Structure and Authority in International Relations

Abstract

It is the thesis of this essay, put very baldly, that much of our trouble in international relations results from an over-emphasis on the structure of these relations and a failure to provide the authority that is necessary to support this structure. In our attempts to introduce some measure of order into the affairs of nations, we create innumerable leagues, councils, federations, and unions, such as the League of Nations, the United Nations Organization, the European Common Market, and nato; and we staff these with vast numbers of officials and functionaries. But having done all this, we then fail to endow this apparatus with the power that alone could render it effective. This is as though we were to fabricate an intricate machine, designed to perform many tasks, and then make no provision for any fuel to drive it. This failure can certainly not be laid to lack of trying: the need for authority is too obvious to have been overlooked. So it must be due to misapprehensions of the nature of authority and of the foundations on which true authority rests. It is these two questions that I want to consider.