Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-tf8b9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-30T15:05:12.099Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Technical Change: Political Options and Imperatives

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2014

Roger Williams
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

By The Standards of The Solar System, Where are found the only comparable bodies of whose existence we have certain knowledge, the earth is not a large planet. For most of recorded history, on the other hand, it has certainly seemed so to its inhabitants, and only in recent decades has a different perception come to prevail, as instanced, for example, by the much-remarked Ward-Dubos book of 1972, Only One Earth — The Care and Maintenance of a Small Planet. In 1872 Phileas Fogg needed almost eighty days to go around the world, in 1961 Yuri Gagarin managed the feat in little more than eighty minutes, and nowadays less intrepid travellers than these think nothing of accomplishing the task using commercial aircraft in comfortably less than eighty hours. Photographic images and, in general, data of unlimited complexity meanwhile circle the globe virtually instantaneously. The technologies here are those of transport and communications but in most other areas of human activity too the twentieth century has seen similar technological strides.

Type
Original Articles
Information
Government and Opposition , Volume 28 , Issue 2 , 01 April 1993 , pp. 152 - 173
Copyright
Copyright © Government and Opposition Ltd 1993

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Barbara, Ward and Dubos, Rene, Only One Earth – The Care and Maintenance of a Small Planet.Google Scholar

2 The allusion is to Barnet, R. J. and Muller, R. E., Global Reach, London, Cape, 1975.Google Scholar

3 Kaiser, Karl, ‘A View from Europe: The US Role in the Next Decade’, International Affairs, 65, 1989, pp. 209–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4 Buzan, Barry and Guatem, Sen, ‘The Impact of Military Research and Development Priorities on the Evolution of the Civil Economy in Capitalist States’, Review of International Studies, 16, 1990, pp. 321–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

5 Quinlan, Michael, ‘Nuclear Weapons and the Abolition of War’, International Affairs, 67, 2, 1991, pp. 293–301.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

6 Grubb, Michel, ‘The Greenhouse Effect: Negotiating Targets’, International Affairs, 66, 1, 1990, pp. 67–89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

7 Richard Elliot, Benedick, ‘Ozone Diplomacy: New Directions in Safeguarding the Planet’, Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press, 1991.Google Scholar

8 Vogler, John, ‘Regimes and the Global Commons’ in Anthony, G. McGrew, S. Paul, Lewis, G. et al., Global Politics, Cambridge, Polity Press, 1992, pp. 118–37.Google Scholar

9 Piel, Gerard, Only One World: Our Own to Make and Keep, New York, Freeman, 1992.Google Scholar

10 Adler, Emanuel and Peter, M. Haas, ‘Conclusion: Epistemic Communities, World Order, and the Creation of a Reflective Research Program’, International Organisation, Winter 1992, Special Issue, 46, 1, pp. 367–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

11 Segal, Gerald, The World Affairs Companion, London, Simon & Schuster, 1991, p. 40.Google Scholar

12 Jr.Joseph, S. Nye, ‘What New World Order?’, Foreign Affairs, Spring 1992, pp. 83–96.Google Scholar

13 Joseph, A. Camilleri and Falk, Jim, The End of Sovereignty? The Politics of a Shrinking and Fragmented World, Aldershot, Hants, Edward Elgar, 1992.Google Scholar

14 O'Brien, Richard, Global Financial Integration: The End of Geography, London, Pinter for RIIA, 1992.Google Scholar

15 Ostry, Sylvia, Governments and Corporations in a Shrinking World: Trade and Innovation Policies in the United States, Europe and Japan, New York, Council on Foreign Relations, 1990.Google Scholar

16 Bressand, Albert, ‘Beyond Interdependence: 1992 as a Global Challenge’, International Affairs, 66, 1, 1990, pp. 47–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

17 Masefield, Thorold, ‘Co‐prosperity and co‐security. Managing the Developed World’, International Affairs, 1989, 65, pp. 1–13.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

18 Stopford, John and Strange, Susan, Rival Firms, Rival Firms: Competition for World Market Shares, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1991 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Strange, Susan, ‘Status, Firms, Diplomacy’, International Affairs, 68, 1, 1992, pp. 1–15.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

19 Pirages, Dennis, Global Technopolitics. The International Politics of Technology and Resources, Pacific Grove, Calif., Brooks/Cole, 1989, pp. 175–6.Google Scholar

20 Roberts, Adam, ‘A New Age in International Relations?’, International Affairs, 67, 3, 1991, pp. 509–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

21 Henderson, David, ‘International Economic Integration: Progress, Prospects and Implications’, International Affairs, 68, 4, 1992, pp. 633–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

22 Zysman, John, ‘US Power, Trade and Technology’, International Affairs, 67, 1, 1991, pp. 81–106.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

23 Skolnikoff, Eugene B., The International Imperatives of Technology, Berkeley, University of California, Institute of International Studies, Research Series N:16, 1972, pp. 153–177.Google Scholar