ABSTRACT
The traditional model of world affairs has emphasized competition as the norm and cooperation as the exception. Solving global problems is made more urgent by the widening chasm between the rich North and poor South, a reality confirmed by an endless stream of research findings. Naivete oozes from people who continue viewing ecological problems such as India’s population explosion, or starvation in Sudan’s Darfur region, or rising water levels threatening low-lying areas such as the Seychelles Islands, as someone else’s problem. The revolution of rising expectations associated with communications globalization also makes the poor much better informed about their lowly status; and the wealth gap provides motivation for desperate Third Worlders to use the shrinking world’s endless variety of ways to deliver terrorism. The process of adapting to a changing world and adopting new attitudes and policies is an incremental one. Before consensus-based policies can be implemented, dialogue must become institutionalized.
