Politics: The Basics, 4th Edition

support existing patterns of individual and government consumption

• essentially a concentration of individual consumption and strategic
  power in the North Atlantic area. Or new technologies such as solar,
  wind and wave power may be developed of greater relevance to the
  problems of the South and to the survival of non-human species on
  our planet.
  Clearly two major factors, which will affect the environmental
  future, are the balance of power between the ‘North’ and the ‘South’
  and the role of multinational enterprises. The latter we considered in
  Chapter 2, the former deserves some more specific attention.

‘North’ versus ‘South’?

Just as the confrontation between communist ‘East’ and capitalist
‘West’ dominated international relations in the second half of the
twentieth century, so it seems likely that divisions between ‘North’
and ‘South’ will dominate the scene at the beginning of the twenty-
first (Brandt, 1980, passim).
By ‘South’ is meant what used to be called the ‘Third World’,
‘developing’ or ‘underdeveloped’ countries. ‘Third World’ was a
useful term since it suggested the geo-strategic truth that such
countries were a loose block of states that could play off the capitalist
‘West’ against the communist ‘East’ at the United Nations and else-
where. It seems hardly an appropriate term now, with the virtual
disappearance of the second, communist, world. China, which pro-
fesses to be communist, is of course still very much a major, but not
a super, power. However, it cannot play the same sort of dominating

PROCESSES 129

Table 5.4 From public administration to information polity

1 Uniformity of provision Targeted provision

• the administrative principle – the business principle
  2 Hierarchical structure Loose–tight structures


• the control principle – the network management principle
  3 Division of work Integration of work


• the functional principle – the co-ordinative/collaborative principle
  4 Paternalistic relationships Responsive relationships to customers and
  citizens


• the professional principle – the ‘whole person’ principle
  Source: Taylor and Williams (1991)