现代国际体系的起源——从体系与单位双重视野出发的论述

通过对中世纪欧洲国际秩序及其原则的追述,从体系和单位双重视野出发考察现代国际体系的起源,我们发现,随文艺复兴时代意大利国际体系的崩溃,西方国际构造的重心发生了从意大利和地中海西移到北大西洋东岸的转移,全球性政治经济初露端倪;而现代强国的最初浮现与形成,则明显地具有它们作为最初的领土集中的现代民族国家这一根本特征。运用体系和单位双重视野,我们还可以获得如下认识:(1)使得现代国际体系的起源具有重大复杂性甚而曲折性的主要因素,相当集中地寓于与西欧现代强国并立的哈布斯堡"传统型半旧帝国";(2)在这起源时代若干萌发中的新要素,很大程度上规定了现代国际体系未来长期演进的基本方向和主要特征。

The Origins of the Modern International System:An Elaboration from the Perspectives of Both System and Unit

This article starts by a survey of the medieval international order and its decline,then discusses the origins of the modern international system from a "double" perspective of both system and unit.The observation from the former angle emphasizes that following the collapse of the Renaissance Italian system,the gravity of the Western international structure moved westward from Italy and Mediterranean to the east coast of the North Atlantic,and a sort of beginning of global political economy was emerging for the first time.And that from the latter one focuses on the initial rise and development of the modern great powers,stressing the most essential attribute of them as the earliest territorial concentrated modern nation-states.This article also points out that the major elements that made the origins of the modern international system have prominent complexities or even major twists were rather concentrated in the Habsburg "traditional semi-old empire" coexisted with the emerging western European modern great powers,and that several new elements emerging in this age of "genesis" dictated in a large degree the fundamental direction and major features of the future long-term evolution of the modern international system.