ABSTRACT
The study of world order--or world politics, international relations, or any other differentiation of the discourse--is part of a pervasive metatheoretical contradiction. International political theory appears to be particularly susceptible to the general problem. And yet, of all the areas of modern social and political thought, it is the study of world politics which seems to have most stubbornly resisted any examination of the central contradiction inherent in its subject. A tension between universalism and pluralism may be traced throughout the development of Westen political theory. Any analysis of world politics made in terms of the traditional liberal model begins with the assumption that a sharp dichotomy can and must be made between the nature of life within sovereign states and the interactions that occur between such states. Even among traditionalists, however, this initial distinction between domestic and international politics is rarely pushed to its most extreme conclusions. Domestic political theory is usually said to be characterized by universalist values.
