scholarly journals What Is a Supranational Constitution? An Essay in International Relations Theory

1994 ◽  
Vol 56 (3) ◽  
pp. 441-474 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alec Stone

Under the banner of “regime theory,” the study of international relations has experienced a massive if largely unacknowledged return to law, the study of the nature, scope, and relevance of norms international politics. Regime is shorthand for forms of institutionalized cooperation in the international system. The article provides one way to assess this movement. In part I, I develop an abstract conception of constitutions as bodies of metanorms, those higher order norms that govern how lower order norms are to be produced, applied, and interpreted. I then examine the extent to which international relations theory is equipped to recognize that some international regimes are constitutional in form (part II). In part III, I propose a means of situating all regime forms, from the most primitive to the full blown constitutional, along a continuum. The central claim is that the distinction made between international and domestic society, for the most part a matter of dogma in mainstream theory, is relative not absolute.

2019 ◽  
Vol 56 (1) ◽  
pp. 58-67
Author(s):  
Lucas G. Freire

This article is a contribution to the clarification of the central claim of Kenneth Waltz’s neorealist international relations theory. Over the years, the notion that Waltz’s Theory of International Politics postulates a deterministic connection between the configuration of the structure of the international system and the behaviour of each of the units has gained traction in textbooks and in straw-man critiques of the neorealist approach. Two major groups of critics of neorealism’s alleged determinism have formed. The first group focuses on instances where predicted balancing behaviour did not occur in order to refute neorealism’s central claim about the link between structure and behaviour. The second group objects to any strong claims about structural features as such. In response, this article shows that a careful reading of Waltz’s writings suffices to indicate that the presupposition adopted by both groups of critics is flawed. Neorealism was never presented by its main proponent as a deterministic international relations theory.


1991 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 67-85 ◽  
Author(s):  
Helen Milner

‘Anarchy is one of the most vague and ambiguous words in language.’ George Coreewall Lewis, 1832.In much current theorizing, anarchy has once again been declared to be the fundamental assumption about international politics. Over the last decade, numerous scholars, especially those in the neo-realist tradition, have posited anarchy as the single most important characteristic underlying international relations. This article explores implications of such an assumption. In doing so, it reopens older debates about the nature of international politics. First, I examine various concepts of ‘anarchy’ employed in the international relations literature. Second, I probe the sharp dichotomy between domestic and international politics that is associated with this assumption. As others have, I question the validity and utility of such a dichotomy. Finally, this article suggests that a more fruitful way to understand the international system is one that combines anarchy and interdependence.


2017 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Álvaro Vicente Costa Silva

Este trabalho resenha a obra Neoclassical Realist Theory of International Politics, de Norrin Ripsman, Jeffrey Taliaferro e Steven Lobell, publicado em 2016. O intuito dos autores é construir um modelo teórico realista neoclássico, indo além do ideário neorrealista focado apenas em fatores sistêmicos enquanto determinantes da política exterior de um Estado. Assim, alguns fatores domésticos são elencados enquanto variáveis intervenientes capazes de influenciar a resposta de um Estado aos estímulos vindos do sistema internacional.ABSTRACTThis paper aims to review Neoclassical Realist Theory of International Politics, a book written by Norrin Ripsman, Jeffrey Taliaferro e Steven Lobell and published in 2016. The authors goal is to construct a neoclassical realist model, as a further advance in comparison to neorealist appraisal of International Politics, whose claim that systemical restraints and dictates the foreign policy of states. Hence, some domestical factors are placed as intervening variables that can influence a state’s reaction to the stimulus emanated from the international system. Palavras-chave: Realismo, Teoria das Relações Internacionais, análise de política externa.Keywords: Realism, International Relations theory, Foreign policy analysis.Recebido em 13 de Maio de 2018 | Aceito em 22 de Maio de 2018.Received May 13, 2018 | Accepted on May 22, 2018. DOI


2000 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 123-124 ◽  

It is fitting that one of the last major statements of International Relations theory in the 1990s should be a response to Kenneth Waltz's path-breaking book, Theory of International Politics. Unlike many other critically inclined scholars, Wendt believes that Waltz asked the right questions but supplied the wrong answers. Putting it simply, Waltz incorrectly conceptualized the structure of the international system. The first half of Wendt's book sets out to offer an alternative social theory of international politics to the ‘materialism’ and ‘individualism’ found in Waltz's work (specifically, chapters on ‘Scientific realism and social kinds’, ‘Ideas all the way down? On the constitution of power and interest’, and ‘Structure, agency, and culture’).


Author(s):  
Nicole Scicluna

This chapter discusses international law (IL) and international relations (IR) theory. It studies legal theory in order to better understand what law is, and how IL compares with domestic law. The chapter then introduces the major schools of IR theory, with a focus on how they conceptualize IL and its role in enabling and constraining the conduct of international politics. The disciplinary estrangement between IR and IL began to ease at the end of the 1980s. By that time there were already important strands within IR, including the English School, that were seeking to explain the prevalence of cooperation in an anarchical international system. New generations of IR scholars began theorizing the role of IL in structuring international politics, particularly from the perspectives of liberalism and constructivism, as well as from a range of critical approaches.


Author(s):  
Salah Hassan Mohammed ◽  
Mahaa Ahmed Al-Mawla

The Study is based on the state as one of the main pillars in international politics. In additions, it tackles its position in the international order from the major schools perspectives in international relations, Especially, these schools differ in the status and priorities of the state according to its priorities, also, each scholar has a different point of view. The research is dedicated to providing a future vision of the state's position in the international order in which based on the vision of the major schools in international relations.


Author(s):  
Leonard V. Smith

We have long known that the Paris Peace Conference of 1919 “failed” in the sense that it did not prevent the outbreak of World War II. This book investigates not whether the conference succeeded or failed, but the historically specific international system it created. It explores the rules under which that system operated, and the kinds of states and empires that inhabited it. Deepening the dialogue between history and international relations theory makes it possible to think about sovereignty at the conference in new ways. Sovereignty in 1919 was about remaking “the world”—not just determining of answers demarcating the international system, but also the questions. Most histories of the Paris Peace Conference stop with the signing of the Treaty of Versailles with Germany on June 28, 1919. This book considers all five treaties produced by the conference as well as the Treaty of Lausanne with Turkey in 1923. It is organized not chronologically or geographically, but according to specific problems of sovereignty. A peace based on “justice” produced a criminalized Great Power in Germany, and a template problematically applied in the other treaties. The conference as sovereign sought to “unmix” lands and peoples in the defeated multinational empires by drawing boundaries and defining ethnicities. It sought less to oppose revolution than to instrumentalize it. The League of Nations, so often taken as the supreme symbol of the conference’s failure, is better considered as a continuation of the laboratory of sovereignty established in Paris.


1998 ◽  
Vol 92 (3) ◽  
pp. 367-397 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anne-Marie Slaughter ◽  
Andrew S. Tulumello ◽  
Stepan Wood

Nine years ago, Kenneth Abbott published an article exhorting international lawyers to read and master regime theory, arguing that it had multiple uses for the study of international law. He went as far as to call for a “joint discipline” that would bridge the gap between international relations theory (IR) and international law (IL). Several years later, one of us followed suit with an article mapping the history of the two fields and setting forth an agenda for joint research. Since then, political scientists and international lawyers have been reading and drawing on one another’s work with increasing frequency and for a wide range of purposes. Explicitly interdisciplinary articles have won the Francis Deák Prize, awarded for the best work by a younger scholar in this Journal, for the past two years running; the publication of an interdisciplinary analysis of treaty law in the Harvard International Law Journal prompted a lively exchange on the need to pay attention to legal as well as political details; and the Hague Academy of International Law has scheduled a short course on international law and international relations for its millennial lectures in the year 2000. Further, the American Society of International Law and the Academic Council on the United Nations System sponsor joint summer workshops explicidy designed to bring young IR and IL scholars together to explore the overlap between their disciplines.


2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 434-456
Author(s):  
Liliane Klein Garcia

Ao observar o sistema unipolar que emergiu do final da Guerra Fria, é marcante o sentimento de insegurança geopolítica gerada pela existência de apenas uma superpotência global e as dúvidas da atuação do Estado soberano nessa conjuntura. Nesse paradigma, Capitão América: Guerra Civil é lançado com uma simbologia contestadora do papel do hegemon no sistema internacional. Com isso, inicialmente é exposto o enredo do filme, seguido das teorias liberal e realista das Relações Internacionais e da semiótica greimasiana. Com isso em vista, é feita a análise dos símbolos do longa-metragem e, por fim, se conclui que os autores do texto tinham como objetivo disseminar uma mensagem de união política entre os americanos.     Abstract: Observing the unipolar system emerging from the closure of the Cold War, is remarkable the sentiment of geopolitical insecurity generated by the existence of only one global superpower and the doubts about the role of the sovereign State in such system. In this paradigm, Captain America: Civil War is released with a contesting symbology about the role of the hegemon in the international system. Therefore, first it is exposed the movie plot, followed by the liberal and realist theories of international relations and the French semiotics. With this in mind, the symbols in the feature are analised and, in conclusion, it is stated that the authors wish to convey a message in bipartisan union amongst the American people. Keywords: International Relations Theory, Semiotics, Captain America.     Recebido em: setembro/2019. Aprovado em: maio/2020.


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