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The Vulnerable in International Society , Ian Clark (Oxford : Oxford University Press , 2013), 190 pp., $99 cloth, $34.99 paper.
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In 1977 the Australian international relations scholar Hedley Bull published a seminal work, The Anarchical Society, an exploration of the sources of international order. While acknowledging that international politics are characterized by Hobbesian, liberal, and Kantian elements simultaneously, he argued that underlying them are elements of order, by which he meant a pattern of activity that sustains the elementary or primary goals of the society of states, or international society. The goals are the preservation of the system of states, the preservation of the independence of its members, and that members of the international society see peace as the normal rather than exceptional condition of their mutual relations.
Bull's work became a foundation of the English School of International Relations, challenging the dominant Realist perspective of international studies in the postwar years. Realism characterized the international political domain as embedded in security dilemmas, arms races, conquest, and the constant preparation for, conduct of, and recuperation from war. In contrast, international society is constituted in part cooperatively to manage problems of a global scope. While international society is primarily an analytical concept, in this new book Ian Clark argues that it is also an agent whose decisions, rules, and regulations have a significant impact on the lives and fortunes of people around the world.
International society is hierarchical, meaning that most of the rules and regulations it institutes through multilateral treaties and international organizations reflect the interests of its most powerful members. How does international society contribute to the human ecology of endangerment? It does so by the ways it defines, categorizes, and...