The paper tries to shed light on the conceptual link between international crises like the one following September 11, 2001, the Asian financial crisis of 1997/1998, the end of the Cold War or major international conflicts, and processes of change in the international system. It argues that...

With the beginning of the post‐Maoist era, the focus of Chinese foreign policy shifted from ideology and revolution to pragmatism and reform. Chinese scholars in the field of International Relations (IR) are now encouraged to develop abstract scientific analyses of China's international...

The “financial crisis” and its sequel, the current sovereign debt crisis, appear to be the latest permutations of an old conflict between capitalism and democracy that forcefully reasserted itself after the end of the postwar growth period. Today’s calamities were preceded by high...

This paper discusses the management of the crisis in Greece, arguing that it was based on a series of diagnoses that justified fiscal discipline by stigmatizing the Greek economy and society, and that it had a narrow understanding of the reasons for Greece’s deteriorating competitiveness. I...

Der Aufsatz beschäftigt sich mit der Frage, ob eine Systemtheorie, in deren Zentrum die funktionelle Differenzierung steht, einen analytischen Rahmen für eine über die deskriptive Auflistung einzelner Faktoren hinausgehende Erklärung der zu der jüngsten internationalen Krise des...