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The principal world trends at the turn of the century provide the basis for specifying a new political agenda for both policy-makers and political sociologists. In an age of paradoxes and excess, globalization is countered by cultural identity and fragmentation, the drive for democratization is juxtaposed against pervasive violence and destruction, and population growth and shifts are likely to further widen the gap between Northern Hemisphere countries and those in the South. If the earth and its people are to survive, policy-makers must take leadership in emphasizing greater balance, responsibility, and cooperative planning. Political sociologists' attempts to understand the changing relationship between society and politics will be affected as well.
AT CENTURY'S END
As the 20th century ebbs and a new century is about to begin, we face an unsettled, uncertain era, full of cross currents and apprehension -- much like the end of the l9th century, which J.B. Priestley described as "a giant crack in history" where one world ended and another age began. Now as the 1990s wind down, not only is a century ending but a millennium as well, likely to spark a cottage industry of expert reflections and recommendations about where this century has taken us and where we may be headed in the future. As the trend-watchers, scholars, and pundits que up to offer their end-of-the-century observations, few groups should be more excited than political sociologists, whose job it is to study the illusive and shifting relationship between society and politics. The task of this essay is to specify a political agenda for the coming century. Our approach will be to identify the contemporary trends and events out of which the 21st century will be forged. We will then discuss the problems and issues that these trends portend and their implications for public policy and planning as well as for political sociology.
CONTEMPORARY TRENDS AND PARADOXES
The first step is to assess the main drifts of the times. In keeping with the fin de siecle spirit, a spate of books and articles has been published in the 1990s to help us. Judging from some of the titles, the prospects for the future do not look promising -- Out of Control (Brzezinski, 1993), Pandaemonium (Moynihan, 1993), and The Clash of...