Collective Preventive Diplomacy: A Study in International Conflict Management

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Collective Preventive Diplomacy: A Study in International Conflict Management. By Barry H. Steiner. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2004. 255p. $50.00.

In recent years, international scholars and policymakers have focused considerable attention on the moral and political challenges of collective action by major states to defuse ethnic conflict within smaller states. Among the most important recent studies examining these issues are the United Nations General Assembly Report of the High-level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change (2004) and the report of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty, The Responsibility to Protect (2001). Barry H. Steiner's study of collective efforts to prevent and resolve conflict is a welcome contribution to this literature. Steiner examines how and why major states join together for preventive diplomacy purposes. He draws from eight cases, ranging from the Greek revolution of the 1820s to the Bosnian conflict of the 1990s, and employs Alexander George's method of focused, structured comparison to distill lessons about the nature of great-power collective action.