ABSTRACT
This chapter deals with a short recapitulation of some conventional order conceptions. It identifies the minimum requirements of any social order, and to distinguish international order from world order. The chapter the idea that in iterative bargains precedents, customs and traditions can serve as guide posts for structuring expectations, thus making the coordination of choices possible. It discusses the availability of commonly shared symbols allows an assessment of the moves of the other party, and may therefore allow for the development of interactions without major disappointments. The importance of overarching symbols, including a shift of attitudes from purely ethnocentric to more global concerns and their connection with the goals of the “reformist” school of world order studies, becomes obvious. Domestic political systems have political entrepreneurs or leaders who can manipulate diffuse symbols, which invoke loyalty and stress the symbiotic character of the social order.
