Book Review: Albert J. Paolini (edited by Anthony Elliott and Anthony Moran), Navigating Modernity: Postcolonilaism, Identity, and International Relations (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1999, 227 pp, no price given hbk.)
| Published date | 01 December 2000 |
| Author | S. Sayyid |
| DOI | 10.1177/03058298000290030924 |
| Date | 01 December 2000 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Millennium
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of states to place their forces under UN command under the current sy stem it is not
at all clear how an Article 43 agreeme nt would help matte rs, other than actua lly
delaying action a nd providing mo re scope for obfuscat ion. Much better was
Jonathan Steele’s reco mmendation that the Secu rity Council be used to autho rise
ad hoc coali tions of the willing.
The seco nd problem is that Lorenz negates the issue of o perational complexi ty,
something overlooked by the Brahimi report as wel l. John Ma ckinlay has po inted
out that o perations such as the B ritish interve ntion in Sierra Leone in volve vast
logistical and intelligen ce support, somethin g not accounte d for by eit her Brahimi
or Loren z. Whilst Lorenz p resents a cogent argument, the issue of ca pabilities and
support is vit al, especially given that the o perations such a force would conduct are
‘intellig ence heavy’.
Although the UN is certainly more t han the sum o f its parts, what bo th these
books demonstrate is that it re mains ‘what sta tes make of i t’. Mingst and Karns
offer a very good introduct ion to the organisation bu t do no t address t he issue o f
the UN in the po st-Cold War world: we are left harbouring regrets for the passing
of the 1960s and 1970s when the UN was a forum for debate and innovation
through mo vements such a s the non-ali gned movement and ideas such a s the new
internatio nal eco nomic order. Lorenz proposes a revolut ionary response to the
problems highlighted by Brahimi and others, but he gradually backs away from the
brink of ch allenging state sovereign ty. What he d oes, however, is lay the
groundwork for fu ture thought on what sort of organi sation we want the UN to be.
ALEX J. BELLAM Y
Alex J. Bellamy is Lec turer in King’s College Londo n’s Defence Studi es
Department at th e Joint Services Command and Sta ff College
Albert J. Paolini (edited by Anthony Elliott a nd Anthony Moran), Navigating
Modernity: Postcolonilaism, Identity, and International Relations (Bo ulder, CO:
Lynne Rienne r, 1999, 227 pp, no pri ce given hbk.).
This bo ok has two main obje ctives: first, i t seeks t o locat e Africa with in
International Relations and secondly, it seeks to examine the relationship between
globalisation and postcolonialism. What connects these two objectives is the
relationship between modernity and identity. Consequently, the book develops a
series o f reflections on links between the Third Wo rld and Intern ational Relations.
Albert J. Paolin i’s work is based on de ploying poststructuralist insight s to the
understand ing of int ernational relations, and he does this with great verve and
passion. M aking use of writers as di verse as Anthony Giddens, Homi Bhabba, and
Gayatri Spivak, Paolini outlines the way i n which ide ntity and differe nce intersect
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