Dois conceitos basilares das relações internacionais: continuidade e mudança

Continuidade e mudança, são dois conceitos fundamentais nas RI necessários para compreender a tridimensionalidade do tempo político: passado-presente-futuro na avaliação do sistema internacional que hoje modela a esfera da globalidade - :

There is no doubt that international politics is quite different, in almost all dimensions, than it has been, or than it will be. It is evolving under the influence of technological advance perhaps faster than ever before. The more telling observation, however, is the persistence and adaptability of traditional concepts in the face of rapid evolution. Technology-related changes may be modifying the dimensions of national autonomy but not the assumptions of autonomy in national policies, changing the substance of dependency relationships but not the fact of dependency, altering the nature of weapons but not denying a role for power in international affairs, modifying the distribution of power and capabilities but not the significance of those attributes of states, creating new patterns of economic interaction among societies but leaving the management of the economic system largely in national hands, altering the relationships between government and non-government actors but not the basic authority of governments, raising wholly new issues and altering traditional issues that must be dealt with internationally – but thereby making foreign policy more complex, not fundamentally different.

(in Eugene Skolnikoff, The Elusive Transformation: Science, Technology, and the Evolution of International Politics,

Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1993, p. 7.)