The whole of the world system has changed in that time, and with it, world politics. That is why the thesis of the allegedly permanent, hence also unchangeable, nature of international politics, and its consequently unavoidable propensity to war, is unacceptable. But if global institutions are indeed subject to change, then that process can either be random, and hence unfathomable, or else display patterns of regularity. The task for evolutionary world politics is to explore that second possibility, and that is where evolutionary theory finds its place. That is why evolutionary world politics calls for a model that draws upon the theoretical capital of general evolutionary thought but is also adapted to the questions more urgently at hand.
Selection is a concept of considerable generality and analytical power, and includes competition.
Indeed, that generality might in fact point to an underlying mechanism common to all evolutionary processes. This consideration might well apply to all evolutionary mechanisms. In sum, global political evolution might be conceived as driven by the mechanisms of competition and cooperation organized and amplified by a diversity of policies. But evolutionary mechanisms do not operate equally everywhere and instantaneously. They favor regions and areas with high evolutionary potential.