Book Review: International Relations
| Date | 01 May 2007 |
| Published date | 01 May 2007 |
| DOI | 10.1111/j.1478-9299.2007.00132_6.x |
| Subject Matter | Book Review |
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International Relations
Global Civil Society: Contested Futures by
Gideon Baker and David Chandler (eds).
Abingdon: Routledge, 2005. 205pp., £70.00,
ISBN 0 415 35480 3
This edited collection is the best book yet on
global civil society and is set to become the‘must-
read’ text for several years to come.It has obvious
strengths: it contains chapters by some of the
leading commentators in the field (Kaldor,Keane,
Falk, Lipschutz);it is not afraid of asking some big
questions (’to what extent does global civil society
exist?’, ‘why did it rise in popularity during the
1990s?’, ‘how does it change the way we study
international relations?’); and it aims to interro-
gate the very notion of global civil society (why
do we need it?; what can it tell us about the
changing world order?).As the editor s point out
in their excellent introduction, too much litera-
ture on global civil society is uncritical and far too
optimistic in its celebration of the arrival of tran-
snational citizen action: it is important to investi-
gate the extent to which institutions of global
governance have been democratised, human
rights norms have spread around the world and
global citizens exist. In short, the growth in the
numbers of transnational NGOs does not, by
itself, herald the arrival of a new post-national
world order. Highlights of the book include a
chapter by Colas which emphasises the need to
study the historical reality of global civil society
(rather than as a project yet to be fully realised),
Chandler’s analysis of the relation between global
civil society, the study of world politics and the
challenge to IR posed by constructivist thinking,
and Heins’ consideration of the influence of the
idea of global civil society on political activism.
The editors’ introduction makes the point that
discussion of the scope and meaning of global
civil society has been hampered by a lack of
dialogue between hopeful and critical voices.This
is indeed the case and the volume certainly makes
every effort to prevent different perspectives
‘talking past each other’. However,it is not nec-
essarily the case that the root cause of this is a
difference of opinion on the extent to which the
nation state has been superseded. This rather
ignores the fact that many accounts of global
politics see global civil society existing alongside a
world of nation states.In sum, this is a fine edited
collection which not only brings together eleven
valuable contributions but shapes the agenda for
future debate by asking all the right questions and
in doing so provokes some interesting answers.
Chris Rumford
(Royal Holloway College)
The Destruction of Memory: Architecture
and Cultural Warfare by Robert Bevan.
London: Reaktion Books, 2006. 240pp.,£19.95,
ISBN 978 1 861 89205 8, £14.95, ISBN 978 1
86189319 2
Architects Without Frontiers: War,
Reconstruction and Design Responsibility
by Esther Charlesworth. Oxford: Elsevier/
Architectural Press, 2006.175pp.,£29.99, ISBN 0
7506 6840 7
‘There has always been another waragainst archi-
tecture going on – the destruction of the cultural
artefacts of an enemy people or nation as a means
of dominating, terrorizing,dividing or eradicating
it altogether’ (Bevan, p. 8, as cited in Charles-
worth,p. 25).These words succinctly express what
these two books are about. Bevan – a distin-
guished architectural critic – focuses on the
history and variations of the war–architecture
relationship, while Charlesworth – a practicing
architect and urban planning teacher – focuses on
the responsibilities of the architect in the recon-
struction of cities affected by wars.Together,they
constitute an excellent introduction to aspects of
war,human rights and post-conflict situations that
deserve more attention in the literature of politics.
290 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
© 2007The Authors. Journal compilation © 2007 Political StudiesAssociation
Political Studies Review: 2007, 5(2)
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