ABSTRACT
Cultural and ideological themes have been invoked with increasing regularity in the analysis of international affairs. The tendency to separate politics and economics has been one of the main characteristics of twentieth-century liberal thought. The relativity of Western claims to universality has become the target of Third World criticism of the global hegemony of the modernized industrial states. Resistance has taken the form of a critique of ideological and cultural forms assumed by the global hegemony of the industrialized powers. "East Wind prevails over West Wind" is an aphorism attributed to Mao, but it echoes in many languages in an increasingly complex world. The long-entrenched claims to universality made by Western sociopolitical theory and philosophy appear to be increasingly vulnerable both on their own terms and on those of other civilizational traditions that are able to assert themselves in the modern world. The chapter also presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book.
