David Armstrong

Globalization and the social state

One of the most common themes in the vast literature on globalization is that it is gradually undermining the state by making it meaningless if not obsolete. This article is a contribution to the growing body of literature that seeks to challenge that thesis. It does so by arguing that there are two distinct sets of processes at work in contemporary world politics: globalization and interstate interaction. While the former tends to break down territorial boundaries and replace them with new, uniform configurations of power, money and culture, the latter reconfirms territorial boundaries and the structures and processes contained by them. The interaction among states, which is often ignored by globalization theorists, may best be understood by situating it within the traditional international relations concept of an international society, provided that this is redefined to give it a more ‘constructivist’ orientation.

Force and legitimacy in world politics

1. Notes on contributors 2. Introduction David Armstrong and Theo Farrell 3. Legitimacy and the use of force: can the circle be squared? Andrew Hurrell 4. Legality and legitimacy: the quest for principled felxibility and restraint Richard Falk 5. Not yet havoc: geopolitical change and the international rules on military force Michael Byers 6. Liberal hierarchy and the license to use force Christian Reus-Smit 7. The age of liberal wars Lawrence Freedman 8. Force, legitimacy, success and Iraq David Campbell 9. War and international relations: a military historical perspective on force and legitimacy Jeremy Black 10. The judgement of war: on the idea of legitimate force in world politics Nicholas Rengger 11. Discourses of difference: civilians, combatants and compliance with the laws of wars Helen M. Kinsella 12. Fights about rules: the role efficiacy and power in changing multilateralism Martha Finnemore 13. Peacekeeping and enforcement action in Africa: the role of Europe and the obligations of multilateralism Christine Gray 14. Dead or alive: American vengeance goes global Michael Sherry.

International Law and International Relations: The law in world politics

Part I. The Foundations: 1. The nature of international law 2. The evolution of international law 3. Three lenses: realism, liberalism, constructivism Part II. The Law in World Politics: 4. Use of force 5. Human rights 6. International crimes 7. International trade 8. The environment Part III. Conclusions: 9. International law in a unipolar age.

Evolving conceptions of justice in international law

The article examines the argument that international law is already beginning to reflect cosmopolitanism. It does so by briefly reviewing the history of the ways in which concepts of justice have been represented in international law and then considering the case that cosmopolitanism is present in various forms in contemporary international law. While dismissing some of the stronger cosmopolitan claims it argues that the fuller picture has complexities that International Relations Realists and legal Positivists tend to ignore.

The Emergence of Global Civil Society

The term ‘civil society’ has been employed in several distinct ways in political thought. John Locke used it interchangeably with ‘political society’, which he imagined as an association based on the rule of law and formed by men in a state of nature to protect their property, which he saw as consisting of life and liberty as well as ‘estate’.1 Locke, however, was very clear that such civil societies excluded absolutist forms of government, while later writers, with the same aim of finding a theoretical foundation for resisting oppressive state power, tended to define civil society as a zone of social activity existing apart from the state. Hegel saw moral superiority and purpose as residing in the state rather than in civil society and Marx equated civil society with ‘bourgeois society’, or the social relations emanating from capitalism. Both thus problematised the term and made it more ambiguous in its connotations than more contemporary theorists, who returned to the notion of civil society as a zone of private social interaction that prevents the state from undermining individual freedom. David Held’s definition provides a succinct and relatively uncontroversial rendering of the modern understanding of the term: Civil society constitutes those areas of social life — the domestic world, the economic sphere, cultural activities and political interaction — which are organized by private or voluntary arrangements between individuals and groups outside the direct control of the state.2

International Law and International Relations: Three lenses: realism, liberalism, constructivism

There is a certain irony in the mutual antipathy displayed by the disciplines of International Relations (IR) and International Law (IL). For as it happens, both disciplines are (and have been) united by common theoretical divisions. That is to say, the dominant paradigms in both disciplines are similar in their core ontological assumptions about the world; the main challengers in each discipline also share remarkably similar worldviews. The dominance of realism in IR is matched by the dominance of positivism in IL. Both realism and positivism offer structural approaches to their subject that prioritise the role of states and instrumental action, and downplay the significance of domestic politics, norms and ethics. Just as liberal institutionalism developed to challenge the dominance of realism in IR from the 1950s onwards, so legal positivism was challenged by the emerging legal process school from the 1940s onwards. These liberal challengers offer agent-centric approaches that highlight a plurality of actors in addition to states, as well as the role of domestic processes, normative action and ethical considerations in world politics. As we noted in the Introduction, there is growing appreciation among some IR and IL scholars that there is much to learn from each others discipline. But this appreciation is confined to liberal scholars in IR and IL; realists still have little time for law, and legal positivists still consider politics and policy to be none of their concern. To be sure, liberalism should be naturally inclined to take law seriously, given its focus on norms, regimes and institutions. Equally, the legal process school explicitly seeks to situate the law in broader socio-political contexts. At the same time, given realisms and legal positivisms shared worldviews, an engagement between these two disciplinary giants is long overdue.

International Law and International Relations: The nature of international law

Two kinds of theoretical perspectives have frequently been employed to cast doubt on the significance of international law. The first, which is located within the branch of legal theory known as ‘positivism’, argues, in essence, that law as such is distinguished from broader and looser normative structures by its imperative nature. In the most famous version of this, by the nineteenth-century English jurist John Austin, ‘law properly so-called’ is the command of a sovereign backed by coercive sanctions. Since states in the international system acknowledge no sovereign body other than themselves and since powerful states cannot be forced to take or refrain from taking actions against their will, international law cannot be considered true law. As Austin puts it, the duties which international law imposes do not have the obligatory character of true law because they ‘are enforced by moral sanctions, by fear on the part of nations, or by fear on the part of sovereigns, of provoking general hostility, and incurring its probable evils, in case they shall violate maxims generally received and respected’. The second theoretical perspective is drawn from that body of theoretical reflection within International Relations (IR) known as ‘realism’. This asserts that states exist in an overall context of international anarchy which impels them towards ceaseless competition in pursuit of their separate interests. In the inevitable struggle for power that ensues, neither moral nor legal principles will significantly constrain states, and co-operation among them will always be limited and short term.

International Law and International Relations: Use of force

The power of international law is severely tested when it comes to the use of force by states. The development of modern international law was spurred on by the quest to eliminate war from world politics. War in the industrial age promised to be more awful than ever before experienced by humankind. And indeed the two world wars of the twentieth century claimed countless millions of lives and left whole continents in tatters. Hence, the use of force was prohibited in the new United Nations system. This prohibition is further supported by a larger corpus of treaty and customary international law. The only exceptions permitted under the UN Charter are the use of force in self-defence, and when authorised by the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) for the purpose of protecting international peace and security. Notwithstanding this, states have continued to use force not in self-defence and without UNSC authorisation. It is clear that law, in itself, is a poor restraint on the use of force by states. This is recognised in the realist lens by the emphasis placed on a functioning balance of power as a necessary enabler for international law to function. Viewed from a narrow perspective, therefore, international law is weak in the face of state power. But viewed more broadly, international law on the use of force clearly captures values in the international community and provides a discourse on the legitimacy of using force.

Force and Legitimacy in World Politics: Contents

1. Notes on contributors 2. Introduction David Armstrong and Theo Farrell 3. Legitimacy and the use of force: can the circle be squared? Andrew Hurrell 4. Legality and legitimacy: the quest for principled felxibility and restraint Richard Falk 5. Not yet havoc: geopolitical change and the international rules on military force Michael Byers 6. Liberal hierarchy and the license to use force Christian Reus-Smit 7. The age of liberal wars Lawrence Freedman 8. Force, legitimacy, success and Iraq David Campbell 9. War and international relations: a military historical perspective on force and legitimacy Jeremy Black 10. The judgement of war: on the idea of legitimate force in world politics Nicholas Rengger 11. Discourses of difference: civilians, combatants and compliance with the laws of wars Helen M. Kinsella 12. Fights about rules: the role efficiacy and power in changing multilateralism Martha Finnemore 13. Peacekeeping and enforcement action in Africa: the role of Europe and the obligations of multilateralism Christine Gray 14. Dead or alive: American vengeance goes global Michael Sherry.

Force and Legitimacy in World Politics: Index

1. Notes on contributors 2. Introduction David Armstrong and Theo Farrell 3. Legitimacy and the use of force: can the circle be squared? Andrew Hurrell 4. Legality and legitimacy: the quest for principled felxibility and restraint Richard Falk 5. Not yet havoc: geopolitical change and the international rules on military force Michael Byers 6. Liberal hierarchy and the license to use force Christian Reus-Smit 7. The age of liberal wars Lawrence Freedman 8. Force, legitimacy, success and Iraq David Campbell 9. War and international relations: a military historical perspective on force and legitimacy Jeremy Black 10. The judgement of war: on the idea of legitimate force in world politics Nicholas Rengger 11. Discourses of difference: civilians, combatants and compliance with the laws of wars Helen M. Kinsella 12. Fights about rules: the role efficiacy and power in changing multilateralism Martha Finnemore 13. Peacekeeping and enforcement action in Africa: the role of Europe and the obligations of multilateralism Christine Gray 14. Dead or alive: American vengeance goes global Michael Sherry.