This book seeks to explain why different systems of sovereign
states have built different types of fundamental institutions to
govern interstate relations. Why, for example, did the ancient
Greeks operate a successful system of third-party arbitration,
while international society today rests on a combination of
international law and multilateral diplomacy? Why did the
city-states of Renaissance Italy develop a system of oratorical
diplomacy, while the states of absolutist Europe relied on
naturalist international law and "old diplomacy"? Conventional
explanations of basic institutional practices have difficulty
accounting for such variation. Christian Reus-Smit addresses this
problem by presenting an alternative, "constructivist" theory of
international institutional development, one that emphasizes the
relationship between the social identity of the state and the
nature and origin of basic institutional practices.
Reus-Smit argues that international societies are shaped by deep
constitutional structures that are based on prevailing beliefs
about the moral purpose of the state, the organizing principle of
sovereignty, and the norm of procedural justice. These structures
inform the imaginations of institutional architects as they develop
and adjust institutional arrangements between states. As he shows
with detailed reference to ancient Greece, Renaissance Italy,
absolutist Europe, and the modern world, different cultural and
historical contexts lead to profoundly different constitutional
structures and institutional practices. The first major study of
its kind, this book is a significant addition to our theoretical
and empirical understanding of international relations, past and
present.
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