Chapter Abstract
What can we do to change the world? Our dissatisfaction with the current state of the world often translates into a desire to change the world. This chapter considers how we might respond to the various problems we encounter in global politics, but it also contends that our desire to change the world – to make it a better place – raises all sorts of difficult questions: How do we decide what is wrong? And why do we think we can – or should – change the world? The question of what we can do to change the world makes some huge assumptions about the world, about our role in it and about who ‘we’ are. In short, this chapter examines what might be wrong with the idea of changing what’s wrong with the world.
Seminar room activities
Activity: Put the students in small groups. Get each group to think of a particular concern about global politics and to identify what it therefore is that they would like to change. Ask them to make a plan. Swap the plans between groups and ask the second group do identify what assumptions the first group made in identifying their problem and attempting to address it.
Assessment Questions
- Why is it difficult to change global politics?
- How is thinking about global politics related to how we act?
- Is complicity a problem?