Book Review: Stephen C. Calleya (ed.), Regionalism in the Post-Cold War World (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2000, 276 pp., £39.95 hbk.)
| Author | Maria T. Camilleri |
| Published date | 01 December 2000 |
| DOI | 10.1177/03058298000290030907 |
| Date | 01 December 2000 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Book Reviews
937
articulatio n of suspicion towards politi cs. Her praise o f the flexibili ty and
efficiency of formal and info rmal gover nmental netwo rks betray s a view of th e
traditional political realm that identifies it as mostly obsolete and dysfunctional.
Particularly problematic is her dismissa l of (hard) p ower in the context of these
networks. Her ce lebration of the ‘exc hange of id eas over the imposition o f
ideolog y’ might very well underest imate the extent to whic h knowledge is a
medium of power (p. 205 ). And inas much t hese n etwork-related exchanges of
knowledge take place out side the traditional institut ions that provide accountab ility
and revi ew, government net works might in fact establish relations of po wer und er
the guise of non-politi cal administrativ e co-operation. Finally, the s uspicion
towards politics can also be d etected in the systems theory appro ach that info rms
Vera Go wlland-Debbas’ essay . Distinguishin g the legal from the polit ical system,
the latter be comes part of the soc ial environment for the for mer. Political influence
on law i s then rendered as ‘noise’, or ‘disturb ance’ which the legal s ystem absorbs
and turns into coherent o rder accordin g to its own syst emic logic. In all of these
examples, politics is assigned an inferi or and yet potentially contaminatin g role
against which law must defend itself (pp. 280, 311).
There are so me notab le exceptio ns to this atti tude of suspicion, most p rominently
Friedrich Kratochwil’s essay o n the way norms matter in social re ality, and
Vaughan Lowe’s chapter on the poli tics of law-making. Both authors base t heir
argument on the inherent i ndeterminacy of law an d demonstra te convincin gly the
relevance of poli tics and culture as the ele ments which enable l aw to produce its
own cl osures and d ecisions. Overall, The Role of Law is clearly d ominated by the
perspective of the i nternational lawyer. As such it leaves the fie ld open for
Internation al Relations special ists to investig ate the role o f politics in international
law. After all, law i s too import ant to be left solely to the lawyers.
ANDREAS BEHNK E
Andreas Behnk e is University Adjunct in the Departmen t of
Political Science at Stockholm University
Stephen C. Call eya (ed.), Regi onalism in the Po st-Cold War World (Aldershot:
Ashgate, 2000, 276 pp., £39.95 hbk.).
This collect ion of essays by va rious well-known internatio nal authors paints a vali d
and far-reac hing picture o f the reality of regionalism, the phenomena of
globalisat ion, the risks of internati onal security, and a wide overview of pre sent
hegemonic trends in both the political and ec onomic realm. This book has
successfully joined together a combination of essays and authors, as it
To continue reading
Request your trial