Stalking A New World Order

The chapter reviews some of the conceptions of order as applied to the social sciences, stressing the notion of complex order which includes a dialectic tension between differentiation and integration. The claim made is that despite cultural and temporal differences, complex order is a goal that is endorsed by human communities everywhere. In a period of often catastrophic globalization, it is argued that the elements of a new world order must be discovered and implemented, or else the tensions inherent in the increasing inequality of access to resources might lead to even more violent conflicts than hitherto experienced on the planet.