International Relations Textbooks and the Problem of International Order

The establishment and maintenance of order—that is, of settled rules and arrangements that regulate actors’ behavior—is central to politics at all levels, including the international level. Political order, after all, is a requisite for modern human existence. Given the priority of the problem of order, the most important questions that can be addressed in an introductory International Relations (IR) course are those that concern the sources, nature, and historical evolution of international order. But a survey of conventional introductory IR textbooks reveals that these questions are typically dealt with glancingly or ignored altogether. Thus a strong case can be made that conventional IR textbooks overlook a vital aspect of the subject they are intended to cover. This failure appears to arise from an effort by IR textbook authors to explain international politics in terms of timeless dynamics that exist apart from history. But excluding history as a source of explanation comes at a high cost. In effect, it prevents textbooks from adequately weighing the significance of the historically specific bargains that have provided the foundation for international order in modern times

International Order: A Political History

Where does international order come from? How is it established and maintained? Why does it break down? With every sovereign state its own master, how can order prevail? Answering these questions in a briskly paced, systematic survey, Stephen Kocs explores the rise and fall of successive international systems across the centuries―from the dynastic institutions of Renaissance Europe, to the power-politics systems of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Europe, to the liberal international systems of the contemporary world.https://crossworks.holycross.edu/hc_books/1037/thumbnail.jp

Judicial Decision Making and International Tribunals: Assessing the Impact of Individual, National, and International Factors

The objective of this article is to explain judicial decision making at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia by analyzing the impact of individual, national, and international factors. Copyright (c) 2005 by the Southwestern Social Science Association.