International Society And Its Critics

Download or read book International Society and Its Critics written by Alex J. Bellamy and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2005 with total page 348 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In recent years, the English School or international society approach to International Relations has risen to prominence because its theories and concepts seem able to help us explain some of the most complex and seemingly paradoxical features of contemporary world politics. In doing so, the approach has attracted a variety of criticisms from both ends of the political spectrum. Some argue that the claim that states form an international society is premature in an era of terrorwhere power politics and the use of force have returned to the fore. Others insist that international society's state-centrism make it an inherently conservative approach unable to address many of the world's most pressing problems.International Society and its Critics provides the first in-depth study of the English School approach to International Relations from a variety of different theoretical and practical perspectives. Sixteen leading scholars from three continents critically evaluate the School's contribution to the study of international theory and history; consider its relationship with a variety of alternative perspectives including international political economy, feminism, environmentalism, andcritical security studies; and assess how the approach can help us to make sense of the big issues of the day such as terrorism, the management of cultural difference, global governance, the ethics of coercion, and the role of international law. They find that whilst the concept of international society helps toshed light on many of the important tensions in world politics, much work still needs to be done. In particular, the approach needs to broaden its empirical scope to incorporate more of the issues and actors that shape global politics; draw upon other theoretical traditions to improve its explanations of change in world politics; and recognize the complex and multi-layered nature of the contemporary world.

Download or read book The Empire of Civil Society written by Justin Rosenberg and published by Verso Books. This book was released on 2024-11-26 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Empire of Civil Society mounts a compelling critique of the orthodox "realist" theory of international relations and provides a historical-materialist approach to the international system. Opening with an interrogation of a number of classic realist works, the book rejects outright the goal of theorizing geopolitical systems in isolation from wider social structures. In a series of case studies—including Classical Greece, Renaissance Italy and the Portuguese and Spanish empires—Justin Rosenberg shows how the historical-materialist analysis of societies is a surer guide to understanding geopolitical systems than the technical theories of realist international relations. In each case, he draws attention to the correspondence between the form of the geopolitical system and the character of the societies composing it. In the final section of the book, the tools forged in these explorations are employed to analyze the contemporary international system, with striking results. Rosenberg demonstrates that the distinctive properties of the sovereign-states system are best understood as corresponding to the social structures of capitalist society. In this light, realism emerges as incapable of explaining what it has always insisted is the central feature of the international system—namely, the balance of power. On the other hand, it is argued that Marx’s social theory of value, conventionally regarded as an account of hierarchical class domination, provides the deepest understanding of the core international relations theme of “anarchy.” Provocative and unconventional, The Empire of Civil Society brilliantly turns orthodox international relations on its head.

Download or read book The Post-racial Society is Here written by Wilbur C. Rich and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In a provocative and controversial analysis, Wilbur C. Rich's The Post-Racial Society is Here conclusively demonstrates that nation is in midst of a post-racial society, although many Americans are skeptical of this fundamental social transformation. Using the findings of historians and social scientists, this book outlines why the construction and deconstruction of the race-based society was such a difficult and daunting enterprise. Rich also alerts the reader to the unprecedented progress made and why the forces of the new global economy demand that we move faster to make society more inclusive.

Download or read book International Practices written by Emanuel Adler and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2011-08-25 with total page 387 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It is in and through practices - deeds that embody shared intersubjective knowledge - that social life is organized, that subjectivities are constituted and that history unfolds. One can think of dozens of different practices (from balancing, to banking or networking) which constitute the social fabric of world politics. This book brings together leading scholars in fields from international law and humanitarianism to nuclear deterrence and the UN to provide effective new tools to understand a range of pressing issues of the era of globalization. As an entry point to the study of world politics, the concept of practice accommodates a variety of perspectives in a coherent yet flexible fashion and opens the door to much needed interdisciplinary research in international relations. International Practices crystallizes the authors' past research on international practices into a common effort to turn the study of practice into a novel research program in international relations.

Download or read book The Expansion of International Society written by Hedley Bull and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2025-11-28 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is a systematic investigation of the origins and nature of the international society of today. The work of a study group of distinguished scholars, it examines comprehensively the expansion of the international society of European states across the rest of the globe, and its subsequent transformation from a society fashioned in Europe and dominated by Europeans into today's global international society of nearly two hundred states, the great majority of which are not European. The first section describes the predominance of the European system in a floodtide of expansion from the sixteenth century onwards, which united the whole world for the first time in a single economic, strategic, and political unit. The process whereby non-European states came to take their place as members of the same society, accepting its rules and institutions, is the subject of the second part; and the third section examines the repudiation of European, Russian, and American domination by states and peoples of the Third World and the consequent movement away from a system based on European hegemony. The last part is concerning with the new international order that has emerged from the ebb tide of European dominance, and focuses on a central question. Has the geographical expansion of international society led to a contradiction of the consensus about common interests, rules, and institutions on which an international society proper must rest? Or can we say that the old European system has been modified and developed in such a way that a new, genuinely universal, and non-hegemonial structure for international relations has taken root? A new foreword by Andrew Hurrell examines the impact of this seminal work and sets its continued contribution in context.

Download or read book The Third Way written by Anthony Giddens and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2013-05-29 with total page 130 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The idea of finding a 'third way' in politics has been widely discussed over recent months - not only in the UK, but in the US, Continental Europe and Latin America. But what is the third way? Supporters of the notion haven't been able to agree, and critics deny the possibility altogether. Anthony Giddens shows that developing a third way is not only a possibility but a necessity in modern politics.

Download or read book A Theory of Contestation written by Antje Wiener and published by Springer. This book was released on 2014-08-14 with total page 104 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Theory of Contestation advances critical norms research in international relations. It scrutinises the uses of ‘contestation’ in international relations theories with regard to its descriptive and normative potential. To that end, critical investigations into international relations are conducted based on three thinking tools from public philosophy and the social sciences: The normativity premise, the diversity premise and cultural cosmopolitanism. The resulting theory of contestation entails four main features, namely types of norms, modes of contestation, segments of norms and the cycle of contestation. The theory distinguishes between the principle of contestedness and the practice of contestation and argues that, if contestedness is accepted as a meta-organising principle of global governance, regular access to contestation for all involved stakeholders will enhance legitimate governance in the global realm.