摘要
Many scholars have documented and analyzed the widespread fraud and deceit associated with government failures worldwide, comparing historical and recent policies leading up to the currently unstable global financial system. Most of the attention to detail, however, has been focused on the actions and failures of corporations, corporate leaders, and political and financial regulatory institutions, with little attention to generalizing political and social-psychological theories that might explain not only current but historical failures, and also prepare the way for formulating alternative futures in a manner that has some substantial likelihood of significantly impacting 61ires who are held responsible for such systemic effects. This paper offers some suggestions for such theory construction, exploring literature on grand theories of the rise and fall of empires, war and financial cycles, and social-psychological theories of political decision making, and considers some implications for the literature on growth and decline of civilizations and their worldviews, and in this context just what alternative futures might be likely and how to choose. I also explores the possibility that the social sciences are close to an understanding of civilization dynamics--close but not yet there. A framework is suggested which may be useful for continuing this research to the point where alternative futures can be constructed that have significance for the future of our globalized world order. In particular the works of Jared Diamond, Carroll Quigley, Niall Ferguson, Chalmers Johnson, and Paul Kennedy, are compared for their macro-historical theories suggesting an evolutionary dynamic in the life span of civilizations, the works of Johnson and Kwak and others for their research into the causes of recurrent financial instability threatening the stability of regimes and whole societies, and various theories of individual and group decision making （Leon Festinger, Harold Lasswell, Abraham Maslow, Richardson, and others） which may explain the social-psychological processes linking these two phenomena. Further, regarding why such comprehensive theory tends not to be addressed in the social and policy sciences, two stumbling blocks are discussed： （1） the absence of any ＂standard theory＂ in political and social science, the absence of which motivates academic struggles analogous to those characterized as security dilemmas in international relations; and （2） students and practitioners of politics often speak past one another and get embroiled in needless conflicts because of the latent structures of their dominant paradigms, specifically misunderstandings among the practitioners of political science, political philosophy, and political practitioners.
