Inequality is becoming an urgent issue of world politics at the end of the twentieth century. Globalization is not only exacerbating the gap between rich and poor in the world but is also further dividing those states and peoples that have political power and influence from those without. While the powerful shape more `global' rules and norms about investment, military security, environmental and social policy and the like, the less powerful are becoming `rule-takers', often of rules or norms they cannot or will not enforce. The consequences for world politics are profound. The evidence presented in Inequality, Globalization, and World Politics suggests that globalization is creating sharper, more urgent problems for states and international institutions to deal with. Yet at the same time, investigations into eight core areas of world politics suggest that growing inequality is reducing the capacity of governments and existing international organizations to manage these problems effectively. The eight areas surveyed include: international order, international law, welfare and social policy, global justice, regionalism and multilateralism, environmental protection, gender equality, military power, and security.

The increase in inequality produced by globalization is becoming an urgent issue of world politics. A group of leading scholars systematically examine its impact on international order, international law, welfare, and social policy, global justice, regionalism and multilateralism, environmental protection, gender equality, military power, and security.

The past five years have witnessed a resurgence of regionalism in world politics and an increasingly important role for regional institutions. This book provides a timely and authoritative analysis of recent trends towards the new regionalism and regionalization, assessing their origins, present and future prospects and place in the evolving international order.

In this fundamental text, Hedley Bull explores three key questions: What is the nature of order in world politics? How is it maintained within the contemporary states system? And do desirable and feasible alternatives to the states system exist? Contrary to common claims, Bull asserts that the sovereign states system is not in decline. Rather, it persists and thrives, as it is essential to maintaining an international world order.

More than three decades after its publication, Bull's classic work continues to define and direct research in international relations. In this thirty-fifth anniversary edition, the text has been updated and includes a new interpretive foreword by the world's leading expert on Bull and his contributions to the theory, structures, and practices of world politics. "The Anarchical Society" identifies and confronts the unwritten rules supporting the international order across history, despite sweeping changes in laws and institutions. It considers and rejects the idea that the states system is giving way to an alternative world government or some method of neo-medieval rule or that the states system has ceased to be viable or compatible with objectives such as peace, economic justice, and ecological control. Bull also reviews and comments upon a variety of proposals for states system reform.