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Between control and rule-based competition:
the “Needham problem” and the causes of current political turbulence

Rozov N.S.,

Institute of Philosophy and Law, Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences; Novosibirsk State Technical University, Novosibirsk, Russia, nrozov@gmail.com

elibrary_id: 72298 | ORCID: 0000-0003-2362-541X | RESEARCHER_ID: K-5447-2017

Article received: 2026.05.18 20:41. Accepted: 2026.07.02 20:41


DOI: 10.17976/jpps/2026.05.11
EDN: GUGRHF

Rubric: Orbis terrarum

For citation:

Rozov N.S. Between control and rule-based competition: the “Needham problem” and the causes of current political turbulence. – Polis. Political Studies. 2026. No. 5. https://doi.org/10.17976/jpps/2026.05.11. EDN: GUGRHF (In Russ.)

Abstract

This article presents a hypothesis about the causes of the ongoing erosion of the global order, which is characterized by increasing turbulence and escalating violence. This hypothesis is based on insights that explain the “Great Divergence” between China and Europe in the modern era. A synthesis of key concepts from J. Needham, E. Jones, K. Pomeranz, J. Goldstone, J. Mokyr, and others provides a convincing solution to the “Needham Question”: Why did China, which had long been ahead of Europe in science and technology, fail to produce its own Industrial Revolution? The article presents a framework that integrates these explanations into a general conceptual structure featuring two types of order: the order of control and the order of rule-based competition. These orders are simultaneously aspects of societies' socio-political structures and attractors toward which societies are drawn or pushed during historical development. The main forces driving societies in this space are two megatrends: “Lift” and “Well”, which are complexes of positive feedback loops between key variables. This framework explains the profound crises that occurred in Europe during the 16th and early 17th centuries and in China during the 19th century, as well as the subsequent surge of modernization in Europe. The same structural ideas and concepts are then applied to explain the most significant macro-processes of recent decades: the shift in the balance of power between the West and the non-West in favor of the so-called “Other Modernity”, and the erosion or destruction of the world order established after World War II, along with the discrediting of key international institutions and legal norms. While the major non-Western powers have increased their economic, technological, and military-political potential in recent decades through market reforms and the development of rules-based competition, the political forces of the West’s main centers - the U.S. and the EU - have shifted toward a control-based order. The likely consequences and global risks of such a paradoxical transformation are examined.

Keywords

social evolution, historical dynamics, intellectual production, the role of scientific ideas in technological progress, the marketplace of ideas, types of social orders, the Great Divergence between Europe and China, the causes of global turbulence.

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