around the obvious military and political leader as represented by the USA. The advocates of the so-called "Global Management System", in particular, have been theorizing in the same manner. Globalization in this case has been represented as the process of forming an all-planetary infrastructure of international relations with a single center of Global Governance.

Such scenarios have received most active support from Washington. When asked who can fill the vacuum that appeared in the system of international relations after the end of the Cold War and who can make a decisive contribution to helping the new world order come into being, a quite unequivocal answer can be heard from the proponents of US global domination. However, analysis of the existing realities, including the conduct of the USA in foreign policies, clearly shows that, while being inclined to play the leading role in the regulation of economic and political processes both at the global and regional level, Washington is very reluctant to assume responsibility for the consequences of its actions.

In addition to that, there has been a selective approach to the assessment of the situation in regard to various regional conflicts and the character of measures that are to be taken, depending on the USA's own national interests or on the private preferences of one or another kind of groups that exert pressure within the United States itself. The US administration has had a propensity to unilaterally decide who in the world deserves encouragement and who is to be labelled a "rogue state", and to determine what sanctions are to be imposed on the latter and what punishment is to be inflicted on those who do not support these sanctions. Moreover, Washington has been inclined in recent times for a radical revision of the fundamental principles of international law, and has set precedents for spreading US jurisdiction to the international or even internal affairs of other states. It is in the same context that the attempts by the US administration to determine on its own and unilaterally whether it should obey international organizations and their decisions, and under what conditions it should be so, whenever necessary, can also be viewed.

There was a time in the past when the book "Man, the State and War" by K. Waltz was very popular with the US political elite. K. Waltz pointed out three options of the pattern that may be of help in trying to describe the system of international relations and to reveal the causes of armed conflicts (wars).¹⁵ According to the first "pattern", conflicts and wars owe their origin to human nature, instincts, passions or prejudices. The second interpretation implies that the source of wars lies in the nature of states, or, to be more exact, in the specific features of the organization of political systems and the ruling political regimes therein. Finally, K. Waltz was emphasizing an obvious contradiction between the civil order that is predominant within each community and the "natural condition" that reigns supreme within international relations. In this connection, the structural factors of the international environment were underlined to be central to these relations.

It should be said that the USA has clearly shown, as part of its political strategy, its striving to eliminate at least two of the three possible causes that make wars originate and the system of international relations become destabilized. First of all, the system of international relations has invariably been qualified by the USA as "anarchic". It has been done so not in a sense that arbitrary rule is absolutely predominant within this system but proceeding from the postulate formulated centuries ago by T. Hobbes about the lack of a supreme arbiter within the system, who can make a decision to be binding upon the parties to one or another conflict and to force them, if need be, by legitimate means to fulfil the decision. The USA made attempts to act as such an arbiter. It is noteworthy in this regard that the expression "post-international relations" that began to be used in scientific parlance in the mid-1990s proved to be quite appropriate. If the possibility of the presence of the only and indisputable hegemon within the system of international relations is to be considered in good earnest, international relations are really to acquire a new quality. Another thing is how this quality should be assessed.

The next and quite logical step in this context is the struggle to "rectify" the nature of certain political regimes that are troublemakers, are guided in their conduct in foreign policy by false notions about "prestige" or are determined by ideology that is unacceptable either morally or politically. In this regard, the persistent striving of the USA to "press down" some of the notorious "rogue states" and to provoke the overthrow of the regimes that are uncontrollable and do not want to play according to the rules laid down by the West fits in perfectly well with the declared strategy. It equally applies to the directions that manifested themselves clearly for making wide use of high volume, manipulative technologies so as to "rectify" eventually human nature, too.

It should be admitted that the design aimed at transforming the system of international relations is all-encompassing, indeed. But how realistic is it to translate such designs into actions? In my view, it is just the case when not everything has been going on so smoothly as it could have been expected. The claims by the United States to be in the lead globally are far from being always treated with understanding and approval even among the political elites of the countries that have traditionally been partners of the USA. A quite unequivocal attitude to the US cultural expansion and political interventionism has been in evidence among most of the so-called Third World countries.

But, in any case, analysis of the situation in the present-day world that is undergoing the process of globalization, rapidly turning into a single "global village" but, at the same time, is being subjected to fragmentation (it is worthwhile to mention here only one phenomenon - "renationalization" of politics) leads to a seemingly evident conclusion not so much about homogenization as about diversification that now is still in place and now is growing stronger, and the real plurality of the political and other forms of the organization of human communities. In conditions like these, a tolerant attitude to "others" and the ability to show tolerance in perceiving an incredible number of demarcation lines in politics, culture, the confessional sphere, etc. ensure, in the end, the very possibility of social life, at least within the communities that are heterogenic in all respects and wherein we live now.

In their efforts to go beyond the limits of existing restrictions and to overcome "turbulence" in the system of international relations, theoreticians and practical workers who advocate its profound revision most likely run the risk of turning from the building of a controllable global infrastructure of international relations to the building of a kind of a global empire, the process that can potentially provoke new international contradictions and conflicts and dangerously aggravate the existing ones. In any case, if we do not want our world to turn, in conformity with the gloomy prophecies of some futurologists, philosophers and essayists, into a world "without rules", whose analogue is the metaphor that suggests its resemblance to the "new Dark Ages", or into a "Brave New World" (A. Huxley) of global manipulation, we should learn to calmly perceive the fact of the real political and cultural diversity of the subjects that make up our world, the diversity that is to remain in the foreseeable future.

Tolerance in the changing world - is there any alternative?

Most diverse methodological, practical and political problems that are topical now have been discussed as part of debates on the issues concerning present-day international relations. It is only the question as to whether there is a certain level of tolerance, within the world community, as a necessary (although, it goes without saying, insufficient) condition for the normal performance of any contemporary democratic system has been disregarded, as a rule.

According to the wide-held point of view, the international community represents a "special case" of boundless tolerance. Since the system of international relations is "anarchic", has no supreme arbiter and is unable to impose certain models and standards of conduct to be binding upon its participants, the interrelationships of the main actors of world politics are marked by nearly boundless tolerance. Sovereignty serves as a guarantee that no one can interfere in the processes taking place outside the state border. The international community of countries is tolerant (within the scope of international and legal norms) in relation to all state entities that are part of it and equally in relation to the rules and customs permitted by these entities. In this regard, tolerance is an integral part of sovereignty. The nature of the international community is such that a heavy price of military mobilization and human victims has to be paid for attempts to interfere in one's internal affairs. The price of attempts to transform the world community to make it similar to a global empire also appears to be no lower. Therefore, there is simply no reasonable alternative to a tolerant attitude to differences.

In the meantime, the main parameters and characteristics of tolerance and the bounds of compromises both within individual countries and within the international community as a whole have been under discussion till now. Tolerance appears, so to say, to be a "moral category" that is difficult enough to understand rationally and analyze, while the problem related to the subject matter of tolerance has fully been neglected by researchers.

Possibly, this circumstance can largely be put down to the specifics of the present-day ethno-political context. In any case, however, tolerance is being considered predominantly in one-dimensional projection of its own kind. This is, generally, the tolerance of a majority to a minority, and it is only in the case of contemporary immigrant communities that the motivation appears for various ethno-confessional and ethno-cultural groups to display reciprocal tolerance for each other. A representative of a minority has almost always been regarded only as an object of tolerance but in no way as a subject that, in its turn, is to show tolerance for the representatives of a "majority".

Meanwhile, the new millennium has also brought to light the new aspects of the problem that seemed earlier to be absolutely non-fundamental or non-topical. Thus, till recently the notion has continued to be predominant that the reluctance of a majority to forgo its real or imaginary privileges, and the reluctance to reckon with the diversity and heterogenity of the surrounding social and cultural space is nearly the main obstacle to democratization processes and is a kind of an antipode to tolerance. At the same time, the conduct of "minorities" represents, for the most part, a chain of reactions to the totality of restrictions and challenges they have to face in social and political affairs. In this regard, any excesses that are going even evidently beyond the limits of elementary tolerance on the part of individuals and representatives of groups for each other have been considered through the prism of the main stream's complacency. Way back 10 to 15 years, such a stand was, possibly, quite justified both in moral and intellectual terms. However, in light of developments over the past few decades the situation has ceased to be so unequivocal.

In the epoch of information technologies and of the virtualization of political space, the struggle for the rights of the "oppressed", or in any case, infringed-upon minority began to be voiced with a new vigour in situations that are clearly far from the ideals of struggle for "liberte, egalite, fraternite ". Nowadays, the majority has displayed (among other things, due to the selfless efforts of the Western countries' intellectual elite that has made as morally unacceptable any resistance to the demands aimed at the emancipation of minorities) its obvious readiness to meet the demands of the minorities. Moreover, the dynamics of historical processes has clearly demonstrated that representatives of a majority, given another redrawing of interstate borders, persistent demographic tendencies or due to other circumstances, have a tendency toward turning into an absolute or relative minority within its own community. The ensuring of equal rights, and tolerance in relation to various groups and individuals who make up these groups are, in a sense, the guarantee (though, not an absolute one) of their own well-being and, under certain circumstances, of their survival, too. The only problem here is to seek the acceptable forms of institutionalizing such compromises.

It is in this area that the problem arises whether the minorities themselves are ready for compromises. Now it is appropriate to raise a question as to how their moral rigorism and political non-compromise stand are justified functionally in maintaining one or another kind of positions that are known to be unacceptable for the majority. As R. Reagan used to say in the past, "there must be a couple to dance tango". Tolerance, like a compromise, cannot be a one-way street. Therefore, it is only the reciprocal tolerance of social, confessional, ethnic and other groups that can be the guarantee of sustainable democratic development.

Unfortunately, a tendency to ignore, in principle, this problem has been in evidence within the scope of the theory of democracy and, generally, in Western political science. The lack of tolerance entails sooner or later either the disintegration of a political community as such or the secession of its certain segments. From the standpoint of the advocates of multiculturism, such a result is not, of course, a boon. However, they are not inclined to overdramatize it, either. The loss of one or another segment or the disintegration of a community as a whole narrow down, indeed, the possibilities of an individual choice (in terms of the plurality of possible cultural, linguistic, civilized and other self-identifications) but do not bring down the principles of democracy.¹⁶ The advocates of more traditional versions of the theory of democracy are still less concerned over this circumstance. For a prominent scholar of Western political science such as A. Lijphart, secession is almost always a boon because, in his opinion, it is the communities that are relatively homogenic culturally and ethnically that have advantages in building a modern democracy. The common history and common culture reduce the costs of ensuring the effectiveness of political communication and creates a certain homogeneity of the politico-cultural background, etc. In this case, the examples of so-called "consociative" democracy in multi-component communities appear to be exceptions to the general rule.

As these problems are acute and topical, they are simply impossible to ignore. But secession - the suggested stereotyped option for the solution of the moral and political problem - regarded as nearly the highest degree of the manifestation of tolerance raises more questions than gives answers to them.

In my view, the thesis in itself that secession is an indisputable boon that actually expands the field of tolerance appears to be quite doubtful, taken as a whole. With reference to the 1990s, the fact of secession most likely demonstrates clearly the mutual (or, in some cases, unilateral) lack of tolerance as such. Will there be a higher degree of tolerance to result from the appearance of several other dozens of political communities not inclined to a tolerant attitude to "some others" on the map of the world? Would it not be, on the contrary, a reverse back and the encouragement of that part of the community that is least tolerant towards the radicalization of political processes? Western researchers have traditionally set great hopes that the processes of globalization will bring about, on the one hand, stronger tendencies toward multiculturalism and, on the other hand, will become a kind of counterbalance to the intolerance and, frequently, aggressiveness of the "majority" that appears in newly independent states from among the former minorities. Special hopes, to all appearances, have also been set on the concept of "humanitarian intervention", that is, the ability of the international community to exert influence on the political elites of the countries that demonstrate an "unacceptably high" level of intolerance. Here, however, a new problem, or to be more exact, even several problems arise.

First of all, who is to determine whether the level of intolerance is acceptable or unacceptable. It may seem to be mean implicitly that it will be done within the framework of a universally recognized international institution but the entire question is what exactly institution it will be like. After all, in recent times in the West, in light of the concepts of cooperative (it would, perhaps, be more exact to say, corporate) security and other such concepts, it is not the United Nations or other universally recognized international organizations that have acted as the main institutions. They have been regarded as being too much "cumbersome", "clumsy" and subject to bureaucratic routinization. NATO and other North Atlantic structures that graphically demonstrated their "flexibility" and "dynamism" in their "peace-keeping mission" in Yugoslavia have been seen ever more frequently as being "appropriate" to be such institutions.

In addition to that, strange as it may be, the very concept of humanitarian intervention contributes in large measure to undermining the tolerance regime within a broader context, that is, in the system of international relations. Whereas political pluralism and multiculturalism, tolerance for various kinds of political, cultural and social deviations have been viewed as an indisputable boon within communities, political deviations (from a kind of a universal pattern "common to all mankind") that are also conditioned, for the most part, historically and culturally have been seen as the absolute evil in the international arena. Humanitarian intervention is becoming something like the continuation, in new conditions, of the "civilizational mission" of the West. It appears unexpectedly as the revival of the formula "a white man's burden" in the rapidly changing and, really, ever more interdependent world.

It is a separate question as to how justified a deontological and moralization approach to international relations is, and here I would not like to touch upon this important and serious subject in passing, in an offhand manner. Attention is to be drawn to another thing - the obvious fact that an impudent interference in the internal affairs of one or another community actually leads in the medium- and long-term perspective to unpredictable consequences, and contributes frequently in the short run to the cohesion of various political, social and cultural segments of a given community around the slogan of defending their "native land" and some local "Saddams" (or worse, "bin Ladens") from Western interventionism. It is hardly appropriate, given such circumstances, to talk of an expansion of the field of tolerance, although the arguments put forward by Western authors about the limits of tolerance in interstate relations seen through the prism of "human rights" are not devoid of interest that is almost entirely due to the reason that these arguments enable us to better understand those internal restraints and restrictions, and those intellectual taboos that even intellectuals nowadays in the West, who are notable more than others for their thinking in non-standard terms, like M. Walzer or W. Kymlicka,¹⁷ do not dare (or simply cannot) overstep.

Many, above all, US, politicians, experts on international law, publicists and philosophers have done a lot in recent times to substantiate the thesis about the need and justifiability of interventionism in international relations. The "use of force" that is familiar to a political scientist can be transformed, of course, by means of artful rhetoric into the "spread of stability", and unprovoked military interference into preventive measures aimed at stabilization, etc. However, no philological exercises can provide an answer to some of "inopportune" questions concerning, in particular, the so-called double standards in the practices of international relations and the growing role of force, in conditions when international law is being eroded, in state-to-state relations. Apart from this, there are no grounds to assume that this "new interventionism" can alter reciprocal enmity and hatred to make them, at least, somewhat similar to tolerance without which democracy and a new just democratic structure of both individual political communities and the whole world is unreal.

The point is that a democratic world, even in theory, is inconceivable without a tolerant attitude, at least, to "anyone unlike us" and to the phenomena that go beyond the scope of some "generally accepted" and "universal human" (in actual fact, conditioned, of course, historically and culturally) norms. The obtrusive striving to put all on one track is simply counterproductive and contradicts elementary common sense. As it appears, the elaboration of a specific political culture of compromises is becoming now the key problem related to ensuring the success of democratic transits and, equally, the emergence of a new viable structure of international relations. As long as any conflict situation is interpreted in terms of a "zero sum conflict", where the "winner" and the "loser" must necessarily be, where benefits for some of the sides are sure to mean adverse effects for others, democracy that is understood, among other things, as a procedure for the search and institutionalization of mutually acceptable deals and compromises within the scope of certain rules (that must not be changed through one of the sides' own arbitrariness) remains only wishful thinking. At the same time, during the uncompromising battle between the forces of the "good" and the "evil" one's bearings can ultimately be lost, strange as it may be, in actual fact by multiplying the number of "pariahs", "rogues", within the political system of a given country or within the system of international relations, and after failing, in the end, to expand the fields of the democratic nature and tolerance. Neither democracy, tolerance, nor even common sense are needed to "prove" without prior arrangement one's "historical case". They are needed and indispensable for sustainable development and for ensuring eventually the survival of the planet.

References

1] Tinbergen J.; Quoted from Tinbergen J. Peresmotr mezhdunarodnogo poryadka (Reshaping the International Order) - Moscow, 1980, p. 85.

2] See therein: Hoffman S. Primacy of World Order. N.Y. 1980; Huntington S. S. American Politics: the Promise of Disharmony. Cambridge, 1981.

3] See, e. g., Haas M. Societal Approaches to Study of War. Journal of Peace Research, 1965, v.2, ?4, p. 307-323.

4] Huntington S. The Third Wave. N.Y., 1991.

5] See Bogaturov A.D. Sindrom pogloshcheniya v mezhdunarodnoi politike (The Syndrome of Absorption in International Politics) Pro et Contra, 1999, t.4, ? 4, p. 28-48.

6] See therein: Bull H. The Anarchical Society: A Study of Order in World Politics. - N.Y., 1995.

7] Krauthammer Ch. The Unipolar Movement. Foreign Affairs, 1991, Summer, p. 23-24.

8] Brzezinski Z. The Grand Chessboard, first published N.Y., 1997; Quoted from Brzezinski Z. Velikiya shakhmatnaya doska (The Grand Chessboard) - Moscow, 1998, p. 20.

9] See for details: Straus I. 'Unipolarity. The Concentric Structure of the New World Order and the Position of Russia' Kosmopolis, 1997, p. 154-155.

10] Carr E. The Twenty Years' Crisis 1919-1939. An introduction to the Study of International Relations. L., 1939, p. 18. Quoted from Polis, 2000, ? 3, p. 138.

11] Hassner P. La violence et la paix. De la bombe atomique au nettroyage ethnique. P., 1995; Quoted from Hassner P. Nasiliye i mir. Ot atomnoi bomby do yetnicheskoi chistki (La violence et la paix. De la bombe atomique au nettroyage ethnique) - St. Petersburg, 1999, p. 319.

12] Kissinger H. Diplomacy, first published N.Y., 1994; Quoted from Kissinger H. Diplomatiya (Diplomacy) - Moscow, 1997, p. 733-734.

13] See therein: Khoros V.G. 'Globalizatsiya i Periferiya' Postindustrialny mir i Rossiya ('Globalization and Peripheries' The Post-Industrial World and Russia) - Moscow, 2000, p. 260-270; Yelyanov A.Ya. Problemy i protivorechiya globalizatsii // Postindustrialny mir i Rossiya (Problems and Contradictions of Globalization // The Post-Industrial World and Russia) - Moscow, 2000, p. 271-284.

14] See therein: Jean K., Savona P. Geoyekonomika (Geoeconomics) - Moscow, 1997; Luttwack E. 'The Coming Global War for Economic Power' The International Economy, 1993, ? 5, p. 28-69, etc.

15] See Waltz K. Man, the State and War - N.Y., 1959.

16] See therein: Buchanan A. Secession. Boulder, 1991.

17] See, e . g., Walzer M. On Toleration. Yale Univ. Press, 1997; Kymlicka W. Multicultural Citizenship, N.Y., 1995.

* This article was prepared with financial assistance from the Russian State Scientific Foundation, project ? 00-03-00322a
Translated from the Russian