Paradise Lost?

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicholas Greenwood Onuf
Keyword(s):  
International Society ◽  
Paradise Lost ◽  
Functional Differentiation ◽  
Modern State ◽  
Economic Decline ◽  
Emotional Appeal ◽  
Social Coherence ◽  
Complete Collapse

Whether there has been a transition to something new in what it is possible to think remains to be seen. In the absence of such a transition, we are unlikely to see significant changes in the conditions of rule. If indeed capitalism is a spent force, then economic decline will accelerate and material inequality will increase. Short of a complete collapse, established conditions of rule will be reinforced—the mighty frame ever mightier, the international society of modern state-nations shows no signs of fading away. As migration dilutes blood ties and multiplies languages in daily use, nations depend all the more on territory for their social coherence and emotional appeal. That sovereignty is more difficult to locate spatially only illustrates the effects of modernist functional differentiation, which does not displace space or overlay it so much as penetrate the immediacy of place, every place, stealthily, by making itself indispensable.

Collective Security Reexamined

1953 ◽  
Vol 47 (3) ◽  
pp. 753-772 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kenneth W. Thompson
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
International Society ◽  
Foreign Relations ◽  
Armed Conflict ◽  
State System ◽  
Modern State ◽  
The Sun ◽  
Collective Security ◽  
New Era ◽  
Eighteenth And Nineteenth Centuries

From one standpoint it is a truism to say that collective security is something new under the sun. In past eras and especially in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, war was conceived of as a duel in which contestants should be isolated and restrained by the rest of international society. When nations engaged in armed conflict their neighbors sought to localize the struggle and alleviate its poisonous effects. However short-sighted their actions in not meeting the conflict directly and turning back aggression at its source, the nations pursuing these policies were sometimes successful for varying periods of time in preserving islands of peace in a warring world.On August 8, 1932, however, Secretary of State Henry L. Stimson proclaimed the revolutionary fact that the modern state system was entering a new era in which warring powers were no longer entitled to the same equally impartial and neutral treatment by the rest of society. He announced to the New York Council of Foreign Relations that in future conflicts one or more of the combatants must be designated as wrong-doer and added: “We no longer draw a circle about them and treat them with the punctilios of the duelist's code. Instead we denounce them as lawbreakers.”

Popular Legitimacy in African Multi-Ethnic States

1984 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 177-198 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert H. Jackson ◽  
Carl G. Rosberg
Keyword(s):  
International Society ◽  
Majority Rule ◽  
Historical Development ◽  
Political Legitimacy ◽  
Modern State ◽  
Domestic Environment ◽  
Territorial Integrity ◽  
The People ◽  
The Family ◽  
Modern Era

The historical development of the modern state is marked by, among other important changes, the transformation of political legitimacy from the authority of princes to the mandate of the people, from dynastic to popular legitimacy. Since states are the creatures not only of their domestic environment but also of international society, we must distinguish between internal and international legitimacy. Martin Wight defines the latter as ‘the collective judgement of international society [i.e. other states] about rightful membership of the family of nations’. According to him, the convention of international legitimation that has predominated since 1945 is based on the combined and paradoxical principles of majority rule, which rejects the legitimacy of colonialism, and territorial integrity, which nevertheless accepts territorial divisions established under colonialism. We define internal legitimacy as the recognition of a state and its government as rightful by its population, which during the modern era has increasingly meant a popular recognition democratically expressed.

Civil association across borders: Law, morality and responsibility in the post-Brexit Era

2018 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 299-313 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ronnie Hjorth
Keyword(s):  
Rule Of Law ◽  
International Society ◽  
State Policy ◽  
Alternative Conception ◽  
Modern State ◽  
Political Responsibility ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
Civil Association ◽  
Civil Condition

Michael Oakeshott’s distinction between ‘civil association’ and ‘enterprise association’ has inspired international society theorists to conceive of international society as not just a ‘purposive association’ constructed by states to satisfy their interests but also as a ‘practical association’ providing formal and pragmatic rules that are not instrumental to particular goals of state policy. While this article is supportive of the Oakeshottian turn in international society theory, it suggests that somewhat different conclusions can be drawn from it. The article sketches out an alternative conception of international ‘civil association’, one that transcends the boundaries of communities. It is argued that such a notion of civil association is both possible and at the same time anchored in the experiences of the modern state. It is suggested that this notion of international civil association, when sustained by an adequate legal conception, promotes the enforcement of moral and political responsibility across borders. Finally, it is argued that European governments post-Brexit should strive to retain, as much as possible, the element of civil association present in European relations in order to preserve the civil condition, the rule of law, and in order to enhance political responsibility across borders.

THE IDEA OF TRUSTEESHIP IN INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY

2003 ◽  
Vol 368 ◽  
pp. 67-76 ◽  
Author(s):  
WILLIAM BAIN
Keyword(s):  
International Society
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