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James C. Hsiung, Anarchy and Order: The Interplay of Politics and Law in International Relations (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1997), x + 245 pp., US$55.00 (hbk), ISBN 1 55587 571 8.
Anarchy and Order is part of the emerging literature that attempts to bridge the disciplinary divide between international relations (IR) and international law. Whereas there have been many defences of the relevance of international law from within its ranks, Hsiung's contribution is unusual in that he approaches the question from the perspective of IR and uses its language.
Though far from polemical, Hsiung's target is the exclusive reliance on power in the Neorealist theory of international relations developed by Kenneth Waltz, whom he describes as `more Hobbesian than Hobbes'. Such a conception of IR cannot explain why nation-states accept legal restraints on their sovereignty-whether it be in recognising higher community interests (such as environmental controls) or in accepting limitations on their capacity to use force. Crucially, Hsiung argues that nation-states in an anarchic system manifest an urge for order, and that this order 'invariably' leads to the discovery of international law. International law. Intemational law is thus `that body of norms created by nation-states to...