Brexit in History: Sovereignty or a European Union?

Description

German troops fighting the Taliban in the Hindu Kush; EU judges sitting in courts in the Balkans; UN viceroys governing parts of Oceania; American occupation of the Middle East. Amid the myriad political experiences of the post-Cold War era, the historians of the future are likely to pay particular attention to attempts by outsiders to administer a host of post-conflict societies, to perform physical and social reconstruction, to establish functioning institutions, to open economies and, ultimately, to transform the 'maladjusted' political cultures of Africa, Asia and the Middle East. Few developments in the two decades after 1989 were as revealing of the character of the international system, of the gaps between liberal discourse and practice, and of the fleeting nature of the Western hegemonic moment. What made the new protectorates possible? What were they like as an actual political experience? How contradictory was its reception? Why was the process of governing others for their own good so flawed and the outcomes so disappointing? These are among the questions addressed by some of the leading authorities in the field, including Stefan Halper, Christopher Clapham, Mats Berdal and Richard Caplan. The book is divided into two parts. The first examines the historical background from which the new protectorates (Bosnia, Kosovo, East Timor, Iraq and Afghanistan) emerged and the dissonant reactions to their creation; the second analyses the experience of governance in the protectorates along several dimensions, ranging from United Nations involvement through problems of policing, civil-military relations, coordination between international forces and the local state to the sometimes perverse consequences of economic policy. Cover Half-title Title Copyright Dedication Contents Acknowledgements 1. Introduction: the Dialectic of Empire, Sovereignty, and Co-operative Syntheses State Systems: Neglected Dimension of International Relations Theory 2. Inter-‘national’ Relations? Problems of Terminology and Basic Assumptions The Evolution of Words and Ideas Prescriptions for Inter-Polity Relations Geography, Geopolitics and Geostrategy Demography and Identities 3. Ideas Inherited from Antiquity One People, One God: the Israelites Fighting for Liberty, and Rival Autarkic Polities: Ancient Greece Alexander’s Empire: Liberator or Tyrant? Rome: Imperium becomes Empire and Pax Roman 4. The Middle Ages: the Christian Universe The Restoration of the Roman Empire and Peace through Universal Empire Three Forms of War vs Pax Dei and Landfrieden The Outsiders’ Bid for Independence: Sovereignty and Competition Arbitration and Mediation Dynastic Ambitions and Proto-Nationalism How Europe Came to Rule the World The Medieval System 5. Early Modern History: The Break-Down of the Universal Republic of Christendom The Reformation Imperium and Global Competition The Holy Roman Empire vs Bodin’s Sovereign State Liberties vs Universality The Turkish Threat Raison d’état, Dynastic Competition and Balance-of-Power Wars 6. The Quest for a Peace System or a European Union, 1305–1796 Pierre Dubois and King George Podiebrad Crucé, Sully, and Penn Nijmegen 1678 to Utrecht 1713: Balance of Power and Common Good over Dynastic Interest The Abbé de Saint-Pierre and Jeremy Bentham Guibert, the French Revolution, and Kant Napoleon’s Succession to the (Holy Roman) Empire Gentz’s Critique of the Confederative Proposals 7. From Great-Power Oligarchy to Nationalist Competition, 1813–1918 The Congress System: Concert of Great Powers Bluntschli vs Moltke Colonial Empires for all and the Growth of Nationalism 8. Recreating a Universal Order I: the League of Nations A European Alternative? The 1929 Financial Crisis, the Return of National Interests, and the Drift to War 9. Recreating a Universal Order II: the United Nations in the Cold War Western Defence Co-operation: WU, WEU and NATO 10. European Integration: between Confederation and Federation Defence Integration or a Europe of the Fatherlands? 11. From the Renewed UN Concert to the New Cold War The ‘New World Order’ or the hope that the Pentarchy will Finally Work Cold War II and the Return to Sovereigntism 12. Conclusions Notes Index