by Jorge Nef

IDRC 1995, 110 pp., ISBN 0-88936-795-7

RÉSUMÉ FRANÇAIS

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Jorge Nef responds to one of the most pressing intellectual challenges of the post-Cold War era: the search for an analytical framework that will help us understand this turbulent and chaotic period in human history. His lucid and visionary analysis rests on the concept of mutual vulnerability: that in an increasingly interdependent world, global security is only as strong as the weakest link in the chain. 

The Author

Jorge Nef, PhD, is currently professor of political studies and international development at the University of Guelph, Ontario, Canada. He has been a visiting professor both in Canadian and foreign universities and institutes and is a past president of the Canadian Association of Latin American and Caribbean Studies (CALACS). Professor Nef is a Fellow of the Centre for Research on Latin America and the Caribbean (CERLAC) and the Centre for Refugee Studies (CRS), both at York University. In addition, he is currently the Editor of the Canadian Joumal of Latin American and Caribbean Studies.

His numerous publications, including books, journal articles, and book chapters, deal with development issues, food security, terrorism, ethics and technology, comparative public administration, authoritarian regimes, social theory, international relations and Latin American politics. Professor Nef has worked as a consultant or cooperant with various national and international agencies in the field of international development (UN-PAHO, CIDA, and IDRC). He also represented IDRC as Canadian delegate to the Expert Groups of the South Commission in Geneva in 1989. His most recent research has focused on issues of governability, conflict resolution, and human security in the context of global relations. 

Contents

• Acknowledgements 
• Introduction: Paradigms of Crisis and the Crisis of Paradigms (The changing foundations of the world system; Security in the new era) 
• Chapter 1: A Framework for Analysis (The concept of world system; The elements of the system; The present world system as a complex conglomerate) 
• Chapter 2: Environmental Insecurity (Reciprocating dysfunctions; The global environmental regime) 
• Chapter 3: Economic Insecurity (The symptoms of the economic crisis; The global economic regime) 
• Chapter 4: Social Insecurity (The sources of social insecurity; The global society: transnational integration and national disintegration) 
• Chapter 5: Political Insecurity (The global political crisis and its manifestations; The global political regime) 
• Chapter 6: Cultural Insecurity (Not a clash, but a crisis of civilization) 
• Conclusion: the Global Predicament 
• Bibliography