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The article discusses the bipolar international system involving the U.S. and China in terms of international relations, nature and effectiveness of global governance and economic interaction among the superpowers and smaller states. Topics include how U.S. and China bipolarity will differ from the U.S. and Soviet Union bipolarity, what U.S. and China bipolarity will mean for the U.S. and its key European and Asian allies, and the alliance security dilemma dynamics that the U.S. will have to face when it comes allies who face a security threat from China.

The article presents a discussion of the concept of U.S. power and influence in international affairs often referred to as "the American Century," adapted from the book "Is the American Century Over?" by Joseph S. Nye. It argues that while the American century had not concluded by the early 21st century, the role of the U.S. in international affairs was in significant transition. It discusses the concepts of the mythology of U.S. hegemony, global world order, and the appearance of U.S. preeminence in economic and military power resources during the Cold War with the Soviet Union.

Since the end of the Cold War, scholars have debated the merits of the major theoretical traditions in international relations and foreign policy. Neorealism was criticized for failing to predict the end of bipolarity in material capabilities. Constructivism emerged during this time as a viable alternative explanation for the Cold War based on the role of ideas. This paper seeks to assess the impact of material and ideational factors on the origin, development, and end of the Cold War through an examination of the roles adopted by U.S. Presidents in their foreign policy doctrines. The paper finds that the origin of the Cold War was primarily ideational and was constituted by the 'roles of bipolarity' adopted in the Truman Doctrine. During the Cold War, minor variations in these roles can be explained by shifts in material capabilities. The end of the Cold War was the result of changes in Soviet ideas, which were later confirmed by the collapse of the Soviet Union. After the end of bipolarity, we see the United States struggling to identify its proper foreign policy role. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the nineteenth century, the Ottoman Empire was trying to locate itself culturally within the frame of the post-Enlightenment European policies. Ethnocultural factors led to political changes in the territorial structure of the Empire. In this era, the Ottoman Empire created a promising milieu for the introduction of grandiose design projects, and such buildings formed part of a modernization process, which defined a new relationship to Europe. This article investigates the bipolarity of the architectural design discourse between the existing traditions and the new approaches introduced by this modernization process, including its consequences into the post-Empire period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The fall of the Berlin Wall inspired speculation about why the Cold War came to such an abrupt and shocking end, why no school of thought anticipated its demise, and what the event meant for international relations theory ( ). A set of articles simultaneously emerged purporting to identify the most salient aspects of the new system—structural and otherwise—and to anticipate the direction in which it was heading. This essay begins a reexamination of some of those predictions, using the evidence that has accumulated over the decade and a half since the collapse of bipolarity to evaluate how early visions of the post-Cold War international system have matched the events that followed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay argues that the field of international relations has exhibited “progress” of the sort found in the natural sciences. Several well-known accounts of “science” and “progress” are adumbrated; four offer positive accounts of progress (those of Peirce, Duhem, Popper, and Lakatos) and one evidences a negative assessment (Kuhn). Recent studies of the democratic peace—both supporting and opposing—are analyzed to show that they satisfy the terms of each of the definitions of scientific progress. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Relative gains do not inhibit cooperation to nearly the extent suggested by realist theorists of international relations. The relative gains argument posits that international cooperation is limited because states worry about how well they do relative to each other rather than how well they do themselves. I examine this proposition by developing an iterated Prisoners' Dilemma model where states are exclusively relative gains maximizers. This creates a zero-sum situation and completely eliminates decentralized cooperation in the two-actor case. By contrast, the large n case is also zero-sum but relative gains have no impact on cooperation. In general, as the number of states in- creases, relative gains become increasingly irrelevant to the prospects for cooperation. An examination of the transition problem from anarchy to cooperation shows that initiating cooperation is also no more difficult under relative than absolute gains. Finally, relative gains are shown to be inconsistent with tight bipolarity. Thus realist theorists will have to look elsewhere to ground their theory if they wish to demonstrate the improbability of international cooperation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study puts forward a theoretical framework which is suggested to explain the onset of systemic war and its absence during long periods of systemic continuity. The basis of this framework is an international structure, called the hierarchical equilibrium, which consists of: (a) two or more alliances (or other loose hierarchies such as loosely knit empires) of varying size and composition but clearly including a great power and a number of small powers within each; and (b) a relatively large number of small powers not formally associated with any of the great powers. A set of stochastic equilibrium equations is associated with the theory and was tested for the period 1816–1964 using Correlates of War dispute data. The equations were obeyed in the 19th century and post-World War II period, but not in the intervals approaching both World Wars, thus suggesting the ability of the framework to distinguish between essentially peaceful periods and those which are prone to the onset of systemic war. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper empirically examines four hypotheses related to the relationship between class structure and status hierarchies in contemporary Japan. The homogeneity hypothesis claims that there are no longer any fundamental differences in life styles among different classes in contemporary Japan and that the status composition of various classes is highly homogeneous. The bipolarity hypothesis suggests that the basis of the distribution of various status characteristics is polarised along the lines of the ownership of the means of production and that classes are divided into two basic groups with respect to their status attributes. The status inconsistency hypothesis predicts that various status characteristics of classes are inconsistent so that classes cannot be characterised by consistently high or low status attributes. The dual structure hypothesis suggests that the distribution of status attributes is further stratified by firm size among Japanese employees. The empirical analysis supports the dual structure hypothesis. Japanese employees in large firms tend to have better status attributes than those in small and medium-sized firms even though they occupy the same class positions. The bipolarity and the status inconsistency hypotheses also receive partial support from the data. Bipolarity is marked at the extremes of Japanese class structure while classes which occupy partially dominant locations in social relations of production tend to show status inconsistency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article is a comment by the author on the topic discussed by Art Shulman in which he compared a bipolar reversal scale with an agreement scale for extremity response bias. The agreement scale elicited less extremity bias than the bipolar reversal scale. Review of Shulman's procedures indicates the need to clarify several methodological issues that influence the substantive results and conclusions of the research. While, according to the author, extremity bias was based on the number of individuals who used the extreme category "in all or all but one of the attribute ratings." However, Shulman indicated that the number of attributes for rating brands varied from 7 to 18. Thus, the theoretical probabilities for extreme raters depend on the number of attribute ratings irrespective of scale, and whether a new or established brand was rated. Author feels, the definition of extremity bias is not independent of the number of attributes rated. Accordingly, the results of the study may reflect differences in type of scale, differences in the number of attributes rated, or a combination of these factors. This is needed for a clear interpretation of results. Again, Shulman's design requires an additional check to insure that the experimental treatments are matched with regard to the number of attributes.