The Long Cycle of Global Politics and the Nation-State

Let us define a cycle as a recurrent pattern in the life (or functioning ) of a system . The concept implies that over a certain period of time the system, in some meaningful sense, returns to its starting point, that it regains a state occupied at an earlier stage. If such behavior is demonstrably regular and if recurrence takes place in a pattern that is potentially predictable, such behavior may appropriately be called cyclical or periodic. Cycles are commonly distinguished from trends.