Amidst changing voter preferences and unexpected volatility in candidate fortunes, the 1984 contest for the Democratic presidential nomination contained at least one constant. From Iowa and New Hampshire through “Super Tuesday” and the middle round in big industrial states to the early June finale, voter preferences among the major contenders for the Democratic nomination diverged sharply by age.

Gary Hart enjoyed his greatest support among young voters, while Walter Mondale's strength was drawn from older voters, especially those over 65. The appeal of Jesse Jackson varied by age as well. Young blacks flocked to the Jackson banner. Older blacks, perhaps no less excited by the presence of an attractive black candidate for president, were more reluctant to follow, giving a greater share of their vote than did young blacks to Walter Mondale. Not since the protest candidacies of McCarthy and Kennedy in 1968 or the more successful insurgency of McGovern in 1972 has so much attention been paid to the contrasting responses of Americans of different ages to candidates for the presidency.

Popular accounts of the relationship of age to presidential choice in 1984 have treated these differences as indicative of generational conflict. The epicenter of the Hart constituency is located in the “Vietnam” or “baby boom” generation, while Mondale's generational home base has been placed among voters who came of age politically during the New Deal. The implication is that Mondale represented vestiges of the old Democratic New Deal coalition, whereas Hart was the candidate of Americans for whom the New Deal is only an historical footnote. Simply put, the 1984 Democratic battle commonly has been described as pitting the old coalition against the new ideas.

In the sixteenth year of the Peloponnesian War, an Athenian expedition descended upon the small island of Melos, about 90 miles south of Athens in the Aegean Sea, and demanded that the Melians join in alliance or be destroyed. Although a Spartan colony, Melos had remained scrupulously neutral in the war. Her citizens, unwilling to renounce their independence, sought unsuccessfully to dissuade the Athenians from attacking them. The Athenians explained that an independent Melos situated in the very heart of the Athenian imperium encouraged other island allies to aspire toward independence. Their failure to put an end to the anomaly of Melian independence would therefore be seen by friend and foe alike as a sign of weakness on Athens' part.

The really intriguing question about the Melian dialogue is not the Athenian decision to invade Melos but rather Athenian toleration of Melian independence for the first sixteen years of the Peloponnesian War. For surely, if Melian independence constituted a threat to Athens in 416 B.C. it must have done so in 430 B.C., the year in which the war broke out, and in all of the years in between. Why then did Athens wait so long to impose its hegemony over the island? The answer, implicit in Thucydides' narrative history of the Peloponnesian War, contains an important insight into the nature of aggression, one, moreover, that is particularly germane to contemporary international relations.

The Athenian reply to the Melians stresses the subjective nature of power; if others think of you as powerful, you are powerful and vice versa. For this reason, states must be concerned about their image abroad and must from time to time offer vivid demonstrations of their capability and resolve. The Athenian invasion of Melos, unnecessary for any strategic reason, was envisaged as such a display.

Few political theorists today try to show how the principles of theory should guide our judgments of policy. Theorists think that their job is done when they have explained the principles, or (more commonly) when they have interpreted the principles of other theorists. The connection between the principles and the policies of governments is left for citizens themselves to make. Yet making that connection—exercising political judgment—is an essential part of citizenship, and should have a prominent place in the education of citizens.

Political theorists have not always neglected the making of judgments about particular policies. The disdain of the particular that marks much contemporary theorizing was not shared by the great theorists of the past. The tradition of theory begins (or at least the curriculum traditionally begins) with the greatest case study of all—Socrates' trial. Although later theorists usually settled for less exalted examples, they continued to see their vocation as calling for comment on the actual policies of rulers and their rivals. Recall Aristotle's letters to Alexander, Augustine's criticism of the Donatists, Machiavelli's commentary on the corruption of Florentine rulers, Hobbes' analysis of the Long Parliament, Locke's advice to the Board of Trade, or Rousseau's critique of the government of Poland.

As an independent basic social science, the study of politics occupies an important position among all the social sciences. In 1952, however, China abolished political science teaching and research. This was a mistake which is now being corrected. China has reestablished the field of political science in recent years.

When a historical event is shown to be mistaken, people often like to describe the reasons for its having taken place as very absurd and unimaginable, as though to demonstrate how confused people were at that time compared with how smart we are now. Such a simple attitude, however, will not help us in understanding the realities scientifically nor will it help us in learning from the lessons of history, and is therefore to be avoided.

This essay describes both objective conditions and the way people thought, both in the early 1950s and after 1976. It deals with two opposite events: first, the abolition of political science in China three decades ago, and second, its current revival.

The strategic consensus that has characterized American official and popular thinking about nuclear weapons since World War II has greatly eroded in recent years. That consensus consisted not only of an American determination to use nuclear weapons to deter a direct Soviet attack on the United States but also of a commitment to extend the American deterrent to cover a Soviet nuclear or large-scale conventional attack on America's principal allies. In the face of the recent massive and continuing growth of Soviet nuclear and conventional capabilities this consensus has come under growing challenge.

This challenge to the consensus on the policy of nuclear deterrence has come from both ends of the political spectrum. On the political “right,” the Reagan administration has argued that deterrence alone is too weak a reed to forestall a Soviet attack on the United States or one of its allies; the prevention of a Soviet attack requires the development of a nuclear war-fighting strategy similar to that which the Soviets themselves are presumed to possess. On the political “left,” a large and highly vocal antinuclear movement largely under the banner of the “freeze,” challenges one aspect or another of the deterrence strategy and demands a deemphasis on, if not the complete elimination of, nuclear weapons. Both of these positions, I believe, are flawed and fail to provide a satisfactory solution to the difficult situation in which the United States finds itself in the closing decades of the twentieth century.

In 1968 a wave of student protest manifested itself throughout the Western world. Fifteen years later, a phenomenon variously described as the “Yuppies” or “Yumpies” began to be noted in the United States; a new environmentalist party entered the West German Bundestag for the first time; and a peace movement emerged in Western Europe that was able to mobilize an even larger and more mature segment of the public than did the anti-war movements of the Vietnam era.

These seemingly dissimilar phenomena have something in common: they reflect a process of intergenerational value change that is gradually transforming the politics of Western societies. This process—a shift from Materialist to Postmaterialist value priorities—has brought new political issues to the center of the stage, and provided much of the impetus for new political movements. It has split existing political parties and given rise to new ones. And it raises serious doubts about the long-term viability of the Atlantic Alliance.

Citizenship is not one of the issues political scientists hotly contest. Yet perhaps we have failed to recognize the profoundly controversial issues involved in citizenship. One of the most difficult for the modern citizen is, of course, whether the classical ideal of “high citizenship” remains a possibility. But the ideal of ruling and being ruled will not be my concern here. Rather, my concern will focus on the fact that citizenship has historically been a very exclusive social category. Many groups have struggled to attain the status of citizen. In the United States to be poor, black, or female, has for the most part meant automatic disenfranchisement. Citizenship, then, concerns the question of one's position in the community of which one is a part. It is, of course, not the only determinant by far and is itself dependent on other factors. Yet given these considerations, teaching about citizenship must raise the ethical issues which, if made as prominent as they deserve to be, would indeed make citizenship the subject of controversy.

In this short essay, I can address only one aspect of these issues—that which centers on the relation of gender to citizenship. Although today many of us attempt to speak about citizenship in gender-neutral language, the connections of citizenship with manliness, established so long ago, still influence both thinking about citizenship and the conduct of rulers and ruled. Thus, the familiar gender gap on issues of peace and war should be seen as a symptom of deeper issues about politics, problems with a history traceable over several thousand years of Western history, problems defined by the overlay of citizenship, manliness, and military capacity.

As is the case with other social science disciplines and sub-disciplines, the field of international relations (IR) is beginning to assume a scholarly identity in China today. In some respects the field is building upon a foundation laid prior to the Cultural Revolution (when in 1964 then-Premier Zhou Enlai ordered the establishment of several IR research institutes and academic training programs), but in a very real sense it is only now being established for the first time. China's current opening to the world has provided additional stimulus to the development of the field as China's leaders and bureaucrats seek policy-oriented analyses of foreign nations. The field is expanding rapidly. This study will assess the current state of the field and will evaluate the potential for and impediments to developing the discipline.

Defining the Discipline

Various complex problems arise in trying to define the scope of the discipline of international relations in the Chinese context. Perhaps the biggest problem is that Chinese IR scholars and specialists have not themselves clearly delineated the parameters of their field. International relations therefore does not yet have a distinct identity as a discipline despite an increasingly strong institutional base of scholarship and analysis.