The framework, actors and issues of international politics have changed as a result of the massive effects of advances in science and technology, but the fundamental principles and organization of the international system have not been substantially altered. Science and technology are no more or less subversive of the international political system than are other pressures for change. Rather, the nation-state structure, with all its problems, will be essential to manage this increasingly complex and interdependent world. The policy processes within nations, in fact, rarely allow scientific and technological factors to dominate policy, even in international issues in which those aspects are clearly central, might be thought to be the overwhelming considerations, and might have been expected to overturn traditional patterns in the international system. With climate change as the primary example, it is seen how and why economic, political and social considerations dominate, not the scientific and technological.

© 2002 Oxford University Press and the Japan Association of International Relations