World political science regards world politics as an integrated whole, aiming to study the evolution of the nature and basic order of world politics. Its research approach is to examine the common factors and forces that shape the world political landscape and world order, as well as trigger their major changes. World political theories attempt to explain the main factors and mechanisms of order transformation from three dimensions: fundamental driving forces, direct driving forces, and operational mechanisms.
The fundamental driving forces of world politics include technological revolutions, struggles for recognition, capital and the world market, etc. These fundamental driving forces give rise to the direct driving forces of world politics—the ebb and flow of world political thoughts and the changes in the landscape of world political forces. The world political landscape shapes the world political order through such operational mechanisms as power coercion, learning and internalization, and political compromise. Eventually, through domestic and international political struggles, diverse concrete forms of basic international order and national institutions come into being.
To promote the research and academic exchanges of world political science, World Politics Research Center of Chenghai Institute of Global Development and Security has launched a series of publications titled World Politics Briefing. The Briefing is intended to present readers with academic masterpieces closely related to the research agenda of world political science, including monographs and papers published by scholars both at home and abroad in recent years. It is issued on a monthly basis, with each issue introducing the main contents of three academic achievements. The Briefing is for academic research purposes only, and the contents of the compiled works do not represent the views of this Center.
The theme of this issue is "Political Trends as the Driving Force of World Political Development". Three papers are selected for studies:
"A Brotherhood of Nations: Imagining the Nation-based Order During the Springtime of Nations (1848)" by Arthur Duhé analyzes how the imagination of European nationalism in 1848 was transformed into a nation-based order and its corresponding domestic and international hierarchies. It aims to study the hierarchy of nationalism. By focusing on the imaginary and images of nationalism, it traces the formation of hierarchy through various archival sources, including revolutionary songs, memoirs, and engravings. How was the nation-based order imagined? The author argues that the revolutionaries of 1848, who demanded nation-states across Europe in the name of national fraternity, imagined hierarchies both within nations and between nations, thereby constituting the nation-based order. It examines the images and imaginary in nationalism through discourse analysis. Images enable the emotional imagining of the nation and derive meaning from specific imaginative contexts, while the imaginary is historically constructed and embedded in discourse. Nationalism relies heavily on images rather than formal concepts, and the same images can sustain conflicting imaginaries. Images materialize the imaginary into political order, hierarchy, and affective atmospheres. According to the author, following the collapse of the Spring of Nations, the nationalist imaginary of the 1848 revolutionaries fell into crisis. On the one hand, official nationalism reshaped the nationalist imaginary: some European dynastic regimes recognized the emerging nation‑based order, yet appropriated a distorted version of it for their own purposes. On the other hand, socialists criticized the nationalist imaginary and advocated the international fraternity of workers. The failure of the 1848 Revolution did not end the imagery of fraternity, but led to the dominance of specific versions of it. After 1848, the entire political spectrum employed the imagery of fraternity to endorse, debate, and reject the nation‑based order.
"What Is Colonialism? The Dual Claims of A Twentieth-Century Political Category" by Nazmul Sultan. As a conceptual history examination reflecting reality, this paper traces the evolution of the concept of colonialism, aiming to clarify the complexly intertwined historical, political, and intellectual structures behind it. Existing literature on colonialism emphasizes distinguishing the similarities, differences, and boundaries between colonialism and imperialism. The author attempts to go beyond this approach by shifting the focus to specific debates surrounding the idea of colonialism within 20th-century anti-colonial political trends. The author finds that colonialism carries a dual meaning of "two sides of the same coin". It serves both as a historical reference to the global landscape of European imperial expansion, and as an analytical framework that generally reveals the unequal and oppressive power structures underlying hierarchical domination, cultural devaluation, and developmental deprivation. The examination and application of these meanings inherently embody organized and intentional political and normative claims. It can be argued that colonialism's enduring political mobilizing and theoretical explanatory power stems not from its clear definition, but precisely from this pair of ideas and claims that simultaneously support and tension each other. Based on a retrospective analysis of conceptual history, the article concludes by emphasizing that colonialism became so significant in the twentieth century precisely because it could both recount a real history and advance universal claims concerning justice and equality. Only by maintaining an awareness of this dual assertion can one truly grasp the political legacy left by colonialism and effectively respond to the unequal power structures in contemporary world politics in the postcolonial era.
"Reframing Centre-left Neoliberalism: New Keynesian Theory, Third Way Ideology, and the Construction of An Elite Consensus in the US, Britain, and Australia" by Brent Toye and Dillon Wamsley. This paper challenges the conventional analysis that attributes neoliberal hegemony primarily to right-wing ideas and forces. Drawing on Gramsci's theory of hegemony, the author argues that the center-left social blocs represented by the Clinton, Blair, and Hawke‑Keating governments did not merely passively accept or reluctantly adapt to neoliberalism. Instead, by actively absorbing and reforming neo-Keynesian theories, they developed an endogenous and distinctive ideology, thereby participating positively and successfully in the construction of neoliberal "common sense" and ultimately consolidating their position within the neoliberal hegemonic order. It reveals that neo-Keynesianism is by no means a neutral economic theory, but a dominant ideology that has profoundly shaped and constrained the political boundaries of possibility for the center-left. It has successfully transformed the center-left into a key defender, rather than a challenger, of the neoliberal order. By providing scientific legitimacy, delineating policy boundaries, and building elite networks, neo-Keynesianism ensures that when the center-left participates in governance, it does not undermine the core pillars of neoliberalism—fiscal discipline, flexible labor markets, financial dominance, and supply-side competitiveness. The success of this ideology lies in the fact that it leads the center-left to perceive itself as pursuing a shrewder and more modern form of progressivism, while in reality it is systematically reproducing and consolidating the neoliberal order. To achieve a genuine paradigm shift, the contemporary center-left must undertake a thorough reflection and reconstruction of the ideological tradition in which it is deeply embedded. This means not merely putting forward new policy proposals, but fundamentally challenging the theoretical premises and policy boundaries set by neo-Keynesianism. This includes rethinking the role of the state in the economy, transcending the false opposition between "productive investment" and "redistributive expenditure," revisiting fiscal and monetary policy, challenging the sanctity of central bank independence and inflation targeting, and reimagining the meaning of social justice beyond the narrow framework of human capital and competitiveness. Only through such ideological emancipation can the center-left escape its historical role as the manager of neoliberalism and emerge as a truly decisive political force.