scholarly journals On the concept of international disorder

2020 ◽  
pp. 004711782092228
Author(s):  
Aaron McKeil

International relations today are widely considered to be experiencing deepening disorder and the topic of international disorder is gaining increased attention. Yet, despite this recent interest in international disorder, in and beyond the academy, and despite the decades-long interest in international order, there is still little agreement on the concept of international disorder, which is often used imprecisely and with an alarmist rather than analytical usage. This is a problem if international disorder is to be understood in theory, towards addressing its concomitant problems and effects in practice. As such, this article identifies and explores two ways international order studies can benefit from a clearer and more precise conception of international disorder. First, it enables a more complete picture of how orderly international orders have been. Second, a greater understanding of the problem of international order is illuminated by a clearer grasp of the relation between order and disorder in world politics. The article advances these arguments in three steps. First, an analytical concept of international disorder is developed and proposed. Second, applying it to the modern history of international order, the extent to which there is a generative relationship between order and disorder in international systems is explored. Third, it specifies the deepening international disorder in international affairs today. It concludes by indicating a research agenda for International Relations and international order studies that takes the role of international disorder more seriously.

Author(s):  
Haas Peter M

This chapter begins with a definition and intellectual history of epistemic communities. ‘Epistemic communities’ is a concept developed by ‘soft’ constructivist scholars of international relations concerned with agency. Soft constructivists in general focus on the role of various types of norms, principled beliefs, causal beliefs, and discourses in establishing roles and rules in international relations: that is, determining the identities, interests, and practices that shape the identification of actors in international relations. The chapter then applies this definition to the study of international environmental law and discusses whether or not international lawyers constitute an epistemic community. It concludes with a discussion of some of the recent challenges to the influence of epistemic communities in world politics more broadly, and thus the future of international environmental law.


2021 ◽  
pp. 137-169
Author(s):  
Georg Sørensen ◽  
Jørgen Møller ◽  
Robert Jackson

This chapter examines the International Society tradition of international relations (IR). International Society, also known as the ‘English School’, is an approach to world politics that places emphasis on international history, ideas, structures, institutions, and values. After providing an overview of International Society’s basic assumptions and claims, the chapter considers the three traditions associated with the leading ideas of the most outstanding classical theorists of IR such as Niccolò Machiavelli and Immanuel Kant: realism, rationalism, and revolutionism. It then explores International Society’s views regarding order and justice, world society, statecraft and responsibility, and humanitarian responsibility and war; as well as how International Society scholars have used a historical approach to understand earlier international systems and the development of international society. It also discusses several major criticisms against the International Society approach to IR and concludes with an overview of the research agenda of International Society after the Cold War.


2006 ◽  
Vol 49 (1) ◽  
pp. 281-298 ◽  
Author(s):  
DUNCAN S. A. BELL

This essay surveys recent scholarly work on the political theory of empire and international relations in Britain during the long nineteenth century. It traces the dominant themes and arguments to be found, points to some interpretative and methodological weaknesses, and highlights a number of topics that remain to be explored in detail. I focus on the following: the relationship between liberalism and empire and, in particular, the role played by the idea of civilization in circumscribing liberal claims to universality; the nature and evolution of international law, and the key role that jurisprudential thought played in shaping conceptions of civilization and setting the bounds of legitimacy for imperialism; the vexed relationship between the history of imperial thought and cultural/political history; and the important, though frequently marginalized, role of the colonial empire in the Victorian imperial imagination. Finally, I suggest that areas that remain to be explored in depth include non-liberal visions of international affairs; the role of theology in shaping conceptions of global order; and the balance between the United States, Europe, and the various (and very different) elements of the empire.


Author(s):  
Robert Jackson ◽  
Georg Sørensen ◽  
Jørgen Møller

This chapter examines the International Society tradition of international relations (IR). International Society, also known as the ‘English School’, is an approach to world politics that places emphasis on international history, ideas, structures, institutions, and values. After providing an overview of International Society’s basic assumptions and claims, the chapter considers the three traditions associated with the leading ideas of the most outstanding classical theorists of IR such as Niccolò Machiavelli and Immanuel Kant: realism, rationalism, and revolutionism. It then explores International Society’s views regarding order and justice, world society, statecraft and responsibility, and humanitarian responsibility and war; as well as how International Society scholars have used a historical approach to understand earlier international systems and the development of international society. It also discusses several major criticisms against the International Society approach to IR and concludes with an overview of the current research agenda of International Society.


Author(s):  
Abdul Ghafoor Karim Ali ◽  
Younis Talaat Al-Dabbagh

The international system which was established after the end of second world war and the rise of two great states (USA) and (PCCC) (entice), America which represent the liberties states and capitalisms economic, and PCCC which represent the commend systems and social economic. Since the security and diplomatic efforts do the best efforts of reforms. Each relationship between states in the international systems of them has his role historically All states put majority of their efforts against  war and the relationships is going to establish a new international order depending on plurality system in the world.


1956 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 357-372 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stanley Hoffmann

No field of study is more slippery than international relations. The student of government has a clear frame of reference: the state within which occur the developments which he examines. The student of international relations, unhappily, oscillates between the assumption of a world community which does not exist, except as an ideal, and the various units whose decisions and connections form the pattern of world politics—mainly, the nation-states. International organizations therefore tend to be considered either as the first institutions of a world in search of its constitution or as instruments of foreign policies. The scholar who follows the first approach usually blames, correctly enough, the nation-states for the failures of the organization; but he rarely indicates the means which could be used to bring the realities of world society into line with his ideal. The scholar who takes the second approach stresses, accurately enough, how limited the autonomy of international organizations has been and how little they have contributed to the achievement of their objectives; but because he does not discuss his fundamental assumption—the permanence of the nation-state's driving role in world politics—he reaches somewhat too easily the conclusion that the only prospect in international affairs is more of the same.


Author(s):  
Saken YESSIRKEP

The article analyzes the role of soft power theory in world politics, the history of its application in the system of international relations, the features of the use of soft power tools by major actors and the current state of soft power theory. The author also spoke about the potential tools of Kazakhstan's soft power policy and the mechanisms for its use. Comparative analysis, summary analysis methods were used in writing the article. Scientific works and articles on the theory of soft power are analyzed. The results of the study suggest ways to achieve success through the use of the Latin alphabet, other ethnic groups immigrated from Kazakhstan, the Kazakh diaspora abroad, tourism, the Russian language.


2012 ◽  
Vol 51 (2) ◽  
pp. 238-262 ◽  
Author(s):  
Louis Bélanger ◽  
Kim Fontaine-Skronski

In 2000, International Organization published a special issue on the theme of ‘legalization in world politics’ which laid the foundation for a very influential research programme on international cooperation and the role of institutions in international affairs. The most enduring legacy of the special issue is the operationalization of the concept of ‘legalization’ itself, which is defined as a combination of three dimensions: obligation, precision and delegation. After deconstructing the initial concept, this research presents a systematic evaluation of the concept of legalization, taking stock of a decade-long history of empirical use. It then proposes a new concept structure by questioning the levels of substitutability and independence originally assigned to each of the three initial dimensions.


2019 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 372-396
Author(s):  
Maja Spanu

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.


The history of war is also a history of its justification. The contributions to this book argue that the justification of war rarely happens as empty propaganda. While it is directed at mobilizing support and reducing resistance, it is not purely instrumental. Rather, the justification of force is part of an incessant struggle over what is to count as justifiable behaviour in a given historical constellation of power, interests, and norms. This way, the justification of specific wars interacts with international order as a normative frame of reference for dealing with conflict. The justification of war shapes this order and is being shaped by it. As the justification of specific wars entails a critique of war in general, the use of force in international relations has always been accompanied by political and scholarly discourses on its appropriateness. In much of the pertinent literature the dominating focus is on theoretical or conceptual debates as a mirror of how international normative orders evolve. In contrast, the focus of the present volume is on theory and political practice as sources for the re- and de-construction of the way in which the justification of war and international order interact. The book offers a unique collection of papers exploring the continuities and changes in war discourses as they respond to and shape normative orders from early modern times to the present. It comprises contributions from International Law, History and International Relations and from Western and non-Western perspectives.


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