Abstract
Diplomacy, like counter-insurgency, has recently become a hot topic – and for similar reasons. In the 1990s, it was often assumed that globalisation would soon make traditional forms of negotiation and communication between states redundant as the peoples of the world marched together towards liberal democratic consensus. In the 2000s, however, the recrudescence of ideological and cultural conflict has led some to point to what we seem to have lost: older forms of diplomatic wisdom about toleration, calculation and accommodation. Former diplomats like Daryl Copeland or Shaun Riordan have pressed the case for the revitalisation of diplomatic establishments to cope with these new challenges, while international relations theorists have tried to distil the essence of the diplomat's traditional craft for use in the contemporary world.
This book fills another niche, but works towards similar ends. The prolific Jeremy Black provides a synoptic account of the evolution of diplomacy from the late medieval period to the present, drawing on both primary and secondary sources. Rightly, he takes umbrage at the ‘Whiggish’ way the history of diplomacy is normally written, as an unfolding story of growing professionalism and sophistication, and at the Eurocentricity of conventional narratives.
Black's history is instead episodic and sometimes a little disjointed. Within the chronological chapters, it jumps about from diplomat to diplomat, place to place, even decade to decade. Black rejects the idea that diplomacy is merely what resident embassies do; instead, he includes legates and envoys, mere messengers and grand colonial officers. He has to do this, of course, to let non-Europeans into the story prior to the nineteenth century, but the book benefits from the move, providing a far more rounded picture of diplomatic interactions with the non-West than the standard accounts.
Towards the end, the book gets breathless. We move from the establishment of the UN to the creation of the PLO in a mere two pages. The big international events sometimes obscure the diplomacy, tempting Black into judgements that lack a cutting edge. The statement ‘the situation in 1900–70 was particularly in flux and was seen as such by the diplomats of the period’ (p. 216) is true, but elides too much too quickly. This is a rich book that takes some patience to read, but one from which both diplomats and scholars will profit.
Ian Hall
(Griffith University, Brisbane)
Among the many important developments of the World Trade Organization (WTO), arguably the single most important accomplishment is the creation of a new dispute settlement system which is essential to the effective implementation of WTO agreements. Like any good work, Self-Enforcing Trade begins with a single question: what is the relationship between developing countries and the WTO dispute settlement mechanism? It broadens from there to include many subsidiary questions that are important in their own right.
The book is divided into eight chapters supplemented with several tables, figures and appendices. The introductory chapters provide readers with background on the establishment of the WTO and position of developing countries throughout. The author then describes the WTO dispute settlement system through analysis of an actual case study, namely the EC-Bananas III dispute. Following this, Chapters 4–8 analyse such fundamental issues of the WTO dispute settlement system as frequency of initiating disputes, countries involved either as primary litigants or third parties, non-governmental organisation intervention and the role of the Advisory Centre on WTO Law in assisting developing countries. Chad Bown addresses whether there is a bias against developing countries in their use of the WTO dispute settlement system. His approach is to examine economic, political and legal impediments to effective participation through a self-developed model which he refers to as the extended litigation process. These impediments include, for example, trade volume, insufficient human resources, collecting information about market access, financial constraints, the absence of private sector involvement, and political spillovers through the elimination of bilateral aid.
Bown provides some fairly comprehensive research of developing countries’ participation or lack thereof in the WTO dispute settlement procedures, as well as a discussion of unresolved hurdles, especially information generation on violations of WTO commitments, which prevent them from effective participation. The author further proposes the establishment of a new institution – called the Institute for Assessing WTO Commitments – designed to monitor WTO compliance, flag up violations of potential interest to developing countries and assist them in generating data and information. This proposal is not necessarily convincing because other and perhaps more important reasons prevent developing countries from effective participation, such as the lack of technical expertise, litigation costs and post-ruling implementation – specifically, if a developed country loses a case. However, the author is to be applauded for raising these issues and for illuminating them with intensive research and great analytical insight. Self-Enforcing Trade is an important contribution and will serve as a useful reference text.
Bashar H. Malkawi
(University of Sharjah, United Arab Emirates)
This edited collection of works – nearly all of which were published previously in International Security – seeks to examine two of the most pressing questions in international security: why do states want nuclear weapons, and what can be done to prevent or slow their spread and possible use? Although the essays are diverse and deal with numerous different aspects of the nuclear proliferation problem – and can readily be studied individually – the work as a whole would seem to suggest that a greater understanding of domestic variables, international norms and the ‘supply side’ of nuclear proliferation are fundamental if we are to avoid the horrific possibility of these weapons being used in the future.
The book is split into four parts, each dealing with a slightly different aspect of the nuclear problem. The chapters in Part I look at why states choose to acquire nuclear weapons. They include Scott Sagan's essay on conceptual frameworks for understanding why states build the bomb, an analysis of why nuclear proliferation has been less rapid than expected by William Potter and Gaukher Mukhatzhanova, and also a strong case for why we need to focus on the ‘supply side’ of nuclear proliferation by Matthew Fuhrmann. The contributions in Part II by Sumit Ganguly, Samina Ahmed and S. Paul Kapur go on to focus more specifically on the sources and consequences of nuclear proliferation in South Asia. The essays in Part III by Peter Liberman and Ariel Levite look at why certain states have chosen to give up the bomb, and at the prospects for broader nuclear reversal. In Part IV, various different contemporary proliferation challenges are addressed, including the risk of nuclear terrorism by Matthew Bunn, and the possibility of an Israeli strike on Iran's burgeoning nuclear facilities by Whitney Raas and Austin Long.
By drawing on the comprehensive and varied expertise of a number of leading experts in the field, and by looking at a whole range of issues associated with the spread of nuclear weapons, this book is a key addition to how we understand and think about combating and containing the most destructive weapons on the planet. Although the work does not cover everything – and the absence of a discussion about North Korea is particularly noticeable – it is nevertheless a comprehensive historical, conceptual and political overview of one of the most important problems in contemporary international politics.
Andrew Futter
(University of Birmingham)
This Handbook consists of 41 state-of-the-art articles written by 50 leading scholars in the field of security studies. It is worth stressing that the Handbook is based on a relatively broad definition of the field, moving beyond the narrow traditionalist view of security. According to traditionalists, security studies should focus almost exclusively on territorial security; the main object of the study should be external military threats to nation states. The Handbook, however, discusses a wide variety of threats (e.g. economic and environmental) as well as various referent objects beyond the nation state (e.g. humans, international organisations). The editors convincingly argue that the types of threat now facing different political actors are much wider and more complex than has traditionally been assumed.
The book is divided into four key parts. These are: theoretical approaches to security (which introduces the basic paradigms such as constructivism and realism); contemporary security challenges (e. g. terrorism and cyber-threats); regional security challenges; and confronting security challenges (this part discusses the different instruments designed to counter security threats, for example humanitarian interventions or coercive diplomacy). The Handbook places great emphasis on theoretical debates, which are discussed in an accessible style, and the scope of issues, themes and problems analysed is impressive.
However, there are some conspicuous omissions in the book. One could wonder why there are no separate entries on Africa and South America in Part III, which is devoted to regional issues. I also think that the book would be better if the question of Islam was analysed in more detail, especially in the European context. One could also expect to read more on nationalism, in particular the relations between security and national and ethnic minorities. In many parts of the world we observe the process of ‘securitisation’ (and de-securitisation) of various minorities; for example, right-wing politicians in Europe play the ethnic minority card by targeting Muslim minorities as a threat to national security and even state integrity.
Raising these questions is in no way intended to downgrade the value of this book. Quite the reverse, for in my opinion the Handbook will be extremely useful for scholars and students of international relations, security studies, peace studies and for all professionals working in the field of international politics. The Handbook is clearly written and is relatively free of technical jargon, so that it can be read by all those interested in security issues.
Krzysztof Jaskulowski
(Warsaw School of Social Sciences and Humanities)
Philip Cerny's Rethinking World Politics brings multiple strands of research and writing together on comparative and international political economy to present an argument of how world politics has changed to favour the power and influence of transnational and trans-governmental networks over that of national governments.
The first third of the book lays out the case that transnational neo-pluralism involves the shift from raison d'état to raison du monde as a key organising principle and logic of world affairs. State and societal actors transcend national borders and controls to act, transact and coordinate national regulatory and policy activities internationally. Power becomes not a distributed, divisible set of resources, but something that is constructed through networks that include government actors who must transcend their national interests somewhat in a horizontal network in order to have influence.
Part II sets out the link between national and transnational politics and how the latter has changed public policy. In this section, Cerny focuses on tying in his previous work on the competition state into a discussion of how its policies and development are overdetermined by network activity taking place at a global level. He also explores at length Foucault's concept of governmentality as a reference point for conceptualising the complex relationship between the networks of neo-pluralist activity he identifies, which form a superstructure of global governance, and the formally independent national governments responsible for steering the application of regulation and public policy on the ground. The result is a spectrum of national variants of neo-liberalism, with more or less social variants.
Part III considers the implications of this for world politics. Cerny portrays global politics as currently in a state of flux with a number of possible outcomes, but the Foucauldian discussions in Part II underpin an expectation of continued governance without government beyond the state.
Those looking for answers to where we are heading might be disappointed at the lack of a clear outcome.
However, this is an important and readable book for those seeking a coherent overview of a complex field that brings the relationship between domestic policy changes and global political activity into sharper focus, and sets out to understand better not just that there are networks out there in the Slaughterian sense, but that those networks favour specific economic and social policy choices worldwide.
Shawn Donnelly
(University of Twente, the Netherlands)
Stephen Cimbala and Peter Forster set out to explain how member states of the NATO alliance distribute burdens in multinational military interventions. The authors attempt to present a wider definition of burden sharing than the previous literature, going beyond calculations of direct financial and operational military contributions to include other political, economic and military burdens that states take on in the course of military interventions. The primary argument is that NATO burden distribution is determined by the extent to which each member's vital interests are at stake in a given crisis. The key area of burden sharing is the distribution of risk, which represents the willingness of each state to take casualties in combat.
The authors examine five case studies of military cooperation between NATO states (though not necessarily NATO operations): Lebanon in 1982–4, the 1991 Gulf War, the Balkans, Afghanistan and nuclear proliferation. Each case study outlines the crisis and the response of NATO members, and provides a description of the distribution of burdens, in most cases paying particular attention to political burdens, such as generating domestic support and leadership challenges in the alliance.
The book's approach is useful in that it identifies and explains a number of seldom discussed burdens for states involved in multinational military operations, which provides for a wider theoretical view of the costs and benefits that alliances must determine how to share prior to embarking on a military expedition. The authors waver, however, between examining the reasons for why states intervene, based on collective action theory, and how states share the costs of the intervention. The theoretical confusion leads to uneven analysis in the cases studied, as it often seems that each case is based on different theoretical questions. The case selection is also problematic. While the book is about NATO burden sharing, only two of the five cases deal with NATO operations, and the fifth case, nuclear proliferation, is difficult to justify as a military intervention.
Cimbala and Forster's book is primarily useful for its chapters on NATO disputes in the Balkans and Afghanistan, where the empirical aspects are well developed. The uneven nature of the theoretical analysis, however, means that the book falls short of being an innovative contribution to the literature on NATO burden sharing. It is also problematic in that the book does not discuss NATO as an organisation, preferring instead to focus on relations between the United States and European allies.
Christopher Griffin
(Université de Paris III – Sorbonne Nouvelle)
What the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) means has become increasingly clearer and debates about its core tenets are now largely redundant. Nonetheless, questions about its utility remain. References to R2P now pepper Security Council resolutions and the earnest declarations of statesmen, but it is debatable whether this constitutes anything more than hortatory platitudes.
In Responsibility to Protect: The Global Moral Compact for the 21st Century Richard Cooper and Juliette Kohler have collected an impressive array of contributions which for the most part avoid the all too common ‘isn't-R2P-a-great-idea’ type of offering that rarely goes beyond banal, moralistic exhortations. Many of the contributors acknowledge their support for R2P but offer an unflinching analysis of the obstacles to its realisation and an acknowledgement that for all the publicity surrounding it, R2P has a long way to go before it can be deemed to constitute an effective norm in international relations. As Cooper and Kohler argue, ‘the major stumbling blocks … have not been lifted’ (p. 248).
While Gareth Evans advances his standard emotive appeal for better behaviour, other contributors offer constructive critiques which tackle head on the major obstacles facing R2P. Cherif Bassiouni offers a superb analysis of the structural limitations within the international legal architecture which militate against the enforcement of R2P: ‘Legal experience', he warns, ‘demonstrates that the enunciation of rights without concomitant remedies are pyrrhic pronouncements, and that remedies without enforcement are empty promises’ (p. 41). Susan Mayer similarly argues: ‘without major changes in the UN, R2P will go the way of the genocide Convention’ (p. 56) while Lee Feinstein and Erica De Bruin caution against imagining that increased rhetorical support for R2P constitutes grounds for celebration (p. 189). Pace, Deller and Chhatpar perhaps capture the dilemma most succinctly: ‘The promise of R2P will have failed if governments begrudgingly admit that such a commitment exists, only to resist its application to specific conflicts’ (p. 225). There are a number of excellent case studies which add further evidence of the limited application of R2P and while certain contributors advance the argument that global civil society can pressurise states into acting in the interests of suffering strangers, this idealism is countered by others, such as William Schulz, who, though not fatalistic, point to limitations of this strategy (p. 146).
The book's general focus on practical prescriptions based on realistic assessments makes a refreshing change from the many earnest, idealistic and ultimately unhelpful exhortations that dominate the literature. This edited collection constitutes a significant addition to the literature on R2P and is essential reading for anyone interested in this important topic.
Aidan Hehir
(University of Westminster)
In their well-written new book, Cordell and Wolff investigate the causes, consequences and responses to ethnic conflict in the modern world. The book is subdivided into two short introductory chapters followed by Part I, which presents theories of ethnic conflict and develops a framework for understanding the causes, and Part II, which analyses responses to ethnic conflict. Based on an examination of theories – insecurity, ‘greed', social-psychological motivations – and acknowledging the international dimension, the authors offer a synthesis; a ‘multi-level analysis of the phenomenon'. Cordell and Wolff believe that ‘ethnic conflicts are not natural disasters that simply happen, but that they are man-made; that is, they are the consequences of deliberate choices made by individual human beings, be they leaders or followers', and which are grounded in people's motivations (p. 44). They extract their framework from various heterogeneous cases drawn from Georgia, Rwanda and the Philippines to illuminate ethnic conflict as a function of motive, means and opportunity of the protagonist. They then analyse the conflict in Macedonia, applying the ‘prism of the level-of-analysis approach’ to a number of factors and actors involved (p. 70). The authors conclude that these cases ‘are all in some way as different from one another as they are similar’ (p. 75).
In Part II Cordell and Wolff examine a wide range of different approaches to ethnic conflict. They also attempt to explain the success and failure of international conflict regulation, followed by a chapter devoted to international intervention with cases from Burma, Congo, Sudan and Kosovo. Next the authors present actual conflict settlement in theory and practice, followed by a description of violent ‘alternatives’ to consensual conflict settlement (pp. 171ff.), including genocide, forced assimilation and ethnic cleansing. The main conclusion of the book is: ‘what we developed conceptually, and found empirically, is that the motives, means and opportunities of the immediate conflict parties are dependent upon a wide range of factors at the local, state, regional and global level', and that these factors and their interplay have to be examined in order to understand differences and similarities between ethnic conflicts. Cordell and Wolff conclude that ‘settling ethnic conflict is a continuous challenge in wartorn societies, and post-conflict reconstruction is a complex yet necessary task that is integral to the successful settlement of any conflict’ (p. 196).
Although they analyse several approaches to conflict regulation, the authors do not mention a tool which, to a certain degree, has proved to be successful in settling or at least containing ethnic conflict in Europe: namely, plebiscites after 1918.
The strength of the book is that it covers ethnic conflict as a global phenomenon. However, it might be disputed whether the anatomy of ethnic conflict is necessarily the same in Africa as in Asia or Europe. Finally, it is odd that the issue of the Roma minorities is hardly addressed at all. Nevertheless, Cordell and Wolff have written an interesting book on the issue, which contributes to the further development of the field.
Jorgen Kuhl
(A. P. Moller Skolen, Schleswig, Germany)
Using the work of Michel Foucault on bio-politics as a starting point, Dillon and Reid analyse the liberal rule and way of war in the context of the information age and argue that these are changing and must be reinterpreted. Instead of the traditional focus on individual rights and economics, liberal (security) strategies now take as a new point of departure the reproduction and protection of life (the human species being the referent for security – think of human security and humanitarian interventions for example). These strategies include waging wars to make life live, but go much beyond to encompass the control of life at the individual level (including molecular, through the informationalisation of life).
To the authors, realist or liberal internationalist accounts of the international system are not plausible explanations for the violent or controlling behaviour of liberal democracies today; but the pathologies of liberal bio-politics are. Their insights offer a valuable framework for understanding the changing nature of liberal security discourses, but this does not account well for the variations between liberal regimes or for non-liberal polities. Arguably, statesmen who decide to wage war may have another referent for security than the human species, and modern history consistently shows that they do. Greed, ambition and access do often act as more powerful referents than making life live.
Providing a thoughtful post-structural critique of the liberal way of war, this is a book that should be read. Unfortunately, its unnecessarily complex prose – which is at times impenetrable to anyone unfamiliar with abstract philosophical concepts – too often detracts from the centrality of the argument. More careful editing of the text would have provided greater clarity and made it more accessible to those who are unfamiliar with the complex intricacies of debates in political philosophy.
Further, the argument could be of great interest to practitioners, if only it were more accessible and devoid of jargon. While it is important to address academic colleagues thoughtfully, explanations and theories that can hardly reach those in the ‘real world’ of policy making – no matter how coherent, interesting or illuminating – run the risk of never being exploited beyond the narrow confine of the academic world. And that, at times, is detrimental to the building of a better world.
Stéphane Lefebvre
(Defence R&D Canada)
Charlotte Epstein's highly accessible and theoretically innovative book is not (quite) about anti-whaling discourse. Certainly, the book is rich in analysis of the discourses that brought about the relatively recent hegemony of anti-whaling discourse; but to say that this book is only about whaling would be a mistake. Rather, The Power of Words in International Relations: Birth of an Anti-whaling Discourse is a book about discourses. Using global discourses about whaling and anti-whaling during the twentieth century as a case study, this book explores how discourses are made, how a variety of discourses emanating within states, activists, popular culture and policy makers interlock, and how these discourses reproduce images that constrain and make possible international actions. In sum, this is a book about the power of words in international relations.
Starting from the ambition of taking ‘a critical step out of what the discourses actually say, in order to observe what they do’ (p. 13), Epstein first investigates the power of the whaling order. She highlights that material interests are not as important as we might think they are to the decline of modern whaling. Drawing upon Foucault and Bourdieu, she undertakes a sophisticated analysis of how whaling practice reinforced a conceptualisation of a sovereign nation state contributing to a society of states modern enough to organise whaling activities successfully. Part II explores the creation of a doxa about anti-whaling, highlighting the effects of discursive power in welding together several meta-narratives which support the notion that whaling should be limited and even banned. The final part serves to highlight how and why anti-whaling discourse has remained dominant, stressing the importance of image making in shaping a range of practices in international relations. Clearly structured and dripping in detail, it is easy to see why this book was the 2009 runner-up for the International Studies Association's Harold and Margaret Sprout Award for environmental studies.
Epstein's attempt to weave theory ‘into the analysis of the case itself’ (p. ix) is structurally ambitious, and while this is generally carried out quite well, there are moments of slippage. For instance, in Chapter 7, which details the development of anti-whaling campaigns, the reader is left wanting more elaboration on the theoretical point being made in the chapter. Nevertheless, this small criticism does not detract from the overall power of the book, which is of use to scholars concerned with environmental politics, discourse analysis, NGOs and international institutions.
Laura McLeod
(University of Manchester)
Tracing its origins (at least) to the writings of Thucydides, realism has come to be perceived as the cornerstone of the discipline of international relations. The stature of the realist tradition has allowed it to dominate not only the ivory towers of academe, but also the bunkers and boardrooms of applied foreign policy making. Many commentators have noted, however, that the end of the Cold War undermined the supremacy of realist thought in the observation of world affairs. Apart from failing to anticipate the fairly peaceful implosion of the ‘evil empire’ of the former Soviet Union, contrary to realist dogma in the post-Cold War era it was intra-national affairs that became increasingly anarchic, while the pattern of international interactions turned out to be generally marked by order.
Thus, a plethora of post-positivist and critical approaches sprang up to fill in the alleged analytical gaps in realist ratiocination. At the same time, realist scholars themselves began a soul-searching exploration into recalibrating the realist canon to match the changed realities. In this setting, the volume edited by Freyberg-Inan et al. offers a timely and much-needed outline of the current state of the art in the realist conversation. On the one hand, the collection addresses the uncertainty surrounding the continuing relevance of realism for explaining and understanding global life. On the other, it offers a primer of the various pathways that realism might take.
The volume is divided into three distinct sections. The first one details the analytical innovations in the realist paradigm. The theoretical overview attests to the ongoing resilience and adaptation of the realist framework. The second part of the volume illuminates the way contemporary realist thinking grapples with the complexity of global life. The contributors to this section offer analyses of the practical application of realist propositions to current problems. Finally, the third part of the volume offers an ontological and epistemological reflection on the content and practices of the realist paradigm.
This collection provides a competent overview of the considerations currently animating the realist conversation. Such a valuable contribution to the study of world politics would benefit both the student and practitioner of international relations. The editors’ knack in bringing together such a wide range of perspectives, positions and ideas, coupled with their skill in reflecting critically on their various implications, makes this endeavour both rare and extremely worthwhile. The volume will therefore be very useful to anyone dealing with or interested in the contemporary realist take on global life.
Emilian Kavalski
(University of Western Sydney)
As the rule of law has become an increasingly fraught area of global politics [cf. pages 357–365 in this issue], so political scientists might profitably familiarise themselves more closely with legal history. Unless we are to adopt mistakenly the ahistorical view of law as merely a technical mode of governance, then legal history can tell us much about the rule of law as it currently obtains. The difficulty is which account(s) of law's multifaceted history are likely to be useful to the contemporary study of politics and which are less so. The temptation is to focus on the synthetic broad accounts (which is no criticism), such as the well-known histories by Harold Berman or Martti Koskenniemi. However, detailed treatments of particular periods or jurisdictions may also offer insights useful to those seeking to contextualise and historicise our current valorisation of the rule of law. The two books under review here examine particular issues of legal history, but in exploring them they offer something of interest to contemporary political analysis.
Roberto Gargarella examines the early political history of constitutionalism in the Americas, seeking to understand how an early legal commitment to egalitarianism was undermined and betrayed. Given the (now global) influence of American constitutionalism (criticised at length by authors such as Stephen Gill), Gargarella's book offers a picture of the early shape of that influence. Constructing his history as a tripartite struggle between radical, conservative and liberal constitutionalism, the author presents a detailed description of the debates in the century following the Revolutionary Constitution of 1776. For Gargarella, the history of radical constitutionalism is one of relative failure; however, although the political intent of the radicals was largely frustrated, they did prompt and spur discussion of forms of legal governance that would become increasingly influential. Indeed, this move towards a view of law that supports radical ends, against monarchies and other ruling groups, itself produced a reaction in the form of a conservative constitutionalism. This counter-movement was built on elitism, moral certainty and a culturally centred notion of tradition, rejecting Enlightenment notions of rights. In Gargarella's assessment this undermined equality and as such impeded political economic development across the Americas. However, in those countries that managed to find a middle way – Gargarella's liberal constitutionalism – this detrimental impact was largely avoided. This leads the author to reflect on the egalitarian promise of radical constitutionalism during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries in the Americas, and to conclude that while liberalism was able to fulfil some of the early radical promise of constitution building, it would take an extra-legal political move towards democracy actually to establish liberal constitutions across the continent.
Turan Kayaoğlu's book focuses on an altogether different issue: the assertion of extraterritorial sovereignty by imperial powers in the nineteenth century, and what it illuminates about the history of sovereignty more generally in international relations. Understanding sovereignty as an initially European construct, the author assesses the expansion of extraterritorial legal imperialism as the extension of power at the expense of putative non-Western territorial sovereignty. However, as this history reveals, such extraterritoriality was neither stable nor uncontested. However, as legal systems started to resemble (through reorganisation) the European or Western model of legality (or rule of law), the ‘need’ to exercise extraterritorial sovereignty to ensure legal structures that delivered ends regarded as justified and legitimate by European states faded. As this suggests, subject states swapped one legal imperialism (that of the extraterritorial courts) for another (reform into a Westernised notion of the rule of law). The author balances a general account of the subject with three case studies across the nineteenth century and early twentieth century intended to illuminate this argument: Japan, the Ottoman Empire and China. Most usefully, the conclusion carefully analyses how these issues can still be detected in the current politics of American law beyond the borders of the United States itself. Sadly, while suggestive, the conclusion leaves the reader wanting to see a little more clearly where Kayaoğlu takes us, for instance, in the debates around the legalisation of global politics. However, overall this is a concise presentation of a historically grounded argument about sovereignty's emergence and articulation which will repay careful reading, and will undoubtedly be of interest to a wide range of scholars of international relations.
Thus, of the two, Kayaoğlu's book is perhaps the more important to read; it offers a number of further developments in a field of work that has focused the minds of many, most obviously those writers working from some form of English School perspective (as the endorsements by Richard Little and Hendrik Spruyt attest). Nevertheless, Gargarella's book also presents an interesting historical period, where American constitutionalism was already establishing its regional influence, and as such it usefully complements accounts that discuss such an influence in the last 50 years. While not a vital purchase for those interested in Gill's ‘new constitutionalism', Gargarella's book will offer some useful historical context to ensure their analyses do not remain too present-centred; Kayaoğlu's book should become a touchstone for contemporary discussions of sovereignty.
Christopher May
(Lancaster University)
David Hoffman is an investigative reporter, former Editor of the Washington Post, who knows his subject and the archives and the land of the former Soviet Union to such an extent that he is able expertly to weave together a detailed chronicle of the Cold War through the eyes of the American and, especially, Soviet Cold Warriors involved.
Reporter that he is, this is a book written for general readers in the style of a ripping yarn as he turns from the sudden outbreak of anthrax sickness – and its cover-up – in a secret town run by the Soviet military for the development of chemical weapons to the famous defection by Oleg Gordievsky; from the unexpected and uncontainable explosion at Chernobyl in April 1986 to the improbable friendship between Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev as they each realised that there was no future to the arms race or, indeed, to the planet should the stockpiling of nuclear warheads continue.
The details are fascinating and the first chapters immerse the reader in the web of Cold War mentalities on both sides of the divide. We are given insights into Ronald Reagan's deep dislike and distrust of the Soviet Union, but also his heartfelt desire to remove the threat of nuclear Armageddon from the world. We learn that the Soviet apparatchiks had an intense distrust of the Americans and the West and continued to develop biological weapons after the treaty to stop doing so in 1973, because they sincerely believed that the Americans would do the same. And we learn that they also believed in a first strike from the US because of an emotional fear of invasion born of two such attacks, first from Napoleon in 1812 and then Hitler in 1941.
The style is polished, the content authoritative and the attention to detail staggering to the point of overload: we are told, for example, that when Gorbachev telephoned the dissident physicist Andrei Sakharov in December 1986 to give him permission to return from exile to Moscow, the latter was sitting watching television with his wife (p. 278). But this is a minor quibble and perhaps inevitable, given the author's meticulous research in the US and Russia, talking to veterans of the achingly slow negotiations, those who worked in the poorly designed and crumbling research facilities in the Soviet Union, personal advisers to Reagan and Gorbachev, and high-ranking officials in their respective administrations. No stone is left unturned.
Two elements stand out in the narrative thread which will make this book a fascinating and useful read for scholars of international relations, despite its style intended for a lay audience: the continuing nightmare of global destruction now that the Soviet Union has gone while its hidden stockpiles of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons remain; and the important role of individuals in dictating often momentous events.
Take Gorbachev, for example, the joint architect of the nuclear disarmament programme: what would have happened if his predecessor, Yuri Andropov, had not ‘showed the wisdom of a true “tsar”, finding Gorbachev and dragging him out of the provinces’ (p. 238) to take high office? And what could have been the consequences when, in September 1983 and not long after the shooting down of a Korean Airlines flight by Soviet planes, the missile defence unit outside Moscow picked up a red alert of nuclear missiles en route from the US to the Soviet Union, if one intensely brave official had not decided (correctly) to overrule the alert as a computer error and tell the Kremlin it was a false alarm (p. 11)? The potential alternative chain of events truly does not bear thinking about.
Rene Bailey
(University of Nottingham)
Whether international relations can be studied scientifically, and what it means if it can, cuts right to the foundation of what IR is and can be. In the murk of debates about ‘science’ versus ‘tradition', ‘explaining’ versus ‘understanding', ‘critical’ versus ‘problem-solving’ theory and ‘quantitative’ versus ‘qualitative’ methods, several interconnected but distinct controversies in IR research have, unfortunately, been thrown in together. The result has been interesting, but may have reached a point of diminishing returns. That is why Patrick Jackson's book, The Conduct of Inquiry in International Relations, should be required reading. The book clarifies these debates and positions them clearly within the philosophy of science, while making an engaging and refreshing argument for engaged pluralism.
The book begins by analysing the status and definition of science with reference to IR. The task, for Jackson, is to define ‘science’ in such a way as to distinguish it from partisan political argument or artistic endeavour, while at the same time being broad enough not to exclude, by definitional fiat, significant bodies of IR scholarship. He begins with the simple truth that there is no consensus among philosophers of science as to what exactly defines ‘science’ and what can demarcate it from non-science. Instead, Jackson provides an ecumenical definition of science, which hinges on a systematic elaboration of conclusions from prior assumptions or claims, an openness to public criticism and an ‘intention to produce worldly knowledge'.
Jackson's major innovation is to distinguish IR theories according to their ‘philosophical ontologies', which results in a four-fold typology. He classifies these philosophical ontologies as neo-positivism, critical realism, analyticism and reflexivism. Each is then exposited in an individual chapter. A final chapter reiterates the central thesis: that in the absence of a consensus on the philosophical basis of scientific inquiry, IR needs to accept a diversity of opinions on what constitutes valid knowledge production, and to proceed to find ways meaningfully to contrast these divergent positions. At times Jackson takes the liberty of some pretty heavy-going philosophical exegesis, but it is perhaps in the nature of such a book to have to stray rather far from bread and butter empirical IR research. The lively style helps to keep the reader engaged. This is a balanced and lucid account which, if it reaches the audience it deserves, will greatly improve the ‘science’ of IR, in all of its multiple and diverse forms.
Matthew Stephen
(Social Science Research Centre, Berlin)
Securing Freedom in the Global Commons is the first book-length study of security throughout the ‘global commons’ that is, the maritime commons, international airspace, outer space and cyberspace, while Antarctica is explicitly excluded. Thus the focus is on those parts of the global commons that are most important for international trade, communications and connectivity, and for strategic purposes. The volume is timely, as freedom and security in the commons are increasingly under pressure from certain states, terrorism and such illegal activity as (maritime) piracy and cyber crime.
The book consists of thirteen concise chapters (216 pages of text) and is divided into three parts: the global security environment (‘determinants of security’); challenges to freedom in the commons; and support structures for ‘thinking across commons'. A common theme throughout the book is the growing interconnectedness between the four domains listed above. In particular, exploitation of the maritime and air commons, especially strategically, is increasingly reliant upon secure access to space and the ever more ubiquitous cyberspace. The book is explicitly US-centric, with all the authors either serving in the US military or working in the American military education or defence industry sectors. Perhaps as a consequence some chapters reek more of US doctrine or policy than academic analysis.
Although the introductory chapter attempts, correctly, to distinguish between the global commons and the total extent of the four geophysical domains (for example, the seas are far more extensive than just those parts beyond the sovereignty of coastal states that make up the maritime commons, or ‘international waters’), some chapters are rather casual in their application of this point. James Kraska's succinct chapter on the relevant ‘indistinct’ legal regimes suffers no such confusion, though, while the chapters on sea control and cyberspace control are also highlights. Strangely, given the book's focus, the chapter on ballistic missile defence offers only a general overview of the topic, with but a single sentence dedicated to China's development of an anti-ship ballistic missile intended to restrict US freedom in the maritime commons of East Asia.
Although a useful first effort, this book is not entirely successful in providing a truly integrated assessment of strategic freedom in the global commons. Kraska's concluding argument linking security in the commons to the maintenance of a liberal world order could perhaps have been profitably pursued throughout as the book's conceptual glue. It is hoped that further, and better, books on this topic will follow.
Chris Rahman
(Australian National Centre for Ocean Resources and Security, University of Wollongong)
Maryanne Kelton's book examines the policy approach of the Australian Conservative government of John Howard (1996 to 2007) to its major ally, the United States. Her starting point is Howard's election campaign promise of 1996 to turn away from Labor's multilateral and regional focus and to upgrade the bilateral alliance with the US. Kelton emphasises Howard's mediation of the international and domestic challenges the government faced (interpreted as threats) while seeking to survive electorally. The book aims to analyse how and why the Howard government sought to upgrade the alliance relationship, and to assess the results of those efforts.
To do so, Kelton employs seven case studies of engagement with the US, ranging from trade issues (the Howe leather dispute of the late 1990s, Australian engagement with the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industry, the steel tariffs of 2002–3 and the Australia–US Free Trade Agreement signed in 2004) to security-related issues (the 1999 East Timor intervention, the Collins class submarine project and Australia's involvement in the Iraq War). By using a range of case studies broader than the usual focus on purely security alliance-related issues, Kelton clearly demonstrates the challenges faced by the Howard government as it sought leverage through the perceived similarity of culture and values for substantive gain in the consideration of Australia's interests.
Kelton's conclusion is clear that, as the minor power in the bilateral relationship, Australia's interests came second where they came into conflict with US domestic interests. As demonstrated by several of the trade dispute case studies, even the Howard government was eventually forced to retreat from bilateral negotiation with the US to the cover of the multilateral international rules-based system. However, when interests do converge, such as in the East Timor case study, the assistance of the great power can be very useful.
As the conclusion shows, even the Bush/Howard relationship – surely the closest between two leaders of the alliance partners for many years – was unable to ensure priority for Australian interests. Kelton concludes that Australian and US interests need to coincide to ensure reciprocity, no matter how much enthusiasm one side may feel for the other.
Kelton's book is a useful addition to work on the Australia–US alliance because of its broad range of case studies that demonstrate the Howard government's efforts to prioritise and ‘upgrade’ the relationship. The case studies show clearly the effort the Howard government committed to the alliance relationship and the tangible return those efforts achieved.
Lucy Roberts
(University of Western Australia)
Friedrich Kratochwil's contribution to the discipline of international relations is quite unique. He is one of the most important pioneers in constructivism and one of the very few IR scholars able to cross the disciplinary boundaries separating international relations, international law, philosophy, political and social theory, and language. His On Rules, Politics and Knowledge (2010) shed significant light on to the way in which norms, knowledge and international relations related to one another. The Puzzles of Politics is a collection of Kratochwil's journal articles and book chapters plus one conference paper. Some of these pieces are less well known, though not less important, because his constructivist approach stands in opposition to a positivist understanding of social science upon which US mainstream constructivism is premised. Kratochwil has written an introduction/intellectual biography for the book which elucidates the specific context in which his writings and his framework are placed.
The volume comprises four parts. Part I is entitled ‘defining the approach’ and Part II is ‘writings on international law'. The third section addresses epistemology. In his work Kratochwil tackled the great debates in international relations and questioned US conventional constructivists who privilege epistemology (what one knows) over ontology (what exists). His criticism of mainstream constructivism is particularly pertinent, and his concern is to liberate constructivism from positivism. A decade ago Kratochwil observed that ‘the “reasonable middle ground” that emerges from [Alexander] Wendt's engagement with unreconstituted Waltzian realists, with the somewhat disoriented political scientists of the mainstream, and with rational choice believers, might actually succeed in becoming the new orthodoxy’ (p. 154). His words of warning rang true. Part IV of the book deals with ‘drawing boundaries: the inter/external and the private/public nexus'. These articles reflect the author's intellectual career spanning three decades.
There are, however, a few minor issues with Chapter 8, ‘Constructing a New Orthodoxy’ (pp. 153–80). First, Kratochwil mistakes Wendt, a self-declared scientific realist whose avowedly positivist approach to social and political studies was well known, for a scientific realist. Consequently, Kratochwil's critique of scientific realism is a bit misdirected. Second, according to John Searle, scientific realism is a type of ontological position that does not impose specificity concerning what theories should look like, nor does it imply one correct representation of reality. Kratochwil does not substantially draw upon the philosophy of social science in this piece or spell out that both constructivism and positivism are anti-realist in orientation. Despite this, the book is written in an accessible way and it provides important insights into international law, constructivism and international relations.
Shih-Yu Chou
(University of Sheffield)
Despite Thucydides’ statement that ‘we must realize that war is inevitable', 1 the discipline of international relations has arisen in response to the need to prevent wars. Looking at the phenomenon of war from many angles, Jack Levy and William Thompson examine some of the leading theories of both inter-state war and civil war.
For the authors, the question of the causes of war is one of great complexity. To answer this question, the book is divided into eight chapters. The first chapter provides an introduction to the study of war, answering questions about what war is and how it should be analysed. The authors define war as ‘sustained, coordinated violence between political organizations'. In the following chapters the book attempts to examine different levels of analysis about the causes of war, showing that ‘level-of-analysis framework is not a theory of war but instead a typology of the causes of war’ (p. 14). The ‘level-of-analysis’ scheme itself consists of four levels: system level, dyadic or interaction level, state and societal level and decision-making level, and this last again contains two sub-levels, namely individual level and organisation level. For each level of analysis, the authors have summarised the leading theories and supplied some historical examples.
Causes of War thus represents a basic reference text which analyses the causes of war through a theoretical approach and so contributes to the literature of IR theory. The authors’ use of dyadic or interaction level provides a totally novel treatment of the idea of studying war, reflecting the bilateral interactions between pairs of states that distinguish between the international system and various regional systems nested within it. Overall, this is a book of great breadth in its dimensions with regard to war and its related causes, and it provides a plausible analysis of such causes along with a compelling depiction of them. The book's main strength is that it articulates so many causes of war within a multi-level analysis framework. However, despite offering some strong arguments regarding the causes of war, it is also a book with its own limitations in the methodology for testing such theories.
In summary, this book can be considered as a useful source specifically for international relations students and researchers, and it may also be of interest for scholars, policy makers and strategists.
Alireza Rezaei
(Islamic Azad University, Hamedan, Iran)
The number of textbooks in the field of international or global political economy has increased substantially in the last couple of years. Raymond Miller's new book is a further addition to this increasingly competitive market. The book is structured around three contrasting world views of IPE: first, the free market; second, institutionalism; and third, Marxism and historical materialism. Following an introduction, one chapter is dedicated to each of the three theoretical explanations and is followed by another chapter applying the ideas to real-world events and examples. The book concludes with a summary and review.
The quality of the book comes from the outstanding organisation of a vast range of ideas. It is easy to read and the widespread use of detailed contemporary illustrations, which are matched up to the three contrasting world views, make it seem fresh. Review questions at the end of each section summarise the content covered and as the book progresses and new ideas are introduced they are compared with the theories explored earlier. Another excellent feature is the series of tables which present a snapshot of how particular ideas are related.
Unlike other recent IPE titles, the book is not concerned with deep and meaningful intellectual debate to redefine what IPE now means in terms of different disciplinary foci or to justify the use of multidisciplinary methodologies. It does not attempt to provide an extensive critique of one particular literature or present an application of IPE ideas into new contexts using new research findings. Nor does it try to explain how IPE means different things in different parts of the world.
Experienced scholars of IPE will already be familiar with much of the material that Miller includes. One unique feature of the book is the ‘multi-centric organizational’ school of thought which is a label that the author has given to a familiar bundle of institutionalist ideas including the work of Veblen and Polanyi and the more recent work of Galbraith. This approach works very well, although you do not have to buy into all of Miller's terminology or classifications completely to appreciate the clarity they provide.
This is an excellent book for students, and the range of content covered is impressive; thus it would be of relevance to a substantial proportion of many IPE courses. The strongest feature is the high quality of the writing combined with balanced and fair scholarship, making it ideal for undergraduates; but it could also be used by postgraduates alongside more advanced reading.
Andrew Steven Gunn
(University of Leeds)
In a historical context that is marked both by the rise of terrorism and the decline of (the faith in) the role of philosophical reason in politics, Seumas Miller's book, suggestively covered by a reprint of Goya's The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters, calls back philosophical reasoning for the treatment of the questions concerning terrorism and counter-terrorism with the intention of informing public policies in relation to these questions.
The book consists of seven chapters. By surveying cases such as al-Qa'eda, the IRA, the ANC and Hamas, Chapter 1 provides an overview of contemporary terrorism and counter-terrorism as they pertain to liberal democratic states. Chapter 2 develops a politically sensitive definition of terrorism which takes into account whether the regime targeted is a liberal democratic or authoritarian or even totalitarian one. Chapter 3 follows the implications of this definition in terms of the question of moral justification of some forms of terrorism. The conclusion Miller draws is that there are certain forms of violent action, for example killing non-violent human rights violators such as the political leaders or security personnel of totalitarian states, which should be considered either as non-terrorist acts or as morally justified acts of terrorism. Chapters 4 and 5 elaborate the idea that there are two basic frameworks to counter-terrorism. In the context of well-ordered non-totalitarian states at peace, a ‘terrorism-as-crime framework’ is to be applied. That is, the actors of terrorist acts are to be subjected to a criminal justice process analogous to that of ordinary criminals. In the context of the theatre of war, a ‘terrorism-as-war framework’ is to be applied. Thereby, terrorists are treated as unlawful war combatants and their fundamental rights such as ‘rights to life’ and ‘rights to freedom’ are put at stake. Chapter 6 deals with the question of torture as an instrument of counterterrorism. The upshot is that one-off acts of torture in extreme emergencies might be morally justified while the routine use and legalisation of torture are not acceptable. The last chapter discusses the contemporary dilemma that advances in biological sciences might be used to develop weapons of mass destruction by terrorist organisations. Miller argues for a middle-course approach between perilous all-permissiveness and the impeding censorship of scientific activities.
Although one might disagree with Miller's positions on particular issues, his book is seminal in its suggestion of re-establishing the political role of philosophical reason for dealing with the problems of our age.
Mehmet Ruhi Demiray
(Middle East Technical University Turkey)
In The Problem of Force, Simon Murden offers a sweeping, yet parsimonious, analysis of the use of force in the context of the ‘war on terror’ unleashed by the United States in the aftermath of 9/11. In doing so, he seeks to explain why the use of force by the United States against insurgents in Afghanistan and against the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein failed to engineer a desired end state and defeat al-Qa'eda. He argues that the failures of the United States can be attributed to its misunderstanding of the changing nature of warfare, now characterised by what he calls the glocal insurgency (‘a global-level mission and movement, locally networked and conducted', p. 2). To succeed eventually against such an insurgency, Murden considers it essential to have a deep knowledge and understanding of the insurgents’ social network and of the complex social settings. He further argues that, aside from the necessary use of force to ensure security, any resolution of a glocal conflict necessitates a winning of the hearts and minds (through reconstruction, reconciliation and assimilation) and the development of an effective system for long-term governance.
Using this triangular modelling, Murden's narrative and analysis of the interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq convincingly show that neither of them were well conceived or executed, whether at the tactical, operational or operational-strategic levels. The war on terror started as a war of attrition, whereas what was needed was a more manoeuvrist approach which combined force with political-social-economic approaches applied more broadly.
Particularly insightful, in my opinion, are Murden's concluding observations about the potential longer-term impact of the 2008–10 financial crisis on globalisation and, as a consequence, a reassertion of the organising power of the state. Should this trend be confirmed, it would affect the practice of war as we currently anticipate it by opening up new possibilities of inter-state, regional, limited and proxy wars. But as the global economy recovers and the United States remains pre-eminent militarily, ‘the forces of liberalizing globalization and its asymmetric discontents’ (p. 206) will likely continue to clash. Murden's contribution is a useful addition to a growing body of work assessing the failures of the war on terror under President Bush which offers solid analytical insights into the use of force in asymmetric conflicts.
Stéphane Lefebvre
(Defence R&D Canada)
This book edited by Amrita Narlikar does not focus on understanding how agreements are achieved – unlike much of the literature on negotiation analysis – but rather on the problem of deadlocks that hinder agreements being reached. The aim of the volume's contributors is to investigate the causes of deadlocks and to find solutions for how they can successfully be broken.
The approach chosen by Narlikar is presented in the introductory chapter where the anatomy of deadlocks is examined. This includes applying a definition, a typology, six hypotheses explaining causes of deadlocks and six sets of solutions offered for breaking through them. This introduction is then followed by ten chapters which are divided into two parts. The first part consists of four chapters looking at theoretical and methodological insights covering various disciplines such as history, economics, political science, international relations and law. The remaining six chapters in the second part then function as empirical case studies covering a number of issue areas: trade negotiations (WTO and the Doha Development Agenda), US climate change negotiations, and security issues (UN Security Council and Kosovo negotiations). The book's conclusion then outlines all the findings, revises the hypotheses and solutions and offers an agenda for future research.
At the start of the volume the Introduction offers a comprehensive account of the anatomy of deadlocks. The definition and typology are complemented with presentation of the levels of analysis (domestic or international) and the central actors involved. Novel here is the focus on multilateral negotiations, although the stated hypotheses are not so innovative. Nevertheless, the chapters comprehensively examine the way the hypotheses are applied in a number of cases, illustrating their role in the negotiation process and, more importantly, the actual outcome of this process. A definite asset of the book is the interdisciplinary exchange and the mixture of methodological approaches in the applied case studies, including game theory, liberal theory and institutionalist approaches.
This well-written book has a coherent structure and is exceptionally timely given the current deadlocks across various worldwide negotiations. Hence, this volume is of great value to practitioners and analysts involved in negotiation processes and to students and academics of the above-mentioned disciplines interested in understanding why multilateral deadlocks occur and how to resolve them.
Aukje Van Loon
(Ruhr University, Bochum, Germany)
Those who advocate the ‘Responsibility to Protect’ often claim that its strength lies in its focus on the rights of victims rather than the rights of interveners. With this in mind, critics may question the need for a text that focuses solely on the question of who should intervene. Indeed, the author himself is aware of such a critique, yet he defends his position based on the premise that ‘humanitarian intervention will sometimes be necessary’ and when it is, we need to know: ‘who has the right to intervene?’ and ‘who has the duty to intervene?’ (pp. 12–3)
In addressing these questions, James Pattison presents an accomplished theoretical analysis which engages with debates on humanitarian intervention, international law, just war theory and institutional reform. However, it is the author's use of what he refers to as ‘the Moderate Instrumentalist Approach’ that lies at the heart of his thesis, and it is here where concerns arise. Essentially, the approach utilises the concept of legitimacy to assess which actors possess ‘an adequate degree of legitimacy'. This is derived from the author judging the potential effectiveness of different actors in international relations so as to determine which actor is morally preferable. This then leads him to construct a ‘legitimacy hierarchy’ in which NATO sits at the apex of the pyramid, states and willing coalitions on the second tier, the UN on the third tier, regional organisations one below and finally private military companies at the bottom. (As Pattison acknowledges, a mix of these may be best.)
The idea that NATO stands as the most legitimate actor may concern many readers, and perhaps rightly so, for it is the author's vague understanding of legitimacy that provides a problematic analytical foundation. Pattison claims that a vague understanding is needed to aid flexibility, yet he fails to flesh out how his moral focus relates specifically to international law, and much more importantly, there seems to be a grave omission regarding the roles that consensus and power play in the construction of legitimate authority. One cannot help but feel that an entire chapter dedicated to the concept of legitimacy, and how it relates to the concept of international legitimacy, would have aided the author's analytical grounding. At the same time, this conceptual concern should not detract from the fact that this book provides a specialised analysis of a highly important subject matter. Therefore, I would recommend this text to all those who want to take the debate surrounding humanitarian intervention – and the responsibility to protect – one step further.
Adrian Gallagher
(University of Sheffield)
Paul Sharp's contribution to the ‘Cambridge Studies in International Relations’ series is a work that examines international relations from the point of view of diplomatic practice, instead of the traditional method of looking at diplomacy through the lens of international relations. By understanding the context and tools of diplomacy we can gain a better understanding of what is essential in international relations.
The text is structured into four parts. In the first section, Sharp analyses three traditional approaches to international relations – the radical, rational and realist traditions – and argues that although they provide accounts of what drives diplomacy and the diplomats themselves, the internal context and tools of the practice are left a mystery. In the second chapter we find the heart of Sharp's argument: that international relations are best understood as relations of separateness. When diplomats find themselves wanting to engage and immerse within a culture in order to understand and work effectively with it at the same time as desiring to remain separated, they are in relations of separateness. These types of relationship with other groups are not exclusive to diplomacy; we find them in broader international relations and in human relations. Sharp explains that due to working within and with relations of separateness, the diplomats’ goal is not to solve issues, but rather to manage relations in such a way that discussions of the issues at hand can persist. In the third section, Sharp asks whether international relations requires or presupposes diplomacy and diplomats and argues that while it does not, the nature of human relations brings it about quickly. In the final section of the book, Sharp applies his approach to what are arguably some of the most difficult problems in international relations, what he calls the problems of rogue states, greedy companies, crazy religions and dumb publics.
This work offers an innovative way of looking at international relations from the starting point of diplomatic practice. As a result, the structure of this monograph is such that the reader might be best served by skipping the first part that discusses the inadequacies of other theories and beginning at Sharp's substantive argument in the second section. The large-scale problems that international relations deal with necessitate a multiplicity of angles of observation.
Irene Ariñn de la Rubia
(University of South Florida)
R. B. J. Walker has been challenging and redefining the study of international affairs for over three decades now. His most recent monograph confirms his deep engagement with the current content and practices of international relations theory. The growing complexity of global life has questioned the validity of the Westphalian model. In particular, the proliferation of agency below and above the state level has encouraged commentators to look for new frameworks to explain and understand world affairs. Yet, as Walker insists, the mere substitution of the term ‘international’ with ‘world’ or ‘global’ politics will not suffice. Instead, one needs to delve into the meaning and lenses that these notions imply.
Walker's book thus offers a poignant exploration ‘of what it means to distinguish between an international politics and a politics of the world and, once this distinction is enacted as an array of constitutive contradictions, to frame claims about political possibilities and impossibilities – about freedoms, necessities, equalities, securities, and sovereign authorities – that work by mobilizing accounts of political temporality promising to take us from one form of politics to the other, while insisting, for very good reasons, that the promise can never be kept’ (p. 1).
Relying on his inimitable style, Walker takes his readers on a riveting journey into the meaning and practices of politics in an increasingly complex and unpredictable global life. His intention is ‘to open up a range of difficulties’ that depict the international structure of contemporary political life ‘less as an expression of spatial distinctions between competing sovereignties, than as an expression of claims about temporality and history enabling constitutive discriminations between those who belong within the world of the international and those who do not’ (p. 99). In this context, according to Walker, political action rests on ‘a specific array of contingent claims’ that make possible the ‘other ways of becoming otherwise in worlds that do not end where we have learnt to draw the line with such elegance, and with such violence’ (p. 258).
Walker's monograph is, therefore, a must read for anyone passionate not merely about the theory, history and practice of world affairs, but also concerned with the meaning of the political in global interactions defined by turbulence. The original framework and sharp analysis exhibited by Walker make his work invaluable for the purposes of teaching, theorising and grasping the shifting patterns of contemporary political life.
Emilian Kavalski
(University of Western Sydney)
In their seminal Thinking in Time, Richard Neustadt and Ernest May showed how history can be useful to decision makers. Getting Out: Historical Perspectives on Leaving Iraq takes historical examples and uses them to consider American disengagement from Iraq. The book is divided into two sections. The first contains pithy case studies of previous withdrawals, covering: Britain and the American colonies; the US and the Philippines; Britain and India; the US and Korea; France and Algeria; the US and Vietnam; and Israel and Gaza. It then considers how the US became embroiled in Iraq, and how to depart.
As Michael Walzer says in his introduction, ‘Every withdrawal is managed, first of all, in the interests of the soldiers and citizens of the imperial or occupying power’ (p. 3). However, Getting Out succeeds in looking beyond this, focusing frequently on the moral dimension. This is especially evident in Rajeev Bhargava's assessment of the relative responsibility of the British government and the Indian National Congress for Britain's precipitate departure in 1947 and the violence that followed. Particular concern is shown for ‘people who might be at risk if left behind’ (p. 2), with Todd Shepard's description of the fate of the pro-French pieds noirs (of European origin) and harkis (Arab members of French self-defence units) in Algeria providing a harrowing example of the risks.
The main substance of the argument is found in the second section. It begins with an excellent essay by Nicolaus Mills on the effects of 9/11 on US society, illuminating the context in which the invasion of Iraq was launched. In terms of solutions, Brendan O'Leary forcefully advocates a federal structure based on the 2005 constitution, though working more closely with Turkey and especially Iran as suggested could prove problematic. O'Leary is also damning of the current Iraqi prime minister: ‘For the United States to invest wholly in [Nuri al-] Maliki would be as foolhardy as investing with Bernard Madoff after the warning signals were evident’ (p. 128). Few, however, would quibble when George Packer concludes that ‘The best way to prevent Iraq returning to chaos is to leave slowly’ (p. 142).
Getting Out is well written and accessible (even footnotes are absent – perhaps owing to the book's origins in the quarterly magazine Dissent). It manages both to illustrate how diverse historical examples can inform present-day decision making and to provide a concise introduction to the situation in Iraq with particular emphasis on moral issues.
Andrew Holt
(Loughborough University)
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Footnotes
1
History of the Peloponnesian War, Heinemann, 1956, p. 253.