The Hierarchy Of States

The hierarchy of states presents Ian Clark's Reform and resistance in the international order, a well-established text on international relations first published in 1980, in a completely revised form. Combining a detailed examination of theory with a full account of historical developments, Dr Clark analyses the nature of international order - the hierarchical state system - and its potential for reform. The theory of international order is explored tracing two traditions of thought epitomised in the writings of Kant and Rousseau, whilst in a historical survey Dr Clark covers the main attempts to implement international order since 1815 and includes such aspects as concert diplomacy, alliance systems, international organisations as well as such informal understandings as nuclear deterrence, crisis management and spheres of influence. This revised edition contains two new chapters - one on international/world order issues and the other on 'macro' changes between 1815 and 1990. Dr Clark has updated his discussion on the course of superpower relations and most of the material on the post-1945 period is introduced in this edition for the first time.

International relations are generally understood as a realm of anarchy in which countries lack any superior authority and interact within a Hobbesian state of nature. In Hierarchy in International Relations, David A. Lake challenges this traditional view, demonstrating that states exercise authority over one another in international hierarchies that vary historically but are still pervasive today. Revisiting the concepts of authority and sovereignty, Lake offers a novel view of international relations in which states form social contracts that bind both dominant and subordinate members. The resulting hierarchies have significant effects on the foreign policies of states as well as patterns of international conflict and cooperation. Focusing largely on U.S.-led hierarchies in the contemporary world, Lake provides a compelling account of the origins, functions, and limits of political order in the modern international system. The book is a model of clarity in theory, research design, and the use of evidence. Motivated by concerns about the declining international legitimacy of the United States following the Iraq War, Hierarchy in International Relations offers a powerful analytic perspective that has important implications for understanding America's position in the world in the years ahead.

International relations are generally understood as a realm of anarchy in which countries lack any superior authority and interact within a Hobbesian state of nature. In Hierarchy in International Relations, David A. Lake challenges this traditional view, demonstrating that states exercise authority over one another in international hierarchies that vary historically but are still pervasive today. Revisiting the concepts of authority and sovereignty, Lake offers a novel view of international relations in which states form social contracts that bind both dominant and subordinate members. The resulting hierarchies have significant effects on the foreign policies of states as well as patterns of international conflict and cooperation. Focusing largely on U.S.-led hierarchies in the contemporary world, Lake provides a compelling account of the origins, functions, and limits of political order in the modern international system. The book is a model of clarity in theory, research design, and the use of evidence. Motivated by concerns about the declining international legitimacy of the United States following the Iraq War, Hierarchy in International Relations offers a powerful analytic perspective that has important implications for understanding America's position in the world in the years ahead.

The traditional Eurocentric view of state formation and the rise of civilization is challenged in this broad-ranging book. Bringing archaeological research into contact with the work of ethno-historians and anthropologists, it generates a discussion of fundamental concepts rather than a search for modern analogies for processes that occurred in the past.

Hierarchy amidst Anarchy is a study of state security provisions, explaining not only why states cooperate, and with whom, but also why they choose the specific types of cooperation they do. In contrast to competing theories that explain international cooperation in terms of the desire to be "bigger" or "stronger", Weber insists that the key to understanding countries' international institutional choices can be found by focusing on economic theories of organization and, more specifically, transaction costs. Cross-sectional studies of two historical periods, the final years of the Napoleonic Wars (1812-15) and the post-1945 period – such contrasting security structures as NATO and the European Defense Community - are used to illustrate the argument.

Hierarchical relationships—rules that structure both international and domestic politics—are pervasive. Yet we know little about how these relationships are constructed, maintained, and dismantled. This book fills this lacuna through a two-pronged research approach: first, it discusses how great power negotiations over international political settlements both respond to domestic politics within weak states and structure the specific forms that hierarchy takes. Second, it deduces three sets of hypotheses about hierarchy maintenance, construction, and collapse during the post-war era. By offering a coherent theoretical model of hierarchical politics within weaker states, the author is able to answer a number of important questions, including: Why does the United States often ally with autocratic states even though its most enduring relationships are with democracies? Why do autocratic hierarchical relationships require interstate coercion? Why do some hierarchies end violently and others peacefully? Why does hierarchical competition sometimes lead to interstate conflict and sometimes to civil conflict?

Political science has had trouble generating models that unify the study of the formation and consolidation of various types of states and empires. The business-administration literature, however, has long experience in observing organizations. According to a dominant model in this field, business firms generally take one of two forms: unitary (U) or multidivisional (M). The U-form organizes its various elements along the lines of administrative functions, whereas the M-form governs its periphery according to geography and territory. In Logics of Hierarchy, Alexander Cooley applies this model to political hierarchies across different cultures, geographical settings, and historical eras to explain a variety of seemingly disparate processes: state formation, imperial governance, and territorial occupation. Cooley illustrates the power of this formal distinction with detailed accounts of the experiences of Central Asian republics in the Soviet and post-Soviet eras, and compares them to developments in the former Yugoslavia, the governance of modern European empires, Korea during and after Japanese occupation, and the recent U.S. occupation of Iraq. In applying this model, Logics of Hierarchy reveals the varying organizational ability of powerful states to promote institutional transformation in their political peripheries and the consequences of these formations in determining pathways of postimperial extrication and state-building. Its focus on the common organizational problems of hierarchical polities challenges much of the received wisdom about imperialism and postimperialism.

A trenchant defense of hierarchy in different spheres of our lives, from the personal to the political All complex and large-scale societies are organized along certain hierarchies, but the concept of hierarchy has become almost taboo in the modern world. Just Hierarchy contends that this stigma is a mistake. In fact, as Daniel Bell and Wang Pei show, it is neither possible nor advisable to do away with social hierarchies. Drawing their arguments from Chinese thought and culture as well as other philosophies and traditions, Bell and Wang ask which forms of hierarchy are justified and how these can serve morally desirable goals. They look at ways of promoting just forms of hierarchy while minimizing the influence of unjust ones, such as those based on race, sex, or caste. Which hierarchical relations are morally justified and why? Bell and Wang argue that it depends on the nature of the social relation and context. Different hierarchical principles ought to govern different kinds of social relations: what justifies hierarchy among intimates is different from what justifies hierarchy among citizens, countries, humans and animals, and humans and intelligent machines. Morally justified hierarchies can and should govern different spheres of our social lives, though these will be very different from the unjust hierarchies that have governed us in the past. A vigorous, systematic defense of hierarchy in the modern world, Just Hierarchy examines how hierarchical social relations can have a useful purpose, not only in personal domains but also in larger political realms.