Ontology lies at the beginning of any enquiry. We cannot define a problem in global politics without presupposing a certain basic structure consisting of the significant kinds of entities involved and the form of significant relationships among them. We think, for example, about a system whose basic entities are states and of an hypothesized mechanism called the balance of power through which their relationships may be understood to constitute a certain kind of world order. From such ontological beginnings, complex theories have been built and specific cases – particular interstate relationships – can be examined. There is always an ontological starting point.

Any such ontological standpoint is open to question. All of the terms just used have ontological meanings: global politics, structure, system, states, balance of power, world order. I choose “global politics” deliberately to avoid certain ontological presuppositions inherent in other terms such as “international relations,” which seems to equate nation with state and to define the field as limited to the interactions among states; or “world system,” which has been given a specific meaning by certain writers, notably by Immanuel Wallerstein.