Review: International Relations in a Changing Global System
| Author | Mark Neufeld |
| Published date | 01 December 1993 |
| Date | 01 December 1993 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/002070209304800409 |
| Subject Matter | Review |
REVIEWS
779
global
level,
however,
rather different
forces
are
at
work.
Here
Taylor
sees
little
functional
linkage
between
issue-areas,
scant fear
of
margin-
alization,
and
precedence
for
national
over
collective
interests,
with
the
former
not
directly
served
by
international
bodies.
In
a
key
passage,
he
notes
the
deficiencies
of
the
global
system
compared
with
the leading
regional
system
(the Community).
It
is
not
'that
states
have
compro-
mised
their
sovereignty
at
the
regional
level'
and
have
refused
to
do
so
globally
but
that
in
the
former
case
'utilitarian
and
political
pressures
have
combined
with
an evolving
sense
of
common purpose
to
persuade
states to
find
ways
of protecting their
sovereignty
in
complex
manage-
ment
institutions'
(p
117).
At
the
global
level
there
is
no
automatic
transfer
of
resources
and
action
is
a
product
of
ad
hoc
coalitions
as
in
the Gulf
War.
Taylor
considers increased
regionalism
to
be
more
likely
than
increased
globalism.
Time
will
reveal
the
accuracy
of
this
predic-
tion.
Go-it-alone
policies
are
obviously
irrelevant
in
many
functional
areas,
but
regional groups
outside Europe
have
not
yet
developed
significantly.
Detailed
chapters
in this
book
provide
excellent
accounts
of
the
process
of
European
integration
in
the
i
98os
and
of
the reform
process
in
the United
Nations
in
the
same
period.
The
study
is
exceptionally
well
documented
and
reflective
of
major
trends
in
the literature
to
which
it
is
a
substantial
addition.
Margaret
Doxey/Trent
University
INTERNATIONAL
RELATIONS IN
A
CHANGING
GLOBAL
SYSTEM
Toward
a
theory
of
the
world
polity
Seyom
Brown
Boulder
co:
Westview,
1992,
x,
19opp,
US$
44
.oo
cloth,
US$16.
95
paper
For
some
the
momentous
changes
in
the
global
order
in
the
past
few
years
signal
an
opening
to
equally
radical
change
in
theories about
world
politics.
Enter
Seyom
Brown's volume
which offers
a
state-of-the-
art
rendition
of
the
neo-idealist
alternative
to
standard
realist-inspired
analysis.
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