Changing the world? The problem of action in international politics

Abstract

The issue of how to achieve change—in short of how to act—in a complex international system of 192 member states, without authoritative structures, or even a clear hierarchy of power, has been neglected in the literature of the academic subject of international relations. The focus has been predominantly on structures at the expense less of individual actors—much is written about the foreign policies of the major powers—than of the problem of agency itself. In terms of effecting significant change, how much is it reasonable to expect, and of whom? This lecture, which was given to mark the establishment of the new Department of Politics and International Studies at Cambridge, surveys the parameters of the problems of action, concluding that while states are still the most important site of agency at the international level the critical dilemma is now that of accepting and managing complexity and diversity. In particular the West must accept that its ability to provide leadership, unquestioned over the last two centuries, can no longer be assumed.