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Polycentric World Order in the Making

Andrey Baykov
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Polycentric World
Order in the
Making
Edited by
Andrey Baykov · Tatiana Shakleina
Polycentric World Order in the Making
Andrey Baykov · Tatiana Shakleina
Editors

Polycentric World
Order in the Making
Editors
Andrey Baykov Tatiana Shakleina
MGIMO University MGIMO University
Moscow, Russia Moscow, Russia

ISBN 978-981-19-5374-3 ISBN 978-981-19-5375-0 (eBook)


https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-5375-0

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Contents

Part I Features of the Global World


1 Megatrends and Global Issues: Constants
and Innovations in the Subject Area 3
Andrey Baykov, Alexey Bogaturov, and Tatiana Shakleina
2 The Global Order in the Twenty-First Century:
Consolidating Polycentricity 13
Tatiana Shakleina
3 Global Governance of the Polycentric World: Actors,
Architecture, Hierarchy of Issue Areas 41
Alexandra Khudaykoulova
4 Evolution of the International Security Landscape
in the Midst of Great Power Rivalry 77
Igor Istomin
5 The Phenomenology of Globalization 103
Alexey Kuznetsov
6 International Scientific and Technological Relations 125
Alexey Biryukov and Andrey Krutskikh
7 The Political Economy of Global Development 155
Stanislav Tkachenko

v
vi CONTENTS

Part II Key International and Political Issues and


Processes
8 International Integration in Theoretical Discourse 181
Andrey Baykov
9 Contemporary Conflicts: Typology and Characteristics 203
Andrey Sushentsov
10 The Emergence of a Global Labor Market and Its
International and Political Implications 231
Vera Gnevasheva
11 Digital Transformation of National Economies 251
Lilia Revenko and Nikolay Revenko
12 Nuclear Deterrence in Contemporary World Politics 279
Alexey Fenenko
13 Digital Revolution and New Digital Markets:
Competing Technology Platforms 317
Ivan Danilin
14 Global Energy Trends 335
Igor Tomberg
15 Global Environmental Norms and Their Russian
Implementation 365
Anne Crowley-Vigneau and Andrey Baykov
16 Political Implications of Global Higher Education
Sector: The Russian Case 387
Andrey Baykov, Anne Crowley-Vigneau,
and Yelena Kalyuzhnova

Part III Great Powers and the Structuring of Regional


Spaces
17 Reconfiguring Global Space: Great Powers and Their
Regional Subsystems 413
Tatiana Shakleina
CONTENTS vii

18 The Institutionalization of Regional Centers


in Europe and the Asia–Pacific 445
Andrey Baykov
19 Leading Centers of Power and Regional Dynamics
in East Asia 469
Ekaterina Koldunova
20 The Evolution of the Latin American Subsystem
in International Relations 501
Boris Martynov
21 Features of Statehood in the Middle East 525
Irina Zvyagelskaya
22 The Role of Global and Regional Powers
in the Regulation of Regional Crises 547
Mariya Khodynskaya-Golenischeva
23 International Relations in the Post-Soviet Space 573
Andrey Baykov and Irina Bolgova
24 Communication Spaces in the System of Interstate
Conflicts 601
Alexey Fenenko

Bibliography 645
Index 657
Notes on Contributors

Baykov Andrey holds a Ph.D. in Political Science, is Vice-Rector for


Science Policy and International Cooperation, Dean of the Faculty of
International Relations at MGIMO University under the Ministry of
Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, and Editor-in-Chief of the
International Trends journal.
Biryukov Alexey has done Ph.D. in History, is Associate Professor,
Senior Research Fellow, Centre for International Information Security,
Science and Technology Policy at MGIMO University under the Ministry
of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation.
Bogaturov Alexey is Doctor of Political Science, Professor, Distinguished
Scholar of the Russian Federation, President of the Academic Forum
on International Relations, recipient of the Russian Government Prize
in Education, and winner of the Tarle Prize of the Russian Academy of
Sciences.
Bolgova Irina holds a Ph.D. in History, Vice-Dean of the Faculty
of International Relations at MGIMO University under the Ministry
of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, Associate Professor, the
Department of Applied International Analysis at MGIMO University
under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, and
assistant editor of the International Trends journal.

ix
x NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

Crowley-Vigneau Anne has done Ph.D. in Political Science, Ph.D.


(United Kingdom), is Associate Professor, MGIMO University under the
Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation.
Danilin Ivan has done Ph.D. in Political Science, Head of the Depart-
ment of Science and Innovation at the Primakov Institute of World
Economy and International Relations of the Russian Academy of Sciences,
Associate Professor, Department of Applied International Analysis at
MGIMO University under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian
Federation.
Fenenko Alexey is Doctor of Political Science, Associate Professor,
Faculty of World Politics at Lomonosov Moscow State University.
Gnevasheva Vera has completed Ph.D. in Economics, Professor, Depart-
ment of Demographic and Migration Policy at MGIMO University under
the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, Head of the
Department of the Reproduction of Labor Resources and the Employ-
ment of the Population at the Institute for Demographic Research of
the Federal Center of Theoretical and Applied Sociology of the Russian
Academy of Sciences.
Istomin Igor holds a Ph.D. in Political Science, is Associate Professor,
Department of Applied International Analysis at MGIMO University
under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, and First
Deputy Editor-in-Chief of the International Trends journal.
Kalyuzhnova Yelena is Director of the Centre for Euro-Asian Studies
and Head of Leadership, Organisations and Behaviour at Henley Business
School. She is also a Principal Fellow of the Higher Education Academy
(PFHEA).
Khodynskaya-Golenischeva Mariya is Doctor of History, Professor,
Department of Applied International Analysis at MGIMO University
under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, and Chief
Advisor at the Department of Policy Planning of the Ministry of Foreign
Affairs of the Russian Federation.
Khudaykoulova Alexandra has done Ph.D. in Political Science, and
is Associate Professor, Department of Applied International Analysis at
MGIMO University under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian
Federation.
NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS xi

Koldunova Ekaterina has done Ph.D. in Political Science, is Associate


Professor, Department of Oriental Studies at MGIMO University under
the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, Director of the
ASEAN Centre at MGIMO University under the Ministry of Foreign
Affairs of the Russian Federation, and Deputy Editor-in-Chief of the
Comparative Politics journal.
Krutskikh Andrey is Doctor of History, Professor, Special Representative
of the President of the Russian Federation for International Cooperation
in the Field of Information Security, Director of the Centre for Inter-
national Information Security, Science and Technology Policy MGIMO
University under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federa-
tion, Director of the Department of International Information Security at
the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation.
Kuznetsov Alexey is Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy
of Sciences, Doctor of Economics, Director of the Institute of Scien-
tific Information for Social Sciences of the Russian Academy of Sciences,
Professor, MGIMO University under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs
of the Russian Federation, Editor-in-Chief of the Outlines of Global
Transformations: Politics, Economics, Law journal.
Martynov Boris is Doctor of Political Science, Professor, Head of the
Department of International Relations and Foreign Policy of Russia at
MGIMO University under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian
Federation.
Revenko Lilia is Doctor of Economics, Professor, Department of Inter-
national Economic Relations and Foreign Economic Affairs at MGIMO
University under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federa-
tion.
Revenko Nikolay holds a Ph.D. in Political Science, and is Senior
Research Fellow, Institute for Research of International Economic Rela-
tions at the Financial University under the Government of the Russian
Federation.
Shakleina Tatiana is Doctor of Political Science, Professor, Head of
the Department of Applied International Analysis at MGIMO Univer-
sity under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, and
winner of the Tarle Prize of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
xii NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

Sushentsov Andrey has completed Ph.D. in Political Science, and is


Director of the Institute for International Studies at MGIMO Univer-
sity under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation,
Associate Professor, Department of Applied International Analysis at
MGIMO University under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian
Federation.
Tkachenko Stanislav is Doctor of Economics, Professor, Department of
European Studies, St. Petersburg State University.
Tomberg Igor is Doctor of Economics, Professor, Department of
Applied International Analysis at MGIMO University under the Ministry
of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, Director of the Center for
Energy and Transport Research at the Institute of Oriental Studies of the
Russian Academy of Sciences.
Zvyagelskaya Irina is Doctor of History, Professor, Department of
Oriental Studies at MGIMO University under the Ministry of Foreign
Affairs of the Russian Federation, Head of the Center for the Middle East
Studies at the Primakov Institute of World Economy and International
Relations of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Senior Research Fellow at
the Center of Arab and Islamic Studies at the Institute of Oriental Studies
of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
List of Figures

Fig. 4.1 Military spending of selected countries in 1995–2019


(Source Compiled by the author based on data
from the Stockholm International Peace Research
Institute [see: SIPRI Military Expenditure Database.
URL: https://www.sipri.org/databases/milex]) 84
Fig. 4.2 Number of UN Security Council Resolutions
in 1990–2019 (Source Compiled by the author based
on UN data [see: UN Security Council Resolution
Database, https://www.un.org/securitycouncil/ru/con
tent/resolutions]) 85
Fig. 4.3 Treaty mechanisms for arms control in 1990–2010
(Source Compiled by the author) 87
Fig. 6.1 Technological paradigms periodization 129
Fig. 6.2 Global technological partnership structure in a multipolar
world order 149
Fig. 14.1 Changes in the structure of global primary energy
consumption by fuel type since the second half
of the nineteenth century (Sources Energy Research
Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Skolkovo
Energy Centre, New Stage of the Fourth Energy
Transition, https://www.eprussia.ru/epr/374/9335671.
htm) 338
Fig. 14.2 Changes in oil prices (Source All About Oil, https://vse
onefti.ru/etc/risksi-v-neftyanoi-otrasli.html) 340

xiii
xiv LIST OF FIGURES

Fig. 14.3 Growth of gas demand in China (Source Gavin


Thompson, “China Unveils the Extent of its Gas
Ambitions,” Wood Mackenzie [August 5, 2020],
https://www.woodmac.com/news/opinion/china-unv
eils-the-extent-of-its-gas-ambitions/) 357
List of Tables

Table 3.1 Changes to the quotas of BRICS countries in the IMF


and the World Bank, % 68
Table 4.1 Casualties from various types of organized violence
in 1990–2019 (only combat fatalities are counted
for conflicts), persons 80
Table 4.2 Military spending to GDP ratio of select states
in 1995–2019, % 83
Table 4.3 Military spending of US and China in 1995–2019 83
Table 4.4 Use of the veto right by the permanent members
of the UN Security Council 86
Table 4.5 Nuclear Arsenal by state 89
Table 7.1 Official development assistance from OECD member
states (in USD millions) 168
Table 7.2 Extreme poverty in developing countries in 1990, 2005
and 2019 173
Table 9.1 Typology of conflict behavior in International Relations 209
Table 10.1 Decent work indicators 246
Table 11.1 Digital development strategies by region (2012–2017) 257
Table 12.1 Evolution of the nuclear deterrence concept 285

xv
PART I

Features of the Global World


CHAPTER 1

Megatrends and Global Issues: Constants


and Innovations in the Subject Area
In lieu of Introduction

Andrey Baykov, Alexey Bogaturov, and Tatiana Shakleina

In his seminal book Megatrends, John Naisbitt wrote about a time of


the parenthesis in global transformation, a time when the world had
transitioned from one era to another, a new era. And although periods
of transformation always contain some elements of uncertainty, Naisbitt
noted that much depends on whether we are able to correctly assess the

A. Baykov (B) · A. Bogaturov · T. Shakleina


MGIMO University, Moscow, Russia
e-mail: a.baykov@inno.mgimo.ru
A. Bogaturov
e-mail: alebog@obraforum.ru
T. Shakleina
e-mail: shakleina.t.a@inno.mgimo.ru

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 3


Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023
A. Baykov and T. Shakleina (eds.), Polycentric World Order in the
Making, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-5375-0_1
4 A. BAYKOV ET AL.

emerging challenges, answer the new questions, and make use of all the
opportunities available to us. He wrote that “if we can learn to make
uncertainty our friend, we can achieve much more than in stable eras”.1
The current world order is becoming polycentric. If the there is one
princal megatrend shaping all the other megatrends, it is the increasing
polycentricity of the world takes as its subject matter and grapples with
the most following questions in (1) what megatrends shape emerging
world order? (2) how the changing world order shapes megatrends? (3)
in what way the regulation and self-regulation of changing world order
and megatrends are achieved?
The most important characteristic of the modern era is that individuals,
and indeed entire peoples, are becoming increasingly aware of their being
part of humanity as a whole. The juxtaposition of this trend and increasing
polycentricity of world order is the subject of the present monograph.
The monograph focuses on the actions of the world’s leading states
(great powers) and processes in regional structuring (regional subsys-
tems), as long as they matter from the point of view of the general
state of the global system. Equally important are the dynamics of changes
in the overall proportion of the potentials of leading states; the eternal
questions of international political, economic, and military competition;
inter-country and global security, including human security; the state of
the environment; resource potential and resource limitations in global
development; and the global social area (problems of poverty, gender
equality—equality of social genders—ethnic and cultural differences, and
ethnic and political psychology).
What is urgently needed in this regard is an understanding of the
instrumental principles of regulating the global system: the manage-
ment of human reflections on global existence; the philosophy and
anthropology of international relations; and the problems in the global
governance institutions and developing a set of tools for a formalized and
informal regulation of international relations.
Traditional paradigms of international relations knowledge commonly
link the question of ordering global development, of regulating it, either
with voluntary constructive cooperation between the world’s leading states
(ideally, between all states), or with the hegemony of a single super-strong
power capable of imposing its will on weaker actors or of convincing them
to accept that power’s terms for international development without using
force, but without ruling out the use of force, either. Such is the logic
of political realists. It forms the foundation of the actions of the United
1 MEGATRENDS AND GLOBAL ISSUES: CONSTANTS … 5

States following the end of the bipolar order. Since the mid-2000s, this
concept has guided the establishment of an expanded group of leading
states. It was increasingly obvious that these states were determining the
dynamics of development in individual states, regions, and the world as a
whole.
The liberal tradition links international institutions (both formal and
informal) with the idea of the positive regulation of the international
system. In this view, regulation is taken to mean exercising rational
(conscious and thought-out) and directed influence on global develop-
ment with a view to preventing crises and wars, even if the stability of the
world as a whole is achieved at the expense of security interests of a specific
state or group of states.
Other concepts propose somewhat different hypotheses of mechanisms
that underlie the emergence of a world order. Various theories of self-
organization, for instance, interpret a world order as only partially being
the result of the deliberate efforts of individual states and the competition
between them. To a large extent, this order appears to be a product of
internal fluctuations inherent in the global system. Consequently, under-
standing the nature, amplitude, and “trend” of these fluctuations is crucial
for correctly assessing order-shaping trends.
On the one hand, classical views state that the dynamics of the
global political system are produced by the original strivings of coun-
tries, peoples, groups, and individuals towards as full a realization of their
interests as possible, or the realization of what they understand to be
their interests. These strivings clash and generate conflicts. In order to
avoid wars or to restrict them, global political actors engage in talks and
diplomatic relations aimed at mutual adaptation, working out the terms
of coexistence or even the terms of an intensive rapprochement based on
identified common interests.
On the other hand, we can claim that such interactions are typical
primarily for the pre-global level of the international system’s evolution.
Today, we can confidently state that there are contradictions between the
interests of global stability and development on the one hand and the inter-
ests of states (and their alliances) and non-state actors on the other. There
is the need to constantly update our understanding of the contents of
those interests and to reconcile them, if possible. In the meantime, the
resources for this crucial function of aligning interests and accommo-
dating new types of actors are objectively in the hands of the strongest
6 A. BAYKOV ET AL.

states, the most influential corporations, and certain non-governmental


organizations.
This book is based on the hypothesis that the dynamics and contents
of the processes of the transformation of the world order are determined
primarily by the interactions of all the actors in international commu-
nication on finding a resolution to global problems while taking the
national interests of the key states into account. In this sense, global
politics (as an environment of inter-country and public and private rela-
tions) and global policies (as ways to resolve a special class of global and
cross-border problems) are superimposed on the traditional international
competition between states over leadership, and access to a privileged
geopolitical standing and the most favourable positions in the global divi-
sion of labour, mutually constructing each other both ideologically and
at the level of resource potential distribution.
As regards the interests of world peace, the primary value of any
world order is the ability of the most powerful states for self-restriction
(restraint) and the ability of global civil society to restrict the actions of
those international actors (state or non-state) whose conduct hurts the
interests of overall international security. Self-restriction and restrictions
are the key functions of maintaining order, and various types of inter-
national actors attempting to discharge these functions on behalf of the
entire global community range from the United Nations to the most
powerful and responsible states at various levels. For instance, the United
States did this in the 1990s, while in the 2000s and 2010s, both the tradi-
tional (old) great powers (G8 members), and the “ascendant” powers
(China, Brazil, and India) actively joined the world regulation process,
and many regional leaders from G20 joined the process with regard to
sectoral issues. Individual transnational networked structures and private
organizations also strive to gain their own world-regulating role.
At the same time, it is essential to understand that it is precisely states
and the competition between them that primarily determine the mode
of being of the global system and the activities of global institutions
for regulating relations in the sphere of solving global problems. States
set the tune of the activities of the United Nations, the World Bank,
the International Monetary Fund, and the World Trade Organization.
New group regulators of the global economy and global politics (G7 and
G20) are also comprised of representatives of states. Finally, NATO, the
Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), the Shanghai Cooper-
ation Organisation (SCO), or the most successful integration alliances
1 MEGATRENDS AND GLOBAL ISSUES: CONSTANTS … 7

in Europe and Asia, including the Eurasian Economic Union, are also
purposefully moving towards becoming bodies that will aggregate and
articulate the will of their constituent states and peoples, towards the
ordered governance of the global military, political, trade, and economic
spheres. And they all are alliances of states and are the products of their
sovereign prerogatives.
No single state has a monopoly on resolving global issues. In addition
to states, various non-state actors, such as transnational corporations
(TNCs), international political, environmental, and other movements and
groups, various networked communities (including criminal networks),
and similar entities, also have significant influence. It is apparent, however,
that, compared to states, this type of actor is far less restricted in its activities
by rules and official international communication mechanisms operating
at the global, regional, and state levels. Non-state actors rather perform
the important role of “communication agents”, intermediaries of sorts
between levels of interaction typical for states.
In order for the planet to have order, there first and foremost needs to
be:

. a clear hierarchy of capabilities between the leading powers, a hier-


archy that is acknowledged by all, or the apparent majority of,
international relations actors;
. a totality of principles and rules for the international conduct of all
global actors;
. a system for making decisions on key international issues—a system
that could guarantee that the interests of the lower rungs of the
hierarchy are represented in the decision-making at its top rungs;
. a set of morally acceptable sanctions for violations, and enforcement
mechanisms;
. forms, methods, and procedures for implementing decisions made,
i.e. a regime for keeping order.

Let us also specify that the issue of a global hierarchy has traditionally
been linked with the concept of polarity in the global system, although
today it is with increasing frequency discussed in terms of centricity,
which does not entail a rigid ideological confrontation and mandatory
and comprehensive commensurability of potentials of the powers that
constitute its centres.
8 A. BAYKOV ET AL.

In addition to the structure of the international system, the authors


of this monograph suggest an expansive interpretation of today’s global
trends that contains all issues pertaining not only to the above-described
global cross-section of inter-country communication (traditional matters of
security and power balance), but also new international communication
“dossiers”. This is why the military-political, energy, financial, economic,
political, and ideological aspects of humanity’s development occupy us as
much as environmental and social and humanitarian aspects do.
We should indicate here that two global trends have become the focus
of attention in the 2020s. The first is the world’s increasing homogeneity,
and the second is its growing complexity and even variegation produced
through heterogeneous components of the common global space being
mixed by intensified migration flows. On the one hand, a block of prob-
lems common to all humanity has emerged and is expanding. Relations
that people engaged in to resolve these common problems form an
external outline of transnational globalization that is pulling humanity
into a single whole. Yet, on the other hand, hotbeds of homogeneity
under this outline are shrinking.
Many countries, including Russia, the United States, Canada, Australia,
the leading EU states, and even Japan, manifest a growing trend for the
increase of ethnic and cultural heterogeneity. The direction of the flows
of incoming ethnic groups is determined by movement from poorer states
to more prosperous ones and is linked with the emergence of a global
labour and human resources market.
Increasing heterogeneity in different regions is the result of large-scale
migrations that have spanned the entire world. This wave of migration
has become a consequence of globalization. Paradoxically, along with
the trend for homogeneous economic paradigms in individual states and
among certain peoples, and along with the spread of common standards
of consumption, doing business, accessing information, and ultimately,
common standards for human rights and political activity, globalization
serves equally as a breeding ground for the growth of a “mixed”, diverse,
heterogenous, and ultimately enclaved world, and the domestic political
propensity for conflict.
In this sense, globalization emerges as a network of relations “weav-
ing” itself over the “surface” of countries and peoples, while relations
that continue to develop within individual states and ethnic groups
are frequently and significantly different and sometimes opposite to
those to which globalization is conducive. Both types of relations are
1 MEGATRENDS AND GLOBAL ISSUES: CONSTANTS … 9

capable of coexisting and forming conglomerates of diverse paradigms


and behavioural models within a single international community that is
united in its external outline by the presence of global problems whose
solutions require that all participants in international relations put their
effort into the task.2
Therefore, since the early 2020s, the world has exhibited two simulta-
neous and related megatrends. First, the increased importance of global
trends and problems, and the growing understanding that cooperation is
needed to resolve them; consequently, single rules, standards, and prac-
tices emerge that follow the logic of cooperation for the sake of the stable
development of the entire planetary system.
Second, this “framework” exhibits within itself a growing complexity
and diversity of social, economic, and political relations inside individual
states and between them.
Of course, global trends should not be overemphasized. But it is not
sufficient to see what is happening in the world solely through the lens
of the needs of one’s own country. The Russian Federation is part of the
global whole. We need to know what Russia’s national interests are, yet it
is no less important to recognize that Russia’s foreign policy is shaped and
implemented within a global context that is a true reality, within a global
political and economic environment. This environment can produce new
opportunities and chances to pursue Russia’s interests, but it also imposes
certain restrictions on its actions, as it does on the actions of any other
state.
A diplomat’s craft and skill lie precisely in the ability to find a mech-
anism for ensuring the optimal integration of a country (in our case,
Russia) into real global development processes, contributing to them in
some instances and resisting them in others. It is also important to avoid
a head-on confrontation with objectively developing global trends, i.e.
those tendencies that emerge and develop due to new objective condi-
tions of the global system, the acquisition by the system of new qualities
and needs, and the increasingly complex nature of the competitive envi-
ronment. Otherwise, there is a threat of the country “overexerting” itself,
of setting clearly non-feasible foreign political tasks that are not backed
by existing resources. As a consequence, there is a threat of undermining
Russia’s international positions.3
This book analyses the principal trends in today’s global development,
and its driving forces, and consider options for the further development of
10 A. BAYKOV ET AL.

the international political situation, with due account of the interpreta-


tions offered for these issues in the latest works of Russian, American,
and European international relations experts. The book is not only
about what transpires but about how reality is described and interpreted
in the expert and academic community.
The book’s authors—leading Russian international relations experts—
place special emphasis on the important aspects of new areas in
international relations emerging in connection with the environmental,
migration, demographic, leadership and world order problems, and on
analysing interactions between Western and non-Western components in
today’s international relations system through the lens of Russia’s interests
and perceptions.
The book places a special focus on identifying a new “agenda” in the
study of the problems in the transformation of the international system
and international security, and in regulating world politics.
Needless to say, not every issue area is covered exhaustively. More-
over, the trends and megatrends outlined here need to be studied further.
John Naisbitt’s book Megatrends was published nearly 40 years ago, and
yet debates on the issues he raised have only become particularly urgent
today, when a new world order is indeed taking shape. This is, clearly, an
ongoing longitudinal study that reflects the theoretical understanding of
the subject matter as of the dawn of the third decade of the twenty-first
century. As opposed to more pertinent and on-point studies, here robust,
impartial evidence, and strategic aloofness, which can only be obtained
with the passage of time, will be needed to provide an adequate assess-
ment of more recent developments and astute interpretation of how the
world will continue to evolve moving forward.

Notes
1. John Naisbitt’s book Megatrends was published in 1982 and immediately
became a national bestseller, prompting extensive discussions in academic
and political circles both in the United States and beyond. Analysing the
situation in America and predicting its future—specifically, the transition
from an industrial economy to an informational and service economy, Nais-
bitt laid the foundations for a new understanding of what was happening
both in the United States and in the world at large, and of what other states
should expect. His book was called “A Roadmap into the 21st Century”.
See: John Naisbitt, Megatrends: Ten New Directions Transforming Our Lives
(New York: Warner Books Edition, 1984), xxii, 283.
1 MEGATRENDS AND GLOBAL ISSUES: CONSTANTS … 11

2. For more details, see: A.D. Bogaturov, ed., Today’s World Politics: Applied
Analysis (Moscow, 2009), Chapter 2.
3. M.A. Khrustalev, Analysis of International Situations and Political Expertise:
Essays on Theory and Methodology (Moscow: Academic Educational Forum
On International Relations, 2008), Chapter 2.
CHAPTER 2

The Global Order in the Twenty-First


Century: Consolidating Polycentricity

Tatiana Shakleina

The shaping of the new world order following the end of the bipolar order
can be seen as the principal megatrend of the twenty-first century. It can
be defined as a mega-process at the highest level since the contents of
global development will hinge on who determines the foundations of the
new world order, its base institutions, the structuring of relations within
the new world order, and who plays the decisive role in that order thereby
influencing the politics of other actors.
By 2022, individual outcomes of the actions undertaken by some
leading global powers with the aim of laying down the foundations of
the new order had clearly manifested themselves. We should take a crit-
ical look at the order-shaping process that has been unfolding for the last
three decades, and at the discussions concerning the successes and fail-
ures of individual states. We should also ponder the effect this process
has had on the current state of international relations and individual

T. Shakleina (B)
MGIMO University, Moscow, Russia
e-mail: shakleina.t.a@inno.mgimo.ru

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 13


Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023
A. Baykov and T. Shakleina (eds.), Polycentric World Order in the
Making, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-5375-0_2
14 T. SHAKLEINA

states. It is important to objectively assess the efforts the United States


(and the collective West) has been undertaking since the end of the
global bipolar system to shape a liberal world order. We need to recog-
nize that there is no alternative to the polycentricity of today’s world
that has emerged and to work toward achieving a consensus between
the creative/leading powers on the new world structure and on the
new “rules of the game” applicable in resolving crucial global problems.
Otherwise, ensuring the predictable development of the world, individual
regions, and states will be difficult, instability will mount, and, conse-
quently, the problem of overcoming transitoriness in shaping the world
order will remain unresolved.

The Global Order as a Process


Although order entails some certainty concerning the reliance on its func-
tional foundations—be they different official and unofficial institutions or
principal actors involved in maintaining order—order is also an ongoing
process whose dynamics are primarily dictated by the actions of the prin-
cipal actors, changes in the group of great powers and in the relations
between them (including values), the power dynamics that reflect the
distribution of power between them, capabilities of purposefully acting,
also affecting the outcomes of the actions of others. Changes are also
taking place in the international environment, producing new forces and
factors affecting the process of the world order formation.
The tremendous globalization process has so enriched and complicated
the activities of states still defining the foundations of global develop-
ment that their politics and interactions (cooperative and competitive,
and especially regarding leading global powers, or great powers) have a
global, universal, and planetary geographical dimension. Therefore, we
are specifically talking about world order here.

Important

Russian and American researchers use two terms: “international


order” and “world order.” Although the term “international order”
is used with lesser and lesser frequency, some scholars still stress that
world order and an international order are two different things.
2 THE GLOBAL ORDER IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY … 15

We do not believe it to be the case since activities of states have


long become comprehensive, they are woven into the network of all
types of relations at all levels, and they determine their nature and
scale. The prominent Russian political scientist Yuri Davydov justly
noted that “it is wrong to distinguish ‘international’ and ‘world’
orders. International relations are very complex and no longer one-
dimensional, state and non-state actors are closely intertwined, and
therefore we need to speak of a world order.”1

We believe that similar adjustments should be made to distinguishing


the concepts of “international relations” and “world politics.” Very often,
international relations are reduced solely to relations between states, but
it was not correct even in the twentieth century. International relations are
a comprehensive area of existence and interactions of actors of different
status, different jurisdictions and areas of activity. By studying the state as
an actor in global processes, we are studying all of its manifestations and
forms of activity, and also the activities of other actors that emerge as a
result of the political will of states. It means that the subject field of inter-
national relations spans all areas and all actors in the world process with
nation states being the focus of research as the sole polyfunctional public
institution that prioritizes public good across the entire range of goal-
setting in life over gaining private good in specific areas of the activities
of people and society. The subject field and range of actors in interna-
tional relations are no smaller than the subject field of world politics. On
the contrary, the latter can be incorporated into IR subject field as its part
is.

Important

International relations is a multifarious and multilevel academic


field with a comprehensive subject matter, since in studying the
state we are necessarily studying all aspects of its activities in
various areas and realms. States establish international (global and
regional) institutions of different formats, ensure their vitality, create
16 T. SHAKLEINA

legal frameworks for their functioning, and control their opera-


tions. Reducing international relations solely to relations between
nation states is not correct.2

The conceptualizing efforts of Russian international relations experts


have been aimed at explaining the processes stemming from the dissolu-
tion of the USSR: the disappearance of the second superpower/pole and
the two crucial institutions—the Warsaw Treaty Organization (WTO) and
the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (Comecon), the weakening
of Russia’s activities compared to the role the USSR played in the CSCE
(subsequently OSCE), and in international relations.
The 1990s were spent conceptualizing the events. This was particularly
true for Russian scholars, as there was the need to offer a concep-
tual explanation for global and structural changes, for the new role
and prospects of the Russian Federation (as an actor different from
the USSR) in influencing the order-shaping processes. The dominant
idea was that of a multipolar structure, although that structure did not
become fully formed in the 1990s. Some political scientists leaned toward
proclaiming the emergence and further evolution of the unipolar model.
Most, however, believed that a multipolar structure had begun to emerge
and would inevitably affect the contents of other constituent elements
of the twenty-first-century order, particularly its institutional and regula-
tory dimensions. American political scientists considered a unipolar model
and a three-polar model as basic options. A multipolar/polycentric struc-
ture was not the subject of serious discussion, since old great powers,
with the exception of the United States, were not actively participating
in world order formation and were generally content with the unipolar
model. New centers of power were only entering the era of their
international ascendance.3
The international situation was essentially equidistant from both the
classical unipolar model and a multipolar one, which made it possible to
speak of a time of transition to a new order. Three influential political
scientists captured the situation that existed at the time in the emergence
of a new world order in the 1990s.
The American political scientist William C. Wohlforth was categor-
ical in his definition of the late 1990s as a period of long-term unipolar
stability since the United States had demonstrated and entrenched its
2 THE GLOBAL ORDER IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY … 17

privileged position. In his opinion, the danger lay in the United States
undermining the existing stability by being insufficiently active.4
Other opinions concerning that period were proposed by the American
scholar Samuel Huntington and by the Russian scholar Alexey Bogaturov.
S. Huntington wrote that the international relations system of the time
was a hybrid of unipolarity and multipolarity; it had a superpower and
several leading powers with macro-regional or even global ambitions. In
Huntington’s view, this hybrid character of international system mani-
fested itself in the fact that the United States as the superpower, was
capable of single-handedly blocking the actions of one or several regional
powers; yet on its own, without support from other leading world powers,
the United States could not resolve key international problems.5 At that
time, his words were not duly appreciated, since the rise of new leading
(non-Western) powers had only begun to really manifest itself, but in the
2010s, when Huntington’s view proved to be absolutely right.
Alexey Bogaturov proposed an original concept of pluralistic unipo-
larity. In his opinion, the term “multipolar” did not adequately describe
the emerging world order after the collapse of the USSR, and although
one pillar of bipolarity as it existed from 1945 to 1991 had been
destroyed, this was not an indication of the outlines of the future world
structure. The only thing for sure was that it marked a radical shift in
the previous world order. A. Bogaturov pointed out that destroying the
Cold War order did not automatically mean going back to multipolarity.
He defined the structure of international relations after the collapse of
the bipolar system as a hybrid mono-polycentric structure where a super-
power does not act alone but among a circle of an aligned concert of
ideologically proximate military and political allies. The United States will
not have the ability to keep a tight hold on events in every corner of the
world, although it will have a hard-to-contest determining influence on
the dynamics of these events relying, among other things, on the system
of alliances that had emerged.6
The principal issue that in some way was discussed during these debates
was that of structure, i.e., of centers/poles exhibiting creativity, ambi-
tions, potential, and the will to build a new world order, as well as of the
number of such centers and the balance of their potentials. The Russian
scholar Eduard Batalov noted that “pole” and “power center” are not
identical categories, although they are used as synonyms in most works
produced in Russia and abroad.
18 T. SHAKLEINA

E. Batalov wrote that there must be two poles, and they can only exist
in interaction (mutually attracting and mutually repelling each other).
Therefore, when one pole, the USSR, lost its “pole” status, so did the
other superpower, the United States. Defining the world of the time as
a “nonpolarity,” Batalov wrote that poles were “powerful contrary global
sub-systems that form the extreme points of an axis on which the world
system hinges (revolves). The poles represent different civilizations and
different social, political, and economic systems. They embody different,
possibly mutually exclusive, ideational and value paradigms. Poles are
symmetrical and commensurate in their strength and operating potentials,
which allows them to balance each other out, acting both as guarantors
of the world order and as lawmakers in the political game, setting the
rules that all—or nearly all—actors on the global political stage are forced
to follow. The relations between the poles are based on mutual attraction
and mutual repellence. They need each other to maintain their internal
and external status quo and they strive to eliminate each other as rivals.
However, when one pole is eliminated, the other vanishes automatically
as well, and the entire world order disappears along with them, which
is precisely what happened in the late 1980s–early 1990s.”7 Later, the
idea of a “nonpolar” world was reiterated by the American political scien-
tist Richard Haass, who suggested that US leadership should recognize
the fact that there are many centers of power and should try to put the
existing situation to the advantage of the superpower. He defined this
situation as a “concerted nonpolarity,”8 which is aligned with the idea
of a functioning core that should include all the principal global powers.
This idea of the functional core was previously proposed by the American
expert Thomas Barnett.9

Important

An important outcome of the discussions of the 1990s about the


world order was, among other things, the realization that a mono-
centric world did not exist and that we were essentially dealing with
an order-shaping megatrend whose outcome would depend on the
actions of the leading world players (powers). The popular claim of
the 1990s was that nation-states were dying out and losing their
decisive influence on the shaping of the world order. This claim was
2 THE GLOBAL ORDER IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY … 19

not borne out, however. It was thus crucial to decide on the compo-
sition of the new group of leading powers and see whether it was
possible to work out the rules for their interaction in the process of
shaping new institutions and modifying old ones, resolving global
problems, and determining the nature of international relations (the
problem of accommodating the “ascendant” powers).

To properly assess the situation on the eve of the 2000s and analyze the
development prospects of the megatrend for building a new world order,
we need clear conceptual landmarks, namely, a definition of what an
“order” is. American scholars of the time were not particularly concerned
with this problem since they mostly shared the dominant ideas that (1)
unipolarity was solid; (2) the status of the United States as a superpower
was undeniable and long-lasting; (3) the concept of building a liberal
world order with western-centric values had no viable alternatives.
For Russian scholars, however, this issue became the primary focus of
their attention. For them, the “return” of the great powers to the global
political stage was a fait accompli, and the polycentric nature of the system
of international relations was evidently growing stronger, which required
theoretical conceptualization. Russian political scientists proposed three
definitions of a world order.
In the early 1990s, Alexey Bogaturov proposed a Russian take on the
world order problem and formulated a definition of “world order” based
primarily on the structural realist approach, with certain constructivist
elements. This definition, in our opinion, remains the only complete one
that allows for a comprehensive analysis of the modern processes that are
creating a new world order:

A world order is a system that includes: 1) inter-country relations regu-


lated by a totality of principles of conduct in foreign policy; 2) a set of
specific institutions based on these relations; 3) a set of sanctions for viola-
tions of these relations that are deemed moral and permissible; 4) the
potential for authorized countries or institutions to apply these sanctions;
and 5) the political will of member states to use this potential.10

One of Bogaturov’s most important arguments concerns the “leader


and space (backdrop, environment)” antimony, since in the 2000s–2010s,
20 T. SHAKLEINA

crucial issues in shaping the foundations of the world order were deter-
mined precisely by a solution to the global leadership problem (does
the world need a single global leader? How many leading powers are
there in the twenty-first century? What are the relationships between
them?) and by changes in the international environment. A. Bogaturov
wrote that “the difference between a leader and an outsider is deter-
mined by the proportion of ‘backdrop’ and ‘creative’ elements in each
other’s foreign policy. To the degree that the latter dominates, a state can
be provisionally called a leader. Following the same logic, many disparate
outsiders form a milieu that should preferably be called space, ‘backdrop,’
or ‘environment.’”11 In the twenty-first century, major changes occurred
both at the leadership level of international relations and in the interna-
tional environment, where individual “backdrop” actors (countries) have
begun to demonstrate their desire for regional leadership or assume the
role of secondary (auxiliary) leaders siding with the global hegemon and
assisting it in conducting its policies, including policies for building a
new world order.12 The overall state of the international relations has
become more complex, which is hardly conducive to ordering the rela-
tions between leading powers on the basis of new agreements. Instead,
it bolstered competition potential at all levels of interaction within the
global community.
Russian political scientist Yuri Davydov offered the following definition
of a world order: “A world order is a state of the international relations
system that is appropriately programmed for its security, stability, and
development and regulated on the basis of criteria primarily responsible
for the needs of the most influential actors of a given global commu-
nity.” A world order is the foundation of the structure and functioning of
international relations at a specific stage of humanity’s development, foun-
dations that are shared universally (whether voluntarily or under duress)
or by the most influential part of the global community.
He also noted that established rules could have the status of interna-
tional law, moral norm, common or established practice, or they could
be merely operational rules or “rules of the game” worked out and
adopted without a formal agreement, and in some cases even without an
oral consent. Despite the mutual dependence of great powers increasing
because of globalization, and despite their growing international respon-
sibility, each has its own view of the outside world and its place in it. And
each, no matter how closely tied to others by common cares and concerns,
strives, to the best of its abilities, to have such a world regulation system,
2 THE GLOBAL ORDER IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY … 21

such an order, as would allow it to obtain profit and advantages primarily


for itself.13
Eduard Batalov offered his own definition of world order: “A world
order is a structure of correlative ties between actors in the global
political process. Such actors are states, inter-state and non-state orga-
nizations, and also individual citizens and citizen groups that do not
have the status of an organization but, due to various capabilities, influ-
ence the global process. We are talking global ties that are more or less
well-structured and stable, but at the same time sufficiently dynamic.
Crucially, they accord with a certain behavioral and institutional pattern.
They are intended to ensure the functioning and development of the
global political system in accordance with the dominant (at the current
historical development stage) goals and values. Order manifests itself
as ‘rules,’ ‘principles,’ and ‘institutions’ that can be legally enshrined,
thereby becoming international law, or can be sufficiently stable without
legal formalization. A world order is viable if it is voluntarily adopted
by the greater part of global actors, or else it is imposed on the global
community by those actors who are currently masters of the world.”14
Russian definitions of world order are comprehensive and account not
only for states but also for other actors and note the importance of
institutions and the ability of states first and foremost to oversee their
functioning. All these definitions are functional, but Bogaturov’s appears
to be the most precise for the purposes of analyzing today’s order-shaping
megatrend and its prospects.
Russian scholars preferred the structural realist explanation of the
genesis of a polycentric world order because it had become obvious by
the 2000s that the American concept of a liberal world order had its
implementation limits. E. Batalov stated that, “the coming order will be
nonpolar, while the global system will be polycentric. The world order
in the twenty-first century will not rest on a socioeconomic foundation
similar to the post-classical capitalism of the late twentieth century. The
world order that accords with the imperatives of the new century cannot
be founded on the system of liberal (neoliberal) values that dominated
the West until the end of the twentieth century. The United States will
not be able to act as humanity’s political and moral leader, it will not be
able to single-handedly shape a new world order and govern it rationally.”
22 T. SHAKLEINA

Important

In Eduard Batalov’s opinion, “liberalism has no prospect of spatial


growth since it now has nowhere to go […] Any attempts to install
it artificially will prove to have little effect: the liberal idea will not
work.” “A new world order,” he wrote, “can be born only out
of a joint creative effort of members of the global community. In
this case, the United States will be among the principal creative
forces and principal governance centers. The operative word here
is ‘among,’ not ‘the only.’”15

The 2000s was a period of the emergence of a polycentric structure, of


Russia, China, Brazil, India, and several other mid-level powers stepping
up their role. Polycentricity was being comprehended/set up. Simultane-
ously, the role of the United States in shaping a new order was undergoing
a major conceptualization, the leadership/hegemonic strategy used by
the United States was correlated with the interests and policies of other
leading global powers left outside the framework of NATO and the
European Union and asserting alternative concepts of a future world
order.
Concepts proposed for explaining the superpower’s role include the
“functional collective core” that could span countries of North America,
Europe (old and new), Russia, Japan, China, India, Australia, and New
Zealand, South Africa, Argentina, Brazil, and Chile, whose populations
combined total approximately four billion people out of the Earth’s popu-
lation of six billion.16 The idea that the world needs to form a new
world-regulating core required observance of the accommodation prin-
ciple, an agreement between the powers forming the new extended core,
including the United States. This idea would find its practical applica-
tion in the establishment of the G20, spearheaded by the United States,
which was eager to retain its position as the leader of the group deter-
mining all the decision-making. At the same time, the principal condition
of this core functioning more or less successfully or effectively was not
met, since the United States did not abandon its hegemonic role and did
not exhibit any desire to account for the interests of other actors.
2 THE GLOBAL ORDER IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY … 23

Describing the international relations situation in the mid-2000s,


Samuel Huntington wrote that America demanded that other countries
made the “sacrifice” of limiting their national sovereignty and changing
their economic system and culture, but did not exhibit its own willingness
to do the same, which makes its actions look like dictates (hegemony) and
prompts resistance from many states.17 As the United States assumed the
role of a “systemic perturbator,” it did not concern itself with mobi-
lizing on new foundations an expanded governance core. The United
States proclaimed its intention to promote a stable and democratic global
development, but in practice, it showed that it was more interested
in preserving its special standing, and the methods of affirming liberal
democracy were the old ones, based on coercion and military power,
which was hard to align with the ideology of humanity’s survival.
Despite significant structural changes to international relations, the
United States remained firmly convinced of a superpower’s ability to keep
its global dominance, which will not have any alternative. Richard Haass
wrote that, in the new order, all the leading states—including Russia,
China, and India—should recognize that they had to comply with the
new rules of conduct, including the legitimacy of foreign intervention
in a particular country for the purpose of protecting its population from
genocide or in order to effect a regime change if necessary.18 The neocon-
servative columnist Charles Krauthammer wrote that global development
would be based either on “paper” or on “power,” i.e., international rela-
tions would either be handled through international law (which does
not rule out using force) or solely through force. He believed that
the threat to unipolarity—to the unique situation and global mission
of the United States—did not lie in any specific country; rather, it lay
in the choices made by the country’s foreign political establishment.
Krauthammer suggested that the United States was an empire that should
be kept.19 In 2008, a “second world” concept emerged (although the
term was not a new one) constructed along the lines of Zbigniew Brzezin-
ski’s “chess board” idea and along the lines of his thesis of an empire of a
new type, which confirmed ideological continuity in the American foreign
political thought.20
Many American politicians did not reject the image of the United
States as an empire, but it still was not conducive to bolstering a posi-
tive image of America as a liberal transforming center or a “global
government.”21
24 T. SHAKLEINA

Important

Russian scholars pointed out that an “empire of a new type,” or “a


benign hegemonic structure” demonstrated not only “the impunity of
arbitrary rule,” but also changes in the way some states influenced
others for the purpose of achieving certain goals, and it applied not
only to relations between the leading powers and other states, but
also to relations between states at different development levels: “A
shift in the forms of exercising leadership apparently happened in
the second half of the last century and lay in transitioning from the
desire to destroy a rival’s potential first to achieving the ability to
artificially limit, slow down its development, and then to the skill
of ‘purposefully developing’ a potential rival and manipulating its
development in the leader’s interests.”22

Even though the United States did not abandon the liberal mono-
centric model in the emergent order either ideologically or strategically,
real processes were with increasing clarity adjusting the processes that
were taking place. Even if illusions concerning the United States’ ability
to continue to build a liberal world order unobstructed remained, they
had finally dissipated by 2007–2008. At that time, Russia made a harsh
statement to the effect that the monocentric model of the United States
that ignored the interests of other countries was unacceptable. It also
condemned the intervention of the United States and NATO in the
affairs of sovereign states, violating their territorial integrity (Kosovo).
The global financial and economic crisis of 2008 demonstrated the ability
of “ascendant” powers to survive it, while China did not stop its powerful
economic growth, putting a question mark over the status of the United
States as a superpower. The 2008 crisis in the Caucasus (Georgia-South
Ossetia conflict) also showed that other states, not only the United States,
could and would defend their interests and protect their citizens using
all means available. America’s military campaign in Iraq showed what
American-style democratization was and the results it could produce.
These events had a major influence on the real assessment of the events of
the time, especially when it was a matter of old and new norms of conduct
for international relations actors.
2 THE GLOBAL ORDER IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY … 25

Important

Setting the precedent of violating national (state) sovereignty


pursuant to the decision of a single state (the United States) or
a group of states (NATO), including without the UN’s approval,
became an important landmark in the emergence of a world order
following the disappearance of the bipolar regulatory structure. As
the United States and its allies set the precedent of a humanitarian
intervention through military force, they did not think this prece-
dent could become a rule for other state and non-state actors that
would use to protect their interests. And such precedent-setting
actions may produce major conflicts.

Reality dictated a new approach to world regulation since powerful


states (albeit with different levels of power) wanted to see a new order
based on the solid foundation of a community of the most influen-
tial powers, with each capable of dominating in its region ensuring
regional stability. They would like to “tame,” mitigate American power, to
convince the United States to interact within a certain status quo adopted
by the majority of developed states (“a new core”) and accepted, will-
ingly or under duress, by other states.23 One of the most persistent
American neoconservatives, Robert Kagan, called realizing and recog-
nizing a polycentric world order “the return of history,” a resumption
of the competition for power, influence, and status, and the confronta-
tion between liberalism and autocracy, modernity and tradition. In his
opinion, the twenty-first-century world order will be determined by the
strongest: “The future international order will be shaped by those who
have the power to shape it. Its leaders will not meet in Brussels but in
Beijing, Moscow and Washington.” This, according to Kagan, does not
make the United State’ role in constructing the world order and control-
ling the principal trends in global development any smaller, but makes it
significantly more difficult to play.24
26 T. SHAKLEINA

Important

Recognizing the polycentricity of the global system did not shake


the determination of the United States to implement its global
plans of building an Amerocentric world. While officially recog-
nizing polycentricity and non-polarity, the United States, or, more
precisely, the US leadership and experts affiliated with the US
government, continued to act within the former framework in
accordance with the basic principles of the existence of the United
States.
After the bipolar order era ended, two main concepts of a new
world order emerged: the unipolar concept promoted by the United
States and Europe-Euro-American order, and the multipolar (poly-
centric) concept promoted by Russia and China. Neither concept
has a fully coordinated approach or understanding of what the new
order should be like, but they have a general commitment to certain
values as their foundations.

By the end of the 2000s, the United States had not succeeded in imple-
menting its plans for building and entrenching a liberal order. However,
other countries, primarily Russia and China, had not obtained the share
of influence in world regulation they needed to balance out that of
the United States. In the meantime, a final recognition of the fact that
only nation-states are the leading actors in the emerging world order
became an important fact of the order-shaping process. The policies of
Russia, China, India, Brazil, Turkey, and other states were developing
within the realist paradigm. The predictions that smaller countries and
non-state actors would acquire greater influence did not come true;
the information revolution not only failed to help small states, but on
the contrary, it bolstered the power of the large ones. Joseph Nye Jr.
admitted that even though the information revolution was producing a
diffusion of power and influence, the largest states—the world’s leading
powers—retain traditionally large parameters and organizational resources
compared to smaller states and non-state actors.25
2 THE GLOBAL ORDER IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY … 27

Important

The structure of the emerging world order could be said to be poly-


centric, the hierarchy among state actors did not have its former
rigidity, but a superpower and great powers of different qualities
remained, and the role and number of non-state actors continued
to increase. The institutional foundation also remained fragmented.

The Results of Shaping


the World Order: The Early 2020s
In the early 2010s, the United States, Russia, and China remained the
leading actors in shaping the world order, although they supported
different models. In 2011, the United States conducted a military opera-
tion in Libya to change the regime there, thus affirming its intention to
build an order based on Western norms and values, although the militant-
minded Republicans in the White House had been replaced by liberal
Democrats. The allies of the United States in NATO supported America’s
actions. Moreover, officially, they were at the frontlines of the operation,
demonstrating once again the situational policies of many mid-level states
(the so-called environment), which was not conducive to stabilizing the
international situation and pivoting toward a more humane order.
NATO’s actions in Libya caused more instability and a general imbal-
ance in the region and produced an upsurge in terrorist activities. These
developments prompted the emergence of the “Responsibility While
Protecting” concept proposed by Brazil’s President Dilma Rousseff at
the UN General Assembly in September 2011. This concept (norm) was
a response to the Responsibility to Protect doctrine that had essentially
enshrined the American “humanitarian intervention” concept that the
United States had already tried out in Yugoslavia, Iraq, and Afghanistan
in the 1990s–2000s.26 This initiative was prompted by a lack of adequate
limits for operations to protect, which, as conducted by the United States
and NATO, were military campaigns with large civilian casualties.27
The concept of a “centrical” world system was debated more heat-
edly in the 2010s. Liberals, however, continued to stubbornly adhere
to the idea of the primacy of institutions over nation-states, bemoaned
28 T. SHAKLEINA

the “return of realism” to foreign political strategies of “ascendant”


states, and rejected virtually everything that the followers of the realist
school had been writing about throughout the 1990s and the 2000s. The
concept of a liberal world order based on Western institutions and values
(as interpreted and understood by the American liberal elite in power) still
dominated both the expert community and the political circles and struc-
tures. Conservative politicians and analysts that had essentially demon-
strated quite pragmatic and aggressively realist views stubbornly declared
their desire for a liberal order based primarily on everything American and
on America’s omnipower status. The neoconservative ideology constituted
a combination of the ideas of aggressive liberalism (a crusade) and realism
(a global empire), which should not be identified with structural realism
on the offensive.
During this decade, despite the stubbornness of the ruling elite in
Washington, the idea of polycentricity was already perceived as estab-
lished. Since both American and Russian political scientists realized this,
they engaged in explaining the new stage in the formation of the world
order, primarily the problem of structuring relations and the distribu-
tion of the governing influence between the world’s leading powers. The
increased activity of the G20 starting in 2008 against the backdrop of
the global financial crisis was a response to the manifestation of the poly-
centric nature of international relations and the impossibility of resolving
global problems through the efforts of the superpower and the G7.
However, this institution failed to achieve its full potential because the
growing power and activity of China, India, Russia, Brazil, and Turkey
prevented the United States from seizing total control of this institution
and making it benefit primarily from American interests. A liberal world
order as interpreted by American theorists and strategists entailed creating
the most favorable conditions for the existence and activities of the United
States, therefore the work of all international institutions had to benefit
solely the interests of the United States and let it dominate all global
processes.28
Institutional liberals developed and detailed a concept of global devel-
opment and a new world order back in the 1990s and participated in
its implementation. They did not propose anything radically different
from the concepts that were current at the time (or they failed to
propose anything at all, confining themselves to the criticisms of neocon-
servatives), and consequently, it was now possible to talk about the
exhaustibility of the liberal idea in the American interpretation. With the
2 THE GLOBAL ORDER IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY … 29

actions of the United States and proponents of the liberal world order
running more and more contrary to the real processes and the interests of
leading country actors, which, without denying the role and importance
of different institutions, still wanted to reform the existing organiza-
tions in their own way, offered their own interpretations of the so-called
universal values, and did not wish to see the United States as the only
controlling and hegemonic force.
There was an emerging recognition of hegemony being unacceptable
as a method for handling world affairs, which Russia and China repeatedly
stated. Hegemony also prompted doubts among those American polit-
ical scientists who not only wanted to have US strategy aligned with
the real state of affairs, but also wanted to take international relations
to a structurally formalized level that was favorable both for the global
community as a whole and for the United States, where grave domestic
political problems were mounting.
The principal concepts used to paint the prospect of a new world
order emerging focused on proposals for achieving a particular form of
consensus between the leading centers of power, the world’s leading
powers—primarily the United States, China, Russia, and the European
Union. Here, American experts were particularly active since they also
tried to build a great power consensus in the American mold, and to
delineate the number and roles of the leading actors/centers that would
be allowed to determine the course of the order-shaping process. The
most frequently proposed variant featured a three-polar world (United
States–European Union–China), which could lead one to suppose a desire
to conceptually “program for” this variant by outlining the capabilities
and limitations of the order-shaping power aspirations of the European
Union and China by conceptually enshrining the special position of the
United States.
All variants of American-style polycentricity focus on the superpower
status of the United States and its position as a global leader that needs
to be combined/coordinated with other powers without impinging on
US interests and ambitions, while also outlining the area of its activities
within an Amerocentric structure.29
The tripolar US–EU–China order option featured the following distri-
bution of the three global functions.
30 T. SHAKLEINA

1. The United States is ready to transfer the function of setting the


global agenda, legitimizing and implementing it to the Euro-
pean Union (agenda setting). In this setup, any EU member, a
mid-level country, can raise a particular issue or problem. Most of
these states follow US policies, accept the liberal world order and
are willing to establish it by helping the United States and neutral-
izing any opponents. Such is the conduct of the United Kingdom
(both when it was a part of the European Union and after Brexit),
Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, the Netherlands, and the Czech
Republic, while other states engage in this conduct to a lesser extent.
China and Russia will hardly be satisfied with an agenda featuring,
instead of really urgent global development matters, issues that
interest the United States and its allies—issues that might have little
significance for ensuring the stable and peaceful development of
international relations. For instance, Europe’s support for US policy
in several post-Soviet states and in the Arab states, and America’s
uncompromisingly belligerent policy against Russia (in the form of
an informational and economic war) have not been conducive to
building a new world order. On the contrary, it has slowed down the
process by increasing instability and the prospect of the European
Union itself growing weaker.
2. The function of the keeper of the foundations of the global
market economy is assigned to China (custodianship). This status
is given to China not so much because it is the world’s second-
fastest-growing economy with the world’s second-largest GDP,
but because China actually limits the economic capabilities of the
United States by preventing it from remaining a global economic
superpower. This “assignment” is manifested in the acceptance
of the claim that the United States “let China slip through its
fingers” without having properly controlled investment and without
factoring in China’s great power ambitions and its ability to mobi-
lize society to make the “Chinese dream” come true into its
calculations.30

This thought does not fit into the framework of American policies, yet
one could suppose that, in the foreseeable future, the common interests
of the United States and China in terms of preserving and maintaining the
foundations of the market economy laid down by the United States and
somewhat amended by China will prevail over the contradictions between
2 THE GLOBAL ORDER IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY … 31

the two countries. US and Chinese egoism and egocentrism will ensure
that these two “dreams” will coexist. Russia, India, and Brazil should
scrutinize this option very closely, as should the countries of Europe and
the Asia Pacific.

3. The United States wants to retain the right to be the “sponsor”


(sponsorship), which ensures the introduction of and compliance
with rules, norms, and agreements. It also influences decision-
making on issues in global politics and ensures global security,
including supporting trade and finance. Such sponsorship entails,
among other things, using (and threatening to use) brute force,
which is a skill the United States has honed quite well, as it has
the world’s greatest military power.

What does the proposed “three-center” scenario promise Russia?


The European Union has largely lost its appeal and credibility as the
bearer and driver of liberal values and a paragon to be imitated, since most
European institutions that claimed to be macro-regional, global, progres-
sive, etc., demonstrated their bias, their highly ideological nature, and
their inability to resolve truly important issues of Europe and of other
states (if we agree that the European Union is a global power center).
Neither the OSCE, nor the ICC, nor the European Court of Human
Rights, nor the Council of Europe proved their impartiality. Nor have
they exhibited real concerns for the problems of stabilizing global devel-
opment, of which Europe’s further development is a part. The global
community hardly needs such a center—one which also stakes claims to
set the global agenda.
The areas and results of the sponsorship of the United States can be
judged by evaluating the state of affairs in international and regional secu-
rity that had taken shape by 2020, the powerful arms race launched by
the United States, military interventions in the affairs of other coun-
tries, and aggressive actions in politics and economies that produced a
major economic crisis in the world and in individual states. The coron-
avirus pandemic that started in 2020 showed that the issues the United
States and NATO member countries are putting on the global agenda are
far from being those that need to be handled collectively and through
the efforts of all the leading states. In its desire to build a liberal world
order, to arrive at “America’s golden age,” the United States put the
32 T. SHAKLEINA

world on the brink of a confrontation. The global economy and the


economies of entire regions and countries found themselves in a state of a
crisis. Extremism and terrorism are on the rise in different countries, and
many states are actively building up their military arsenals and bolstering
their security.

Important

American, European and Chinese politicians and experts should


seriously consider the exhaustibility of the American liberal model.
An alternative model is in high demand. Theoretically, a Russian–
Chinese world order model is possible, but doubtful, given China’s
visible ambition to achieve the status of the second pole and to
engage in global governance together with the United States. The
possibility of a Russian–European world order also became vague,
practically impossible by 2022.

The liberal institutional and realist approaches continued to compete


in the debates on the emerging world order through the 2010s, with the
latter becoming significantly more influential due, among other things, to
Russia, China, India, Brazil, Turkey, and many other countries thinking
in these categories. Despite individual differences, the liberals and real-
ists, Democrats and Republicans, are noticeably close conceptually. This
has been pointed out by John Mearsheimer, who stated that “the partic-
ular international order that obtains at any time is mainly a by-product
of the self-interested behavior of the system’s great powers.” This expla-
nation might not be appealing, but it sheds some light on why, after
the Cold War, when the USSR voluntarily abolished further confronta-
tion and was disbanded, the United States did not start implementing a
peaceful policy, toward Russia among other states, and started strength-
ening and expanding NATO, destabilizing individual regions and states
in Eurasia, particularly those in the proximity to Russia’s borders, and
brought the relations to a new confrontation.
J. Mearsheimer believes that great powers, as a rule, are incapable of
shaping a peaceful world order for two reasons: (1) states are unlikely
to agree on a general formula for ensuring peace; and (2) states cannot
2 THE GLOBAL ORDER IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY … 33

agree on enshrining a world order institutionally. Ultimately, all collec-


tive security projects intended to ensure global peace end in failure.31
The course of events after the Cold War convincingly confirms this idea.
Every single Russian proposal for creating a collective security system in
Europe is rejected by Western states, and attempts to create a truly effec-
tive anti-terrorist coalition fail. The United States is not ready to engage
in collective action for achieving global peace unless it can dictate its terms
unconditionally.

Important

A new world order can be – and is – shaped through the deci-


sive role of state actors, primarily the leading global powers. The
2020 situation showed even more clearly that without a consensus
between the leading powers, global problems in the economy,
finance, energy, healthcare, migration, environmental pollution,
etc., cannot be resolved. The problem of transitioning to a more
constructive path of shaping the foundations of global order with
a view to ensuring a stable and peaceful global development has
become vital. It is counter-productive to focus on building up arms
and exaggerating non-existing threats (“the Russian threat”) while
not paying enough attention to real threats (terrorism, transna-
tional crime, uncontrolled migration, military technologies in space,
information security, etc.).

The fact that there was no desire within the political and academic
community in the United States to re-evaluate the actions taken to build
a peaceful world order, and those taken toward the leading powers, forced
many countries—primarily China, Russia, Turkey, France, and several
mid-level states—to become more active in handling the world order
problem and in planning their actions in a way that would put them in
better stead in the world. Additionally, the domestic crisis in the United
States that gradually developed in the 2000s–2010s did not allow the
country to continue its policy of shaping the liberal world order at the
scale it wanted.32 The years 2016–2020 could be described as a slow-
down, a “pause” in the active order-shaping activities of the United States,
which, in the opinion of Democrats who came to power in 2021, caused
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CHAPTER IX
THE SHELL, ITS FORM, COMPOSITION AND GROWTH—DESIGNATION OF
ITS VARIOUS PARTS

The popular names of ‘shells,’ ‘shell-fish,’ and the like, as


commonly applied to the Mollusca, the intrinsic beauty and grace of
the shells themselves, resulting in the passion for their collection,
their durability and ease of preservation, as compared with the non-
testaceous portion,—all these considerations tend to unduly exalt the
value of the shell as part of the organism as a whole, and to obscure
the truth that the shell is by no means the most important of the
organs.
At the same time it must not be forgotten that the old systems of
classification, which were based almost entirely on indications drawn
from the shell alone, have been strangely little disturbed by the new
principles of arrangement, which depend mainly on structural points
in the animal. This fact only tends to emphasise the truth that the
shell and animal are in the closest possible connexion, and that the
shell is a living part of the organism, and is equally sensitive to
external influences.
A striking instance of the comparative valuelessness of the shell
alone as a primary basis of classification is furnished by the large
number of cases in which a limpet-shaped shell is assumed by
genera widely removed from one another in cardinal points of
organisation. This form of shell occurs in the common limpet
(Patellidae), in Ancylus (Limnaeidae), Hemitoma (Fissurellidae),
Cocculina (close to Trochidae), Umbrella and Siphonaria
(Opisthobranchiata), while in many other cases the limpet form is
nearly approached.
Roughly speaking, about three-quarters of the known Mollusca,
recent and fossil, possess a univalve, and about one-fifth a bivalve
shell. In Pholas, and in some species of Thracia, there is a small
accessory hinge plate; in the Polyplacophora, or Chitons, the shell
consists of eight plates (see Fig. 2, p. 8), usually overlapping. A
certain proportion of the Mollusca have no shell at all. In many of
these cases the shell has been present in the larva, but is lost in the
adult.
The shell may be
(1) External, as in the great majority of both univalves and
bivalves.
(2) Partly external, partly internal; e.g. Homalonyx, Hemphillia,
some of the Naticidae, Scutum, Acera, Aplustrum (Figs. 148 and
149).

Fig. 148.—Aplustrum
aplustre L. Mauritius,
showing the partly
internal shell (S); F,
foot; LL, cephalic
lappets; TT, double
set of tentacles. (After
Quoy and Gaimard.)
Fig. 149.—Sigaretus
laevigatus Lam.,
showing shell partially
immersed in the foot;
F, anterior
prolongation of the
foot. (After Souleyet.)
(3) Internal; e.g. Philine, Gastropteron, Pleurobranchus, Aplysia,
Limax, Arion, Hyalimax, Parmacella, Lamellaria, Cryptochiton, and,
among bivalves, Chlamydoconcha.
(4) Absent; e.g. all Nudibranchiata and Aplacophora, many
Cephalopoda, a few land Mollusca, e.g. all Onchidiidae, Philomycus,
and Vaginula.
The Univalve Shell.—In univalve Mollusca the normal form of the
shell is an elongated cone twisted into a spiral form round an axis,
the spiral ascending to the left. Probably the original form of the shell
was a simple cone, which covered the vital parts like a tent. As these
parts tended to increase in size, their position on the dorsal side of
the animal caused them gradually to fall over, drawing the shell with
them. The result of these two forces combined, the increasing size of
the visceral hump, and its tendency to pull the shell over with it,
probably resulted in the conversion of the conical into the spiral shell,
which gradually came to envelop the whole animal. Where the
visceral hump, instead of increasing in size, became flattened, the
conical shape of the shell may have been modified into a simple
elliptical plate (e.g. Limax), the nucleus representing the apex of the
cone. In extreme cases even this plate dwindles to a few calcareous
granules, or disappears altogether (Arion, Vaginula).
Varieties of the Spiral.—Almost every conceivable modification
of the spiral occurs, from the type represented by Gena, Haliotis,
Sigaretus, and Lamellaria, in which the spire is practically confined to
the few apical whorls, with the body-whorl inordinately large in
proportion, to a multispiral form like Terebra, with about twenty
whorls, very gradually increasing in size.

Fig. 150.—Examples of shells with A, a flattened


spire (Polygyratia); B, a globose spire (Natica);
C, a greatly produced spire (Terebra).
As a rule, the spire is more or less obliquely coiled round the axis,
each whorl being partially covered, and therefore hidden by, its
immediate successor, while the size of the whorls, and therefore the
diameter of the spire as a whole, increases somewhat rapidly. The
effect of this is to produce the elevated spire, the shell of six to ten
whorls, and the wide aperture, of the normal type of mollusc, the
whelk, snail, periwinkle, etc.
Sometimes, however, the coil of the whorls, instead of being
oblique, tends to become horizontal to the axis, and thus we have
another series of gradations of form, from the excessively produced
spire of Terebra to the flattened disc of Planorbis, Polygyratia,
Euomphalus, and Ammonites. The shell of many species of Conus
practically belongs to the latter type, each whorl folding so closely
over its predecessor that the spiral nature of the shell is not
perceived until it is looked at at right angles to the spire.

Fig. 151.—Examples of
shells with
disconnected whorls;
A, Cyathopoma cornu
Mf., Philippines; B,
Cylindrella hystrix
Wright, Cuba. (Both ×
4.)
Fig. 152.—Example of a
shell whose apical
whorls alone are
coiled, and the
remainder produced in
a regular curve.
(Cyclosurus Mariei
Morel., Mayotte.)
In some cases the regularly spiral form is kept, but the whorls are
completely disconnected; e.g. some Scalaria, Spirula; among fossil
Cephalopoda, Gyroceras, Crioceras, and Ancyloceras; and, among
recent land Mollusca, Cylindrella hystrix and Cyathopoma cornu (Fig.
151). Sometimes only the last whorl becomes disconnected from the
others, as in Rhiostoma (see Fig. 180, p. 266), Teinostoma, and in
the fossil Ophidioceras and Macroscaphites. Sometimes, again, not
more than one or two whorls at the apex are spirally coiled, and the
rest of the shell is simply produced or coiled in an exceedingly
irregular manner, e.g. Cyclosurus, Lituites, Orygoceras, Siliquaria
(Fig. 153), Vermetus. In Coecum (Fig. 170, p. 260) the spiral part is
entirely lost, and the shell becomes simply a cylinder. In a few cases
the last whorl is coiled irregularly backwards, and is brought up to
the apex, so that the animal in crawling must carry the shell with the
spire downwards, as in Anostoma (Fig. 154), Opisthostoma (Fig.
208, p. 309), Strophostoma, and Hypselostoma (Fig. 202 A, p. 302).
Fig. 153.—Siliquaria anguina Lam.,
showing scalariform coil of upper
whorls and irregular extension of
the lower.

Fig. 154.—Anostoma globulosum Lam.,


Brazil. (After P. Fischer.)
Fig. 155.—Various forms of the internal plate in
Capulidae: A, Calyptraea (Mitrularia) equestris
Lam., E. Indies; B, Crucibulum scutellatum Gray,
Panama; C, Ergaea plana Ad., and Reeve,
Japan; D, Galerus chinensis L., Britain; E,
Crepipatella dilatata Lam., Callao; F, Trochita
maculata Quoy, N. Zealand; G, Crepidula
fornicata Lam., N. America.
Some genera of the Capulidae, in which the shell is of a broadly
conical form or with scarcely any spire, develop an internal plate or
process which serves the purpose of keeping the animal within the
shell, and does the work of a strong attachment muscle. In Mitrularia
this process takes the form of a raised horse-shoe; in Crucibulum it
is cup-shaped, with the edge free all round; in Galerus, Ergaea,
Crepipatella, and Trochita we get a series of changes, in which the
edge of the cup adheres to the interior of the shell, and then
gradually flattens into a plate. In Crepidula proper this plate becomes
a regular partition, covering a considerable portion of the interior
(Fig. 155 G). Hipponyx secretes a thin calcareous plate on the
ventral surface of the foot, which intervenes like an operculum
between the animal and the substance to which it adheres.
Sinistral, or Left-handed Shells.—The vast majority of univalve
spiral shells are normally dextral, i.e. when held spire uppermost,
with the aperture towards the observer, the aperture is to the right of
the axis of the spire. If we imagine such a shell to be a spiral
staircase, as we ascended it we should always have the axis of the
spire to our left.
Sinistral or ‘reversed’ forms are not altogether uncommon, and
may be grouped under four classes:—
(1) Cases in which the genus is normally sinistral; (2) cases in
which the genus is normally dextral, but certain species are normally
sinistral; (3) cases in which the shell is indifferently dextral or
sinistral; (4) cases in which both genus and species are normally
dextral, and a sinistral form is an abnormal monstrosity.

Fig. 156.—Fulgur
perversum L., Florida. ½.

Fig. 157.—Illustration of the gradation of forms in Ampullaria between a dextral (A)


and an ultra-dextral species (F).

In all cases of sinistral monstrosity, and all in which a sinistral and


dextral form are interchangeable (sections 3 and 4 above), the
position of the apertures of the internal organs appears to be
relatively affected, i.e. the body is sinistral, as well as the shell. This
has been proved to be the case in all specimens hitherto examined,
and may therefore be assumed for the rest. The same uniformity,
however, does not hold good in all cases for genera and species
normally sinistral (sections 1 and 2). As a rule, the anal and genital
apertures are, in these instances also, to the left, but not always. In
Spirialis, Limacina, Meladomus, and Lanistes the shell is sinistral,
but the animal is dextral. This apparent anomaly has been most
ingeniously explained by Simroth, Von Ihering, and Pelseneer. The
shell, in all these cases, is not really sinistral, but ultra-dextral.
Imagine the whorls of a dextral species capable of being flattened,
as in a Planorbis, and continue the process, still pushing, as it were,
the spire downwards until it occupies the place of the original
umbilicus, becoming turned completely ‘inside out,’ and we have the
whole explanation of these puzzling forms. The animal remains
dextral, the shell has become sinistral. A convincing proof of the truth
of this is furnished by the operculum. It is well known that the twist of
the operculum varies with that of the shell; when the shell is dextral,
the operculum is sinistral, with its nucleus near the columella, and
vice versâ. In these ultra-dextral shells, however, where it is simply
the method of the enrolment of the spire that comes in question, and
not the formation of the whorls themselves, the operculum remains
sinistral on the apparently sinistral shell.
The reverse case to this, when the shell is dextral but the orifices
sinistral, is instanced by the two fresh-water genera Pompholyx
(from N. America), and Choanomphalus (L. Baikal). A similar
transition in the enrolment of the whorls may be confidently assumed
to have taken place, and the shells are styled ultra-sinistral.
Yet another variation remains, in which the embryonic form is
sinistral, but the adult shell dextral, the former remaining across the
nucleus of the spire. This is the case with Odostomia, Eulimella,
Turbonilla, and Mathilda, all belonging to the Prosobranchiata, with
Actaeon, Tornatina, and Actaeonina among the Opisthobranchs, and
Melampus alone among Pulmonates.
Monstrosities of the Shell.—Abnormal growths of the shell
constantly occur, some of them being scarcely noticeable, except by
a practised eye, others of a more serious nature, involving an entire
change in the normal aspect of the creature. Scalariform
monstrosities are occasionally met with, especially in Helix and
Planorbis, when the whorls become unnaturally elevated, and
sometimes quite disjoined from one another; carinated monstrosities
develop a keel on a whorl usually smooth; acuminated monstrosities
have the spire produced to an extreme length (Fig. 158); sinistral
monstrosities (see above) have the spire reversed: dwarfs and
giants, as in our own race, are occasionally noticed among a crowd
of individuals.
More serious forms of monstrosity are those which occur in
individual cases. Mr. S. P. Woodward once observed[332] a specimen
of an adult Helix aspersa with a second, half-grown individual fixed
to its spire, and partly embedded in the suture of the body whorl. The
younger snail had died during its first hibernation, as was shown by
the epiphragm remaining in the aperture, and its neighbour, not
being able to get free of the incubus, partially enveloped it in the
course of its growth. In the British Museum two Littorina littorea have
become entangled in a somewhat similar way (Fig. 160 B), possibly
as a result of embryonic fusion. Double apertures are not
uncommon[333] in the more produced land-shells, such as Cylindrella
and Clausilia (Fig. 160 A). In the Pickering collection was a Helix
hortensis which had crawled into a nutshell when young, and,
growing too large to escape, had to carry about this decidedly extra
shell to the end of its days. A monstrosity of the cornucopia form, in
which the whorls are uncoiled almost throughout, is of exceedingly
rare occurrence (Fig. 161).
Fig. 158.—Monstrosities of
Neptunea antiqua L., and
Buccinum undatum L., with a
greatly produced spire (from
specimens in the Brit. Mus.).

Fig. 159.—Monstrosities of Littorina


rudis Mat, The Fleet, Weymouth.
(After Sykes.)
Some decades ago ingenious Frenchmen amused themselves by
creating artificial monstrosities. H. aspersa was taken from its shell,
by carefully breaking it away, and then introduced into another shell
of similar size (H. nemoralis, vermiculata, or pisana). At the end of
several days attachment to the columella took place, and then
growth began, the new shell becoming soldered to the old, and the
spiral part of the animal being protected by a thin calcareous
envelope. A growth of from one to two whorls took place under these
conditions. The individuals so treated were always sordid and
lethargic, but they bred, and naturally produced a normal aspersa
offspring.[334] In the British Museum there is a specimen of one of
these artificial unions of a Helix with the shell of a Limnaea stagnalis.

Fig. 160.—Monstrosities with two


apertures: A, Cylindrella
agnesiana C. B. Ad.,
Jamaica; B, Littorina littorea
(from specimens in the
British Museum).

Fig. 161.—Cornucopia-
shaped monstrosity of
Helix aspersa, from
Ilfracombe. (British
Museum.)
Composition of the Shell.—The shell is mainly composed of
pure carbonate of lime, with a very slight proportion of phosphate of
lime, and an organic base allied to chitin, known as conchiolin. The
proportion of carbonate of lime is known to vary from about 99 p.c. in
Strombus to about 89 p.c. in Turritella. Nearly 1 p.c. of phosphate of
lime has been obtained from the shell of Helix nemoralis, and nearly
2 p.c. from that of Ostrea virginica. The conchiolin forms a sort of
membranous framework for the shell; it soon disappears in dead
specimens, leaving the shell much more brittle than it was when
alive. Carbonate of magnesia has also been detected, to the extent
of ·12 p.c. in Telescopium and ·48 p.c. in Neptunea antiqua. A trace
of silica has also occasionally been found.
When the shell exhibits a crystalline formation, the carbonate of
lime may take the form either of calcite or aragonite. The calcite
crystals are rhombohedral, optically uniaxal, and cleave easily, while
the aragonite cleave badly, belong to the rhombic system, and are
harder and denser, and optically biaxal. Both classes of crystal may
occur in the same shell.
Two main views have been held with regard to the formation and
structure of the shell—(1) that of Bowerbank and Carpenter, that the
shell is an organic formation, growing by interstitial deposit, in the
same manner as the teeth and bones of the higher animals; (2) that
of Réaumur, Eisig, and most modern writers, that the shell is of the
nature of an excretion, deposited like a cuticle on the outside of the
skin, being formed simply of a number of calcareous particles held
together by a kind of ‘animal glue.’ Leydig’s view is that the shell of
the Monotocardia is a secretion of the epithelium, but that in the
Pulmonata it originates within the skin itself, and afterwards
becomes free.[335]
According to Carpenter, when a fragment of any recent shell is
decalcified by being placed in dilute acid, a definite animal basis
remains, often so fine as to be no more than a membranous film, but
sometimes consisting of an aggregation of ‘cells’ with perfectly
definite forms. He accordingly divides all shell structure into cellular
and membranous, according to the characteristics of the animal
basis. Cellular structure is comparatively rare; it occurs most notably
in Pinna, where the shell is composed of a vast multitude of tolerably
regular hexagonal prisms (Fig. 162 B). Membranous structure
comprises all forms of shell which do not present a cellular tissue.
Carpenter held that the membrane itself was at one time a
constituent part of the mantle of the mollusc, the carbonate of lime
being secreted in minute ‘cells’ on its surface, and afterwards
spreading over the subjacent membrane through the bursting of the
cells.
The iridescence of nacreous shells is due to a peculiar lineation of
their surface, which can be readily detected by a lens. According to
Brewster, the iridescence is due to the alternation of layers of
granular carbonate of lime and of a very thin organic membrane, the
layers very slightly undulating. Carpenter, on the other hand, holds
that it depends upon the disposition of a single membranous layer in
folds or plaits, which lie more or less obliquely to the general surface,
so that their edges show as lines. The nacreous type of shell occurs
largely among those Mollusca which, from other details in their
organisation, are known to represent very ancient forms (e.g.
Nucula, Avicula, Trigonia, Nautilus). It is also the least permanent,
and thus in some strata we find that only casts of the nacreous shells
remain, while those of different constitution are preserved entire.
Porcellanous shells (of which the great majority of Gasteropoda
are instances) usually consist of three layers, each of which is
composed of a number of adjacent plates, like cards on edge. The
inclination of the plates in the different layers varies, but that of the
plates in the inner and outer layer is frequently the same, thus if the
plates are transverse in the middle stratum, they are longitudinal in
the inner and outer strata, and, if longitudinal in the middle, they are
transverse in the other two. Not uncommonly (Fig. 163 B) other
layers occur. In bivalves the disposition and nature of the layers is
much more varied.
Fig. 162.—A, Section of shell of Unio: a, periostracal layer; b, prismatic layer; c,
nacreous layer. B, Horizontal section of shell of Pinna, showing the hexagonal
prisms.

In Unio the periostracal or uppermost layer is very thin; beneath


this is a prismatic layer of no great depth, while the whole remainder
of the shell is nacreous (Fig. 162 A). Many bivalves show traces of
tubular structure, while in the Veneridae the formation and character
of the layers approaches closely to that of the Gasteropoda. Further
details may be gathered from Carpenter’s researches.[336]
Formation of Shell.[337]—The mantle margin is the principal
agent in the deposition of shell. It is true that if the shell be fractured
at any point, the hole will be repaired, thus showing that every part of
the mantle is furnished with shell-depositing cells, but such new
deposits are devoid of colour and of periostracum, and no
observation seems to have been made with regard to the layers of
which they are composed. As a rule the mantle, except at its margin,
only serves to thicken the innermost layer of shell.
It is probable that the carbonate of lime, of which the shell is
mainly composed, is separated from the blood by the epithelial cells
of the mantle margin, and takes the crystalline or granular form as it
hardens on exposure after deposition. The three layers of a
porcellanous shell are deposited successively, and the extreme edge
of the mouth, when shell is forming, will contain only one layer, the
outermost; a little further in, two layers appear, and further still, three.
The pigment cells which colour the surface are situated at the front
edge of the mantle margin.

Fig. 163.—Sections of shells. A, Conus: a, outer layer; b, middle prismatic layer,


with obliquely intersecting laminae above and below; c, inner layer. B, Oliva:
a, outer layer; b, layer of crossed and curved laminae; c, prismatic layer,
succeeded by layer of laminae at right angles to one another; d, inner layer. C,
Cypraea: a, outer layer; b, middle layer; c, inner layer.
Shelly matter is deposited, and probably secreted, not only by the
mantle, but also in some genera by the foot. This is certainly the
case in Cymbium, Oliva, Ancillaria, Cassis, Distortio, and others, in
several of which the foot is so large that the shell appears to be quite
immersed in it.[338]
The deposition of shell is not continuous. Rest periods occur,
during which the function is dormant; these periods are marked off
on the edge of the shell, and are known as lines of growth. In some
cases (Murex, Triton, Ranella), the rest period is marked by a
decisive thickening of the lip, which persists on the surface of the
shell as what is called a varix (see p. 263).
Fig. 164.—Murex
tenuispina L.,
Ceylon. × ⅔.

Fig. 165.—Neritina
longispina Récl., Mauritius.
(Operculum removed.)
The various details of sculpture on the exterior surface of the
shell, the striae, ribs, nodules, imbrications, spines, and other forms
of ornamentation are all the product of similar and corresponding
irregularities in the mantle margin, and have all been originally
situated at the edge of the lip. Spines, e.g. those of Murex and
Pteroceras, are first formed as a hollow thorn, cleft down its lower
side, and are afterwards filled in with solid matter as the mantle edge
withdraws. What purpose is served by the extreme elaboration of
these spiny processes in some cases, can hardly be considered as
satisfactorily ascertained. Possibly they are a form of sculptural
development which is, in the main, protective, and secures to its
owners immunity from the attacks of predatory fishes.
‘Attached’ genera (e.g. Chama, Spondylus) when living on smooth
surfaces have a flat shell, but when affixed to coral and other uneven
surfaces they become very irregular in shape. The sculpture of the
base on which they rest is often reproduced in these ‘attached’
shells, not only on the lower, but also on the upper valve, the
growing edge of which rests on the uneven surface of the base.
Oysters attached to the branches of the mangrove frequently display
a central convex rib, modelled on the shape of the branch, from
which the plaits of sculpture radiate, while specimens fixed to the
smooth trunk have no such rib. Crepidula, a genus which is in the
habit of attaching itself to other shells, varies in sculpture according
to that of its host. Sometimes the fact may be detected that a
specimen has lived on a ribbed shell when young, and on a smooth
one when old, or vice versâ. A new genus was actually founded by
Brown for a Capulus which had acquired ribs through adhesion to a
Pecten. A specimen of Hinnites giganteus in the British Museum
must at one period of its growth have adhered to a surface on which
was a Serpula, the impression of which is plainly reproduced on the
upper valve of the Hinnites.[339]
Fig. 166.—A specimen of Anomia
ephippium L., Weymouth,
taken upon Pecten maximus,
the sculpture of which is
reproduced on the upper
valve of the Anomia, and
even on a young Anomia
attached to the larger
specimen.
Growth of the Shell.—Nothing very definite is known with regard
to the rate of growth of the shell in marine Mollusca. Under
favourable conditions, however, certain species are known to
increase very rapidly, especially if the food supply be abundant, and
if there is no inconvenient crowding of individuals. Petit de la
Saussaye mentions[340] the case of a ship which sailed from
Marseilles for the west coast of Africa, after being fitted with an
entirely new bottom. On arriving at its destination, the vessel spent
68 days in the Gambia River, and took 86 days on its homeward
voyage. On being cleaned immediately on its return to Marseilles, an
Avicula 78 mm. and an Ostrea 95 mm. long (both being species
peculiar to W. Africa) were taken from its keel. These specimens had
therefore attained this growth in at most 154 days, for at the period
of their first attachment they are known to be exceedingly minute. P.
Fischer relates[341] that in 1862 a buoy, newly cleaned and painted,
was placed in the basin at Arcachon. In less than a year after, it was
found to be covered with thousands of very large Mytilus edulis, 100

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