ABSTRACT
Recent thinking about international politics and world order reflects a number of challenges to the global hegemony of Western modernity at the level of both theory and praxis. It draws upon critiques of the processes of underdevelopment, of the exploitation of labour and resources in the Third World by multinational conglomerates, and of the more subtle processes of cultural domination which accompany the blunter forms of political and economic control. It thus depends upon the identification of the central contradictions of the modern world. Three elements of this challenge seem to be of particular importance: the reassertion of the value of nationalism and autonomy in the face of a tradition of thought which has usually viewed the state as the major problem to be overcome; the emphasis on the importance of 'culture' as the central focus of analysis; and the attempt to canvas non-Western cultural traditions as a necessary part of the search for a 'just' world order.
