Modern International Society Research Articles

The structure of international society: an introduction to the study of international relations

This second edition of this textbook places in context key world events since 1945. While not neglecting the significant developments of the last 50 years, this book has a broad historical and conceptual range. It provides students with a historical analysis of the origins, development and early networks of IR, and an exposition of the diverse ways in which modern international society has been defined and interpreted. Tackling a range on international concerns, Geoffrey Stern explores and clarifies such concepts as sovereignty, the balance of power, national interest and interdependence, illustrating his text with reference to both historical and contemporary world events.

Natural law and international relations

There can be no enterprise more important to the student of International Relations than to understand the bearing on his subject of the tradition that asserts the existence of natural law. Natural law played a vital historical role in the emergence of the European states-system: in the period during which the positive law of Christendom was ceasing to command attention, but that of modern international society had not yet taken shape, the idea that princes and peoples were bound by rules in their relations with one another rested substantially, even if by no means exclusively, upon natural law doctrine. The natural law tradition is also central to the critical investigation of normative issues in world politics: for any inquiry into e.g. the justification of force, the obligation of treaties, the rights of sovereignty or the legitimacy of intervention, it provides a rich source of argument.

Missions and the New Nationalism

The term needs definition. Nationalism is not new except relatively speaking. The national state emerged in Europe in modern times, and only in the course of the nine teenth century assumed that mystical or quasi-religious character which is the principal ingredient in nationalism. Conflicts of con science in the hearts and minds of Christians over allegiance to God and allegiance to the state became increasingly more numerous and sharp in the twentieth century. Nationalism is more than patriotism or good as some would call it. It tends to make absolute claims for the state. One result of the First World War was an interlude of internationalism. However, the mystical religion of nationalism was revived with greater force by the Nazis and Fascists; and, despite the general denunciation of nationalism, the society of western nations had continued to be infected with this virus often disguised under the name of patriotism. The two original fonts of nationalism in Asia are Japan and India. The western nations forced an entrance into Japan. Japan then stepped over night from medieval isolation into modern international society. She chose elements of western technology and methodology in order to modernize and protect herself from aggression. Nationalism was one of the imports and was quickly united with the traditional belief in the uniqueness and supe riority of the Japanese. As in the West, nationalism found ex pression in imperialism. India caught nationalism by contagion from her British rulers through higher education in which English literature was employed. Japanese conquests in Asia and the Pacific virtually destroyed colonialism and the prestige of the western powers, but also fanned the tiny flame of incipient nationalism into a raging wildfire. President Wilson's Four teen Points and the creation of the League of Nations a gener ation earlier had popularized the notion that every people is by natural right entitled to self-determination, usually understood to mean statehood. The ninety-nine nations membership of the United Nations Organization is an amazing demonstration of the extent to which recently subject people have attained this status. Some of these nations are so small in territory or so weak in