War International Order Research Articles

Islamist Perspectives on International Relations: The Discourse of Sayyid Muhammad Hussein Fadlallah (1935–2010)

The academic literature on political Islam has paid scant attention to how contemporary Islamists conceptualize international relations. By examining the writings on international relations of one leading Islamist thinker - the recently deceased Sayyid Muhammad Hussein Fadlallah - this article attempts to deepen our understanding of this key aspect of contemporary Islamist thought. The article highlights Fadlallah's views on a range of theoretical and substantive issues which are at the core of international relations in the post-Cold War era. These issues revolve around: the underlying principles of international relations; the nature of the current (post-Cold War) international order and the role of the United States therein; the relationship between the United States (and the West, in general) and the Arab and Islamic worlds; Israel and the Palestinian question; and the prospects for Islamic unity and the form that it can take in the modern era. It also relates Fadlallah's discourse on international relations to that of other Islamists, secular Arab nationalists, and other critics of the prevailing international order, as well as to the writings of Christian realists and in particular Reinhold Niebuhr.

Postsovereign Governance in a Globalizing and Fragmenting World: The Case of Mexico

AbstractGlobalization and “global governance” have become the buzzwords at the turn of the century in order to name and explain the emerging post‐Cold War international order. The first one makes reference to the technological revolution that is modifying our notions of space, time, and production, while the latter attempts to illustrate how power and its regulatory practices are being transformed among polities. We discuss these two notions in the first part of this essay to argue that, in fact, the emerging “global” order will be different from that grounded on state‐centered notions of territory and sovereignty. Our arguments focus on the Mexican case to highlight how this country is moving from an inward‐looking, state‐centered, authoritarian machinery of governance, to a postsovereign, principle‐based, multilayered governance structure. This transition has mainly manifested in the governance mechanisms of corporate and human rights. This does not mean that policy tools of the “ancient regime” have completely disappeared. State‐centered structures of governance will remain important during this stage of economic and political change. Areas moving into postsovereign and principled regulatory practices will overlap with those that remain under the monopoly of national bureaucracies. Though Mexico's economic and political change could be explained as a reactive movement against the collapse of the state‐centered authoritarian model, an important conclusion of this essay is that the emerging pattern of postsovereign and principled bureaucratic governance will play a major role in shaping the future of those changes.

Changing faces of Japanese defense policy: Past and future1

During the Cold War, Japan played a strategic role by contributing to the global containment against the Soviet Union. After the Cold War, Japan became more active operationally and better prepared legally. However, it did not play significant strategic roles in shaping the post‐Cold War international order. The question now is whether Japan will play strategic roles in the future. Given the changes in the domestic political outlook, political capital necessary for redefining Japanese defense policy seems to be forthcoming. Japan could play strategic roles particularly in ballistic missile defense and U.S.‐Japan defense cooperation.