Overview
Provides five essential goals that politicians and states in the contemporary world pursue, and discusses the meaning and significance of each goal by referring to cases in many countries in history and today;
Tries to prioritize these goals and describe the interactions between them in order to understand the complexities of world politics today;
Defines the criteria and virtues of being a “good state” and suggests what China and some other countries should do to become a better body politic.
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Table of contents (9 chapters)
Keywords
About this book
The author identifies and defines security, wealth, faith, justice, and freedom as five ultimate goals in world politics and explains why they are central. Without jargons and using many cases in China and other countries, the author illustrates that different countries at different times have varied priorities in their national politics, but they must provide security, sustain economic growth, set up a value system, maintain social justice, and secure personal freedom for their citizens. Although the world today has been relatively peaceful and accumulated much more wealth as compared to the past centuries, vacuums of faith and morality, conflicting beliefs, and lack of social justice are threatening mankind.
In theory, the five ultimate goals should be reached simultaneously and reinforce each other. However, in practice they are often in contradiction. For example, national security might be strengthened at the expense of prosperity, and industrialization for economic growth has sacrificed nontraditional security interests such as the environment. The accumulation of wealth often results in its unequal distribution and grievances about injustice, and freedom and equality are regarded by some political thinkers as “natural enemies” to each other.
A virtuous state should be able to reach all the five goals, while a bad state may not have even one of them. Looking around the world today, Denmark in Europe and Japan in Asia are closer to a virtuous state than most other countries despite their own deficiencies, but they are generally homogeneous in terms of ethnicity and culture. Singapore, with its ethnic diversity, has to limit freedom to obtain other goals. This book compares the development paths of China, the United States, and some other countries to demonstrate their advantages and disadvantages in becoming a better polity.
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About the author
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Essential Goals in World Politics
Authors: Jisi Wang
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-0562-8
Publisher: Springer Singapore
eBook Packages: Political Science and International Studies, Political Science and International Studies (R0)
Copyright Information: CITIC Press Corporation 2021
Hardcover ISBN: 978-981-16-0561-1Published: 05 May 2021
Softcover ISBN: 978-981-16-0564-2Published: 06 May 2022
eBook ISBN: 978-981-16-0562-8Published: 04 May 2021
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: XII, 161
Number of Illustrations: 1 b/w illustrations, 1 illustrations in colour
Topics: Comparative Politics, Political Theory, Political Philosophy