Choice is at the heart of ethics, but our choices are never entirely free. Human choice is fettered by history, by context, by biology, by expected consequences and by imagination. Every choice has a history, and a price. In world politics, the scope for choice seems particularly fettered. Historical and geographical contextualization, and projected price have meant that politics beyond state borders has traditionally been understood as an arena of necessity, not ethics. Choice may never be entirely free, but neither is it totally determined; to argue it is, as a result of biology, the unconscious, predestination or whatever would be to abolish ethics. This is not our position, or that of the contributors. We do however recognize that the fettering of ethical choice begins at birth.

Both the ‘CNN effect,’ whereby images revealing large-scale suffering push governments into humanitarian interventions, and the ‘bodybags effect’, whereby images of casualties pull them away, were evident in the Kosovo War, as was the ‘bullying effect,’ whereby the use of excessive force risks draining away public support for interventions. Although Serbs deliberately tried to present themselves as victims, however, the harsh methods used to suppress Kosovar Albanian aspirations ensured that it was they who appeared as the victims. The Serb effort was also counter-productive in that it made the KLA harder, instead of easier, to defeat.

Several years after students of international relations started to ask questions about international regimes, there continues to be a strong scholarly interest in the principles, norms, rules, and decision-making procedures that govern the behaviour of states in particular issue-areas. Indeed, international regimes have been a major focus of theoretical and empirical research in International Relations for many years now. Three schools of thought have shaped the discussion thus far: neoliberalism, which bases its analyses on constellations of interests; realism, which treats power relations among states as its key variable; and cognitivism, which emphasizes actors' causal and social knowledge. Each of these schools of thought has articulated and defended a distinct view on the origins, stability, and consequences of international regimes. In this article we explore the possibilities of achieving additional explanatory power in the study of international regimes by working toward a synthesis of these schools of thought.

This article discusses some controversies over the relations of the academic discipline of International Relations to policy. The article argues that, while our ultimate goal may be to have some impact on the world, the immediate goals can be more abstract. International Relations consists, and should consist, of a set of Lakatosian Research Programmes, some conflicting, some complementary, which range from the abstract to the directly policy-relevant. Effective intervention in social systems depends on analyses in more than commonsense terms. The article looks sceptically on recent disciplinary history, doubting both the supposed positivist hegemony and the supposed novelty of normative debate.

The political economy of the Asia-Pacific region has been transformed over the past decade. Three important developments are (1) the demise of the US–Japan economic rivalry and the associated competition over the most appropriate model of capitalism; (2) challenges to the ‘Washington Consensus’ on the optimal foreign economic strategy for emerging economies; and (3) the renewal of US hegemony in the context of a unipolar international structure. An understanding of these developments requires attention to the interaction of international and domestic forces. These developments suggest that a major challenge facing governments in the region will be to manage the tension between the state and the market. They also suggest that the United States is well positioned to play the role of regional stabilizer in the Asia-Pacific. Whether it does so effectively will depend on its domestic politics and the quality of its statecraft.

From the time of the Conquistadors through to New Labour's ethical foreign policy of ‘mutual respect’, Modern Europe has found it difficult to identify the appropriate ethical framework for understanding its relationship with the non-European world, a difficulty increasingly apparent in the post-Cold War world. Some argue that late-modern or ‘postmodern’ thought can provide a better framework than the discourses of classical modernity, but a more fruitful alternative may be found in the revival of premodern ways of posing ethical questions.

The idea of Gaia—of life on earth as a self-sustaining natural system—is not a gratuitous, semi-mystical fantasy. It is a really useful idea, a cure for distortions that spoil our current world-view. Its most obvious use is, of course, in suggesting practical solutions to environmental problems. But, more widely, it also attacks deeper tangles which now block our thinking. Some of these are puzzles about the reasons why the fate of our planet should concern us. We are bewildered by the thought that we might have a duty to something so clearly non-human. But more centrally, too, we are puzzled about how we should view ourselves. Current ways of thought still tend to trap us in the narrow, atomistic, seventeenth-century image of social life which grounds today's crude and arid individualism, though there are currently signs that we are beginning to move away from it. A more realistic view of the earth can give us a more realistic view of ourselves as its inhabitants.

The literatures on globalization and regionalization on the one hand, and on the institutional distinctiveness of national capitalisms on the other, seem to pull in very different directions. Nonetheless, an increasing number of international and comparative political economists sensitive to the institutional and cultural variability of contemporary capitalism identify tendencies towards convergence—often towards an Anglo-US model of deregulated neoliberal capitalism. In this article I critically review the literature on convergence, difference and divergence in the global political economy, differentiating between neoclassical and institutionalist perspectives. Resisting arguments which posit a natural selection process initiated by untrammelled free market competition and free capital mobility, I identify the contingent, political and frequently coercive nature of the convergence process. This is illustrated through a discussion of regional selection mechanisms in the context of European Monetary Union and the East Asian financial crisis. In so far as evolutionary selection mechanisms can be identified in the European context, selecting for a more residual social model, these are more a product of the contingent process of European economic integration than they are a necessary consequence of globalization. Moreover, in so far as similarly convergent processes can be identified in contemporary East Asia, they are less a product of globalization than of the ‘predatory neoliberalism’ of a beleagured Washington Consensus.

The role of private organizations and think tanks in the United States have been well documented. The Council on Foreign Relations in particular has been much discussed—less so, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. This article seeks to fill that gap by exploring its influence on American public opinion during World War II. Based upon archival research, the essay examines the background of the key members of the Endowment, their outlook and the impact their work had in shaping US attitudes. Using Gramsci's notion of an ‘historic bloc’ wedded to the insights of the ‘corporatist’ school of American foreign relations, the conclusion reached is that the organization—along with other key bodies situated at the interface between the private and public spheres—played a not inconsiderable part in educating Americans for internationalism before the end of the war and the onset of the Cold War two years later.

The economic crises in 1997–9 in Asia, Brazil and elsewhere represent collectively the first post-Cold War ‘crisis of globalization’, and a significant set-back for the process of international economic liberalization. Contrary to some arguments, the crises do not represent the final ideological triumph of liberalism in a post-Cold War era. Rather they must be seen as a further spur to rethinking significant aspects of the neoliberal project. A comparative analysis of Asia and Latin America in this context demonstrates that while trade liberalization and a broad neoliberal economic strategy are unlikely to be abandoned, there is strong evidence that the tide of capital account liberalization has turned, and that emerging ‘sites of resistance’ are becoming salient factors in the political equation in the relationships of both regions to the wider global economy. Asian and Latin American responses to the crisis of globalization refute notions of convergence, on which many recent conceptions of the global political economy have rested, and point to the emergence of a genuine contestation of policy ideas that will have significant implications for the future management of the global economic order.

International relations is now marked by a distinct bias against both realism and materialism. This, allied to the currently fashionable notion that in a globalized, liberal economy cooperation rather than competition is the norm, has meant that few scholars have been concerned to analyse the sources of rivalry between the various capitalist states. This article suggests that a version of realism informed by a keen sense of power and hierarchy remains essential if we are to understand the dynamics of US foreign policy in the post-Cold War period. The case study deployed here revolves around the various attempts made by one of America's allies to contest Washington's vision of a ‘new world order’. The French challenge assumed many forms but in the end was seen off by the dominant state; the outcome only confirming US preponderance and guaranteeing its hegemonic position into the 21st century.

The activity of workers' organizations and labour issues is once again on the international relations agenda in fields ranging from labour standards at the WTO, to the terms of regional integration, to corporate codes of conduct, to civil society coalition building. This article argues that the role of the international union movement is transforming from a supporter of US capitalism to a brake on neoliberal industrial relations, to potentially advocating a different form of political economy in alliance with other groups. This transformation has taken place partially because unions have has been expelled from the corridors of power in key states and partially because of their encounter with a series of social movements. The cases of the ICFTU's activity in engaging international organizations and MNCs are used as examples to illustrate this trend. The implications for activity in, and the theory of, the global political economy are potentially significant.

This article explores the normative international relations theory of Mervyn Frost. Frost's unorthodox approach to questions of human rights offers a way through the political and philosophical morass that has often threatened to obscure the most pressing issues of our time. Significantly, Frost claims to able to ‘construct’ a background justification for international ethics that can unite the demands for sovereign autonomy with declarations of human rights. In doing so Frost attempts to offer an new understanding of universal ethics and thus of the role of human rights in international politics. Acknowledging the importance of this approach, this article examines two issues that arise from Frost's ‘constitutive theory’ and seeks to offer a signpost for the future development of human rights theory.

Since antiquity justice has been thought of as a political or civic virtue, more recently as belonging in a ‘bounded society’,John Rawls relies on the idea of a bounded society throughout his work. References to Rawls's writings cited here may be abbreviated in subsequent footnotes: A Theory of Justice (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1971); ‘Themes in Kant's Moral Philosophy’ (1989), in Collected Papers, Samuel Freeman (ed.), (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999), pp. 497–528; Political Liberalism (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993); The Law of Peoples (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999). or as a primary task of states.This view evidently underlies the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948; the text uses a varied range of seemingly nonequivalent terms, including member states, peoples, nations and countries; a coherent reading of the document requires us to take all of these as referring to states. All such views assume that the context of justice has boundaries, which demarcate those who are to render and to receive justice from one another from others who are to be excluded. Yet the view that justice is intrinsically bounded sits ill with the many claims that it is cosmopolitan, owed to all regardless of location or origin, race or gender, class or citizenship. The tension between moral cosmopolitanism and institutional anti-cosmospolitanism has been widely discussed over the last twenty years, but there is still a lot of disagreement about its prpoer resolution.A selection from this literature might begin by noting Charles Beitz, Political Theory and International Relations (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1979), ‘Cosmopolitan Ideals and National Sentiment’,Journal of Philosophy, 80 (1983), pp. 591–600 and ‘Cosmopolitan Liberalism and the State System’, in Chris Brown (ed.) Political Restructuring in Europe: Ethical Perspectives, (London: Routledge, 1994); Simon Caney, ‘Global Equality of Opportunity and the Sovereignty of States’, in International Justice, ed. Anthony Coates (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2000), and ‘Cosmopolitan Justice and Equalizing Opportunities’, forthcoming in Metaphilosophy; Joseph Carens, ‘Aliens and Citizens: The Case for Open Borders’, Review of Politics , 49 (1987), pp. 251–73; Charles Jones, Global Justice: Defending Cosmopolitanism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999); David Miller, ‘The Nation State: A Modest Defence’, in Political Restructuring in Europe, Chris Brown (ed.), pp. 137–62 and ‘The Limits of Cosmopolitan Justice’ in International Society: Diverse Ethical Perspectives, David R. Mapel and Terry Nardin (eds.) (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press), Thomas Pogge, ‘Cosmopolitanism and Sovereignty’ in Political Restructuring in Europe, Chris Brown (ed.), pp. 89–122 and ‘An Egalitarian Law of Peoples’, Philosophy and Public Affairs, 23 (1994), pp. 195–224; Onora O'Neill, ‘Justice and Boundaries, in Political Restructuring in Europe, Chris Brown (ed.), pp. 69–88 and Bounds of Justice (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), Henry Shue Basic Rights: Subsistence, Affluence and US Foreign Policy, 2nd edn. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1996).

The debate over the East Asian crisis has thus far been led by economists who have focused on technical economic issues and policy goals at the expense of macro historical-structural questions. Foremost amongst the neglected questions is whether and under what conditions ‘Postwar East Asian Capitalism’ (PWEAC) will either continue to flourish or undergo a radical political transformation ‘after the crisis’. This question must be understood in the context of the changing geopolitical framework of the post-Cold War era. PWEAC is under great pressure for reform from both external and internal forces. Whether a ‘new political architecture’ for capitalism in East Asia is emerging is the central issue and one which will determine the future direction of Asia. The demise of authoritarian-oligarchic capitalism in Asia may have been accelerated by the economic crisis. The most enduring result of the Asian crisis is not the presumed derailing of the (re)ascent of Asia in the world economy but rather the weakening of the non-democratic state forms that have characterized East Asia's capitalism for decades. Popular demands for change represent a real challenge to both the domestic authoritarian-oligarchic power structure of PWEAC and its crucial geopolitical underpinning and external orientation.

A people that has existed for centuries under a system of castes and classes can arrive at a democratic state of society only by passing through a long series of more or less critical transformations, accomplished by violent efforts, and after numerous vicissitudes, in the course of which property, opinions, and power are rapidly transferred from one to another...

Alexis de Tocqueville

Democracy in America, Vol. II, 1840

To reason with governments, as they have existed for ages, is to argue with brutes. It is only from the nations themselves that reforms can be expected.

Thomas Paine

The Rights of Man, Preface to the French Edition, 1791

This article examines the debate between liberalism and communitarianism in contemporary political philosophy and considers its significance for international relations. The debate tends to pose a false dichotomy between liberalism and communitarianism, and neither position alone can provide an adequate basis for international relations theory. It is necessary to go beyond the liberal-communitarian divide in order to reconcile the valuable insights that may be rescued from both positions. There is a community which is a moral reality, which includes all individuals and maintains their moral integrity, and which can accommodate all legitimate, smaller communities. This is the community of humanity, which is recognized in traditional theories of natural law and the law of nations. The article concludes by considering whether the universal community of humanity requires and justifies world government.

We, human beings and human societies, are processes of becoming. We are what we have been and what we will be. What we have been, what we call our past, exists nowhere else than as an idea in our minds. What we will be, what we call our future, exists nowhere else than as an idea in our minds. What we call the present is the vanishing-point between the past and the future, a mere idea within our minds of the relationship between what we have been and what we will be. In the continuous present of our idea of our becoming, we present the past and the future to ourselves as a contrast between an actuality and a potentiality.

United States–Caribbean relations over the period of the last thirty or forty years have rarely—if ever—been analysed in a thoroughly satisfying way. It is a strange omission in the international relations literature given the proximity of the United States to the Caribbean, and vice versa. But the fact is that most accounts of the relationship have fallen prey to a powerful, but ultimately misleading, mythology by which small, poor, weak, dependent entities in the Caribbean have either created trouble for, or alternatively been confronted by, the ‘colossus to the north’ that is the United States in whose ‘backyard’ they unfortunately have to reside. Virtually all analysts of the US–Caribbean relationship have thus drawn a picture marked at heart by the notion of an inherently unequal struggle between forces of a different order and scale. Within this broad metaphor the only major difference of interpretation has reflected the competing theories of power in the international system developed by the realist and structuralist schools.

The Asian Pacific region is highly unstable, but not for the reasons usually assumed. Contrary to the assertions of Realists, who argue multipolarity makes Asia ‘ripe for rivalry’, overwhelming US strategic preponderance should make the balance of power quite stable. Likewise, while much is made by more liberal International Relations theorists of the relative absence of strong international institutions and democracy in Asia, recent trends seem to point in a more positive direction. The real source of instability lies in the beliefs and values held by regional actors. Contested sovereignty on the Korean peninsula and in the Taiwan straits makes military conflict seem a real possibility. Latent isolationism in the US and Japan may lead to a mishandling of a crisis were one to emerge. This Constructivist line of analysis suggests that more attention should be paid to these intangible potential sources of conflict and miscalculation.

This article examines the changing status of ‘sovereignty’ in the context of some of the world's poorest countries. An examination of the relationship between the International Financial Institutions (IFIs) and these countries suggests that the norm of sovereignty is increasingly being ‘trumped’ by the IFIs' commitment to the achievement of good political and social arrangements and economic development within these countries. The article explores the historical roots of this development by tracing the way sovereignty became bound up with the idea of self-determination, the achievement of the ideals of the Enlightenment, and the pursuit of a ‘national economic project’.