Governing the Global Polity : Practice, Mentality, Rationality

Neumann, Iver B.; Sending, Ole Jacob

ISBN 10: 0472050931 / ISBN 13: 9780472050932

Editore: University of Michigan Press, 2010

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Dati bibliografici

• Titolo: Governing the Global Polity : Practice, Mentality, Rationality
• Editore: University of Michigan Press
• Data di pubblicazione: 2010
• Lingua: Inglese
• ISBN 10: 0472050931
• ISBN 13: 9780472050932
• Rilegatura: Brossura
• Condizione: As New

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Riassunto

"There have been many attempts to adapt Foucault's arguments to the study of international relations, but this powerful and provocative book is the most sustained, and arguably the most successful in showing how the governmentality approach can be adapted to the analysis of global politics."
---Barry Hindess, Research School of Social Sciences, The Australian National University



A highly welcome and original contribution to contemporary debates on the shape and future of the international system and on the possibility of reconfiguring IR theory as social theory."
---Mathias Albert, Bielefeld University, Germany



"Iver Neumann and Ole Jacob Sending have put meat on the bones of Michel Foucault's notion of governmentality, fulfilling the hopes of long-famished students and scholars of global governance. Through their focus on specific case studies, the authors have provided a much-needed contribution to the international relations literature, one that is sure to become a staple of courses and seminars throughout the world."
---Ronnie D. Lipschutz, University of California, Santa Cruz

What does globalization mean for the principle of state sovereignty and for the power and functioning of states? Whereas realists assert the continued importance of states, constructivists contend that various political entities as well as the logic of globalization itself undermine state sovereignty.



Drawing on the state formation literature and on social theory, particularly the works of Weber and Foucault, Iver B. Neumann and Ole Jacob Sending question the terms of the realist-constructionist debate. Through detailed case studies, they demonstrate that states use nongovernmental organizations and international organizations indirectly to enforce social order and, ultimately, to increase their own power. At the same time, global politics is dominated by a liberal political rationality that states ignore at their peril. While states remain as strong as ever, they operate within a global polity of new hierarchies among states and between states and other actors.



Iver B. Neumann is Director of Research at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs and Professor of Russian Studies at the University of Oslo.



Ole Jacob Sending is Senior Researcher at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs, where he heads the Research Programme on Global Governance and International Organizations.



Cover art credit: © iStockphoto.com/Will Evans



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Product Description

A key debate within International Relations (IR) centers on the character of globalization and what globalization means for the principle of state sovereignty and for the power and functioning of states. Among theorists, realists who argue in favour of the continued importance of states confront constructivists who contend that a number of political entities challenge states while the logic of globalization itself undermines their sovereignty. Drawing on the literatures on state formation and social theory, particularly the works of Weber and Foucault, Iver B. Neumann and Ole Jacob Sending question the terms of the realist-constructivist debate. Through a series of detailed case studies, they demonstrate that the growing importance of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and international organizations (IOs) tends to increase the power of states, because states are able to draw on them indirectly in the effort to uphold social order. Neumann and Sending conclude that the power of states not only depends on the predominance of the states-based system in global politics, but ultimately rests on the individual states' social power. Furthermore, the key to globalization is the neo-liberal rationality of government--a rationality that is creating a global polity where new hierarchies among states as well as between states and other actors have emerged.