Globalization and the social state

1998 ◽  
Vol 24 (4) ◽  
pp. 461-478 ◽  
Author(s):  
DAVID ARMSTRONG
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
International Society ◽  
World Politics ◽  
The State ◽  
Social State ◽  
Contemporary World ◽  
The Social ◽  
Growing Body ◽  
Vast Literature ◽  
Territorial Boundaries

One of the most common themes in the vast literature on globalization is that it is gradually undermining the state by making it meaningless if not obsolete. This article is a contribution to the growing body of literature that seeks to challenge that thesis. It does so by arguing that there are two distinct sets of processes at work in contemporary world politics: globalization and interstate interaction. While the former tends to break down territorial boundaries and replace them with new, uniform configurations of power, money and culture, the latter reconfirms territorial boundaries and the structures and processes contained by them. The interaction among states, which is often ignored by globalization theorists, may best be understood by situating it within the traditional international relations concept of an international society, provided that this is redefined to give it a more ‘constructivist’ orientation.

Political Approaches

2018 ◽  
pp. 60-78
Author(s):  
Michael N. Barnett ◽  
Martha Finnemore
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
International Society ◽  
Real World ◽  
Social World ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Great Powers ◽  
Interstate Cooperation ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
World Organization

This chapter examines how prominent theories capture the various ways that the UN affects world politics. Different theories of international relations (IR) cast the UN in distinctive roles, which logically lead scholars to identify distinctive kinds of effects. We identify five roles that the UN might have: as an agent of great powers doing their bidding; as a mechanism for interstate cooperation; as a governor of an international society of states; as a constructor of the social world; and as a legitimation forum. Each role has roots in a well-known theory of international politics. In many, perhaps most, real-world political situations, the UN plays more than one of these roles, but these stylized theoretical arguments about the world body’s influence help discipline our thinking. They force us to be explicit about which effects of the world organization we think are important, what is causing them, and why.

The State of the Japanese State

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gavan McCormack
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
World Politics ◽  
The State ◽  
Colonial State ◽  
Contemporary World ◽  
History Of ◽  
Modern Japan ◽  
Client State ◽  
Constitutional Revision

In this his latest work, Gavan McCormack argues that Abe Shinzo’s efforts to re-engineer the Japanese state may fail, but his radicalism continues to shake the country and will have consequences not easy now to predict. The significance of this book will be widely recognized, particularly by those researching contemporary world politics, international relations and the history of modern Japan. McCormack here revisits and reassesses his previous formulations of Japan as construction state (doken kokka), client state (zokkoku), constitutional pacifist state, and colonial state (especially in its relationship to Okinawa). He adds a further chapter on what he calls the ‘rampant state’, that outlines the increasingly authoritarian or ikkyo (one strong) turn of the Abe government in the fifth year of its second term. And he critically addresses the Abe agenda for constitutional revision.

Forum Introduction: Is the state a person? Why should we care?

2004 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 255-258 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrick Thaddeus Jackson
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Empirical Analysis ◽  
International Society ◽  
World Politics ◽  
The State ◽  
The Other ◽  
Ir Theory ◽  
Precise Role

In 1959, Arnold Wolfers published an essay entitled ‘The Actors In World Politics’ in which he suggested that the importance of the state as an actor, although undeniable, needed to be submitted to ‘empirical analysis’ and clearer theorisation if its precise role was to be ascertained. Unfortunately, almost no one seems to have heeded his advice, and the question about what we might call the person-hood of the state virtually vanished from the agenda of mainstream International Relations (IR) theory. Realists, neorealists, neoliberal institutionalists, theorists of international society, and even many Marxists were content to treat states as, in effect, big people, endowed with perceptions, desires, emotions, and the other attributes of person-hood. Significantly, they persisted in these practices even though they often admitted that – in Robert Gilpin's words – ‘strictly speaking . . . only individuals and individuals joined together into various types of coalitions can be said to have interests’ and therefore really be actors.

The Anarchical Society at 40

2017 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Violence Against Women ◽  
International Society ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Political Issues ◽  
Racial Inequalities ◽  
Contemporary World ◽  
Society Perspective ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The Impact

Hedley Bull’s The Anarchical Society was published in 1977. Though considered as one of the classics in International Relations, it does not address many world political issues that concern us deeply today—volatile great power relations after the end of the Cold War, the rise of terrorism, financial crises, climate change, the impact of the Internet, deep-rooted racial inequalities, violence against women. Moreover, through the evolution of International Relations as an academic pursuit, various limitations of the type of approach followed by Bull are coming to light. Against this background, eighteen contributors to this collection, with diverse intellectual orientations and academic specializations, have revisited Bull’s book forty years on to assess its limitations and resilience. A number of contributors point to certain fundamental problems stemming from Bull’s a historical conceptual theorizing. However, several others find arguments and insights developed or hidden in his text which are still relevant, in some cases, highly so, to understanding contemporary world politics while others explore ways of augmenting Bull’s intellectual repertoire. An intricate tapestry of ideas emerges from the criss-crossing contributions to the volume and, through this, it becomes clear that there is more to The Anarchical Society than the ‘international society’ perspective with which it is conventionally associated. The contemporary relevance of Bull’s work is clearest when we recognize the flexibility of his conceptual framework and, in particular, the often overlooked potential of his concept of the ‘world political system’ of which, Bull acknowledges, modern international society is only a part.

Western conceptions of a universal moral order

1978 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 20-46 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. J. Vincent
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
International Society ◽  
Domestic Politics ◽  
World Politics ◽  
The State ◽  
Moral Order ◽  
Western Thought ◽  
The West ◽  
Western Values ◽  
The Individual

I Am not concerned in this paper to discover what is peculiarly western about western conceptions of a world moral order, but merely to assemble some ideas about morality that recur in western thought - which may or may not be features of other civilizations as well. It is my ignorance of other civilizations that prevents me from undertaking the seductively neat task of deciding what is unique about western values, but it is the same ignorance that saves me from making the mistake of arriving at what is essentially western by subtracting from its history that which it shares with other cultures. “Western Values in International Relations” is a field that has been pioneered by Martin Wight in such a way as to stay the hand of a glossator, but it is the word “universal” in my title that distinguishes the present undertaking from Wight's work. His aim was to follow some lines of thought derived from domestic politics in the West into the field of diplomacy and international relations. My aim is to pursue them further, beyond international society to world society, and to take into moral account not merely the state and the order of states, but also the individual and certain actors and institutions in world politics whose concerns have been regarded conventionally as falling outside the domain of ‘diplomacy and international relations’.

Theoretical and methodological determinants of the Robert von Mol’s concept of the social state

2020 ◽  
Vol 2020 (1) ◽  
pp. 37-45
Author(s):  
Svetlana Pirozhok
Keyword(s):  
19Th Century ◽  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Social Protection ◽  
The State ◽  
Scientific Article ◽  
Social State ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
Legal Thought ◽  
The Social ◽  
The 19Th Century

The relevance of determining the theoretical and methodological determinants of the Robert von Moll’s concept of the social state is due to the need to determine the patterns of evolution of ideas about the state and law, as well as the need to assess the ability to use the potential of the Robert von Moll’s theoretical and legal heritage, his predecessors and contemporaries to identify the optimal model of the social state. Modern Russia attempts to build such state. The proclamation and consolidation of Russia as a social state governed by the rule of law at the constitutional level requires attention both to the experiments carried out in social and legal development, and to the practices of social reform, and also to those ideas that have not yet been embodied. The ideas of European scholars regarding the evolution of the state-legal organization of society in the early modern period, based on which Robert von Mohl (1799–1875) developed original concepts of a social state and a state governed by the rule of law are discussed in the article. An analysis of the state of European political and legal thought and identification of the factors that have a significant impact on the development of Robert von Mohl’s doctrine of a social state governed by the rule of law are the purposes of the scientific article. The methodological basis of the study was the dialectical-materialistic, general scientific (historical, systemic) and special (historical-legal, comparativelegal) methods of legal research. The method of reconstruction and interpretation of legal ideas had great importance. As a result of the study, it was concluded that in the first half of the 19th century in European political and legal thought various approaches was formed to consider the problems of social protection and how to resolve them. The development trend of European political science became the transition from ideas and principles formed in the conditions of police states and enlightened absolutism to the ideas of a state governed by the rule of law (constitutional) that protects the rights and freedoms of a citizen. At the same time, it was a question of the rights and freedoms of only a part of the population: the proletariat growing in number and significance was not always evaluated as an independent social stratum. The axiological principles of state justification have also changed. Rights and utility principle became dominant principles. In the first half of the 19th century the social issue as an independent scientific problem of the European political and legal thought was not posed and not systematically developed. Questions about the social essence of the state, the specifics of the implementation of the state social function, the features of public administration in the new stage of socio-economic development of society predetermined the emergence of the idea of a social state. This idea was comprehensively characterized in the Robert von Mohl’s works. He went down in the history of political and legal thought as founder of the concepts of social and governed by the rule of law state.

scholarly journals The hierarchical society: the politics of self-determination and the constitution of new states after 1919

2019 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 372-396
Author(s):  
Maja Spanu
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
International Relations ◽  
International Society ◽  
International System ◽  
World Politics ◽  
League Of Nations ◽  
Self Determination ◽  
World War ◽  
New States ◽  
History Of

International Relations scholarship disconnects the history of the so-called expansion of international society from the presence of hierarchies within it. In contrast, this article argues that these developments may in fact be premised on hierarchical arrangements whereby new states are subject to international tutelage as the price of acceptance to international society. It shows that hierarchies within international society are deeply entrenched with the politics of self-determination as international society expands. I substantiate this argument with primary and secondary material on the Minority Treaty provisions imposed on the new states in Central, Eastern and Southern Europe admitted to the League of Nations after World War I. The implications of this claim for International Relations scholarship are twofold. First, my argument contributes to debates on the making of the international system of states by showing that the process of expansion of international society is premised on hierarchy, among and within states. Second, it speaks to the growing body of scholarship on hierarchy in world politics by historicising where hierarchies come from, examining how diverse hierarchies are nested and intersect, and revealing how different actors navigate these hierarchies.

Local Institutions at the Crossroads of Environmental Regionalism in Southeast Asia: State-Civil Society Interplays and Tensions

2007 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-54
Author(s):  
Antonio P. Contreras
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Civil Society ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Southeast Asia ◽  
Local Communities ◽  
The State ◽  
Local Institutions ◽  
The Social ◽  
International Interactions ◽  
Civil Societies

This paper inquires into the implications of the different discursive imaginations on civil societies and the state from the perspective of the social sciences, particularly political science and international relations. It focuses on some interfaces and tensions that exist between civil society on one hand, and the state and its bureaucratic instrumentalities on the other, particularly in the domain of environment and natural resources governance in the context of new regionalisms and of alternative concepts of human security. There is now a new context for regionalism in Southeast Asia, not only among state structures, such as the ASEAN and the various Mekong bodies, but also among local civil societies coming from the region. It is in this context that issues confronting local communities are given a new sphere for interaction, as well as a new platform for engaging state structures and processes. This paper illustrates how dynamic are the possibilities for non-state domains for transnational interactions, particularly in the context of the emerging environmental regionalism. This occurs despite the dominance of neo-realist political theorizing, and the state-centric nature of international interactions.

The past, present, and future of intervention

2013 ◽  
Vol 39 (5) ◽  
pp. 1233-1253 ◽  
Author(s):  
GEORGE LAWSON ◽  
LUCA TARDELLI
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Contemporary World ◽  
The Past ◽  
Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries

AbstractDespite the prominent place of intervention in contemporary world politics, debate is limited by two weaknesses: first, an excessive presentism; and second, a focus on normative questions to the detriment of analysis of the longer-term sociological dynamics that fuel interventionary pressures. In keeping with the focus of the Special Issue on the ways in which intervention is embedded within modernity, this article examines the emergence of intervention during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, assesses its place in the contemporary world, and considers its prospects in upcoming years. The main point of the article is simple – although intervention changes in character across time and place, it is a persistent feature of modern international relations. As such, intervention is here to stay.

scholarly journals VECTOR MODIFICATION OF MODERN SOCIAL STATE

2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 16-20
Author(s):  
Константин Сигалов ◽  
Konstantin Sigalov ◽  
Ольга Родионова ◽  
Olga Rodionova
Keyword(s):  
Social Policy ◽  
Economic Crisis ◽  
Social Systems ◽  
Social Function ◽  
The State ◽  
Present Stage ◽  
Social State ◽  
Foreign Experience ◽  
The Social

In article features of the present stage in development of the social state are investigated, the main reasons which crammed many modern states are established to reconsider priorities in the social policy and also foreign experience of those states which, despite an economic crisis, could keep stable social systems is analyzed. Authors of article propose measures which could promote increase in efficiency of social function of the state in Russia at the present stage.

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