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The much heralded "new world order" does exist, at least according to Jessica Tuchman Matthews, who spoke last night to nearly 200 people in Dartmouth Hall.
Matthews, who is visiting Dartmouth this week as a Montgomery Fellow, spoke 40 minutes on the current state of world politics in a lecture titled "Old States and New Actors: the Shape of the World of New Politics."
Matthews is a columnist for The Washington Post and a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.
In her speech, Matthews said the world as it has existed for the last 50 years was an aberration.
She said the cold war concerns of national security that once dominated global attention are taking a backstage to new situations on the world stage, making the "nation-state" a less important player in international affairs.
"We are on the threshold of a new era in international affairs," she said.
She cited some impressive statistics to back her claim.
"Our species has caused more change in the planet in the last 50 years than it had in the previous 8,000," she said.
Matthews highlighted the recent boom in information technology -- the oft-invoked "Information Superhighway" -- as a major reason for the decreased importance of the nation-state.
"The main weapon in the Tienanmen Square uprising was the fax machine, and the first targets of both the '91 and '93 attempted coups in Russia were television stations," she said, emphasizing her point.
The increased prominence of multi-national corporations has contributed to the creation of a more global environment, she said.
