Advances and impasses in Fred Halliday's international historical sociology: a critical appraisal

How did Fred Halliday recast International Relations (IR) theory as international historical sociology? This article explores Halliday's intellectual trajectory across this terrain and suggests that the notion of ‘capitalist modernity’, derived from an amalgamation of neo‐Marxian and neo‐Weberian historical sociology, functioned as the strategic master‐category, which anchored his thought on International Relations throughout his work. This category was successively reconceived and complemented to generate four, partly contradictory, analytical frameworks at a lower level of abstraction: ‘global conjunctural analysis’; a neo‐Weberian ‘sociology of the inter‐state system’; ‘international society as homogeneity’ and ‘uneven and combined development’. The article identifies the advances and impasses in each intellectual move and exemplifies the limits of Halliday's approach in relation to his analysis of revolutions. It suggests that while Halliday was instrumental in reconnecting IR with historical sociology, providing crucial openings and correctives to mainstream IR theory, his theoretical emphases remained ultimately too syncretistic and additive to shift the debate on firmer ground. While this can be read as a failure, there is also evidence to understand this anti‐formalism as a deliberate intellectual choice. The article concludes by suggesting that the very term international historical sociology, predicated on a distinct modernist vocabulary, may itself preclude a full historicization of categories of analysis, restricting its use as a general framework for capturing the historicity and sociality of geopolitical practices across time and space.     

Taking sides: cosmopolitanism,internationalism and ‘complex solidarity’ in the work of Fred Halliday

Fred Halliday's life and work were intimately associated with the theory and practice of internationalism. In his later writings, the notion of ‘complex solidarity’ emerges as a key component of Halliday's worldview. This article explores the conceptual interconnections between different historical expressions of internationalism, cosmopolitanism and solidarity. It considers the intricate relationship between these categories and their place in our understanding of international affairs, emphasizing the divergence between liberal and revolutionary conceptions of internationalism and cosmopolitanism. The article discusses diverse understandings of ‘solidarity’ in International Relations, arguing that beyond the cosmopolitan and communitarian approaches, there exist other ‘Grotian’ and ‘republican’ ideas of solidarity. Halliday drew on these to present his own defence of universal human rights and solidarity, arguably developing a distinctive brand of republican internationalism. The latter part of the article gives content to ‘complex solidarity’ by suggesting it is built on three inter‐related components: a methodological internationalism, an egalitarian reciprocity and a critique of global capitalism. Overall, these guiding features of complex solidarity deliver a unique rendition of internationalism which reflect Halliday's eclectic combination of radical liberalism with a residual historical materialism.     

Fred Halliday: high modernism and a social science of the Middle East

This article examines Fred Halliday's research and writing on the politics of the Middle East. It classifies Halliday as a ‘high modernist’, who organized his work around a constant commitment to a universal rationality, historical progress and an opposition to relativism and a particularist reading of the Middle East. The article identifies the two dominant units of analysis that shaped Halliday's work on the region throughout his life. These were the transformative capacity of capitalism and the role of a comparatively autonomous state. The article then examines how the content of each unit was transformed as Halliday moved from an overt Marxism to a more diffuse liberalism. It then goes on to argue that Halliday's ideological affinities and his deployment of these units marginalized the role and importance of ideology, specifically both nationalism and Islamism. Finally, it traces the influence of this approach and the deployment of these units in Halliday's work on Iran, Iraq and the Arab–Israeli conflict.     

Passionately internationalist: Fred Halliday and nationalism studies

The aim of this academic obituary is to briefly consider Fred Halliday's (1946‐2010) contribution to nationalism studies. The article will first discuss Halliday's understanding of nationalism, which he defines as a set of ideas that asserts that the world is divided into distinct peoples with a particular history and various entitlements, and his position in the theoretical debate on nationalism. It will then focus on Halliday's combat with the ethical doctrine of nationalism, more specifically the tension between the moral claims of the latter and what he loosely terms Enlightenment principles. The article will conclude by a brief discussion of Halliday's political commitments and his internationalism.     

The missing revolution: The totalitarian democracy in light of 1776

During much of his prolific career, the late historian Jacob Talmon was preoccupied with revolutionary movements, and was especially unsettled by, and attracted to, the force displayed by the French and Russian Revolutions. The young United States’ long and bloody war against the British Empire, followed by the creation of a republican novus ordo seclorum, supposedly fitted Talmon's revolutionary model and narrative. Hence, it is hard to account for the complete absence of the American Revolution from Talmon's extensive and celebrated trilogy.

This paper examines how Talmon understood revolutions and how the major historiographical schools interpreting the American Revolution could not accommodate, for different reasons, Talmon's paradigm of the nature and essence of revolutions. The paper further demonstrates how not only the failings of different historical interpretive schemes convinced Talmon to ignore the American Revolution. Rather, since the American Revolution could be conceived either as Lockean or Machiavellian, but in any event not as Rousseauian, Talmon overlooked its Atlantic nature; he chose to focus solely on messianic Europe. The paper will thus analyze the meaning and consequence of the fact that Talmon left the examination of the pursuit of happiness to Americanists, and chose to leave 1776 out of his corpus. Indeed, a missing revolution.     

Social conflict and the global Cold War

This article offers a critical assessment of Fred Halliday's theorization of the Cold War and, in particular, his attempt to offer a more global perspective on it through a greater focus on the role of developments emanating from the Third World as constitutive of the Cold War. The author argues that although Halliday's theorization of the Cold War as ‘inter‐systemic conflict’ is a major advance in our understanding of the Cold War—through the attention it pays to the causal linkages between capitalist development and imperialism, revolutionary transformations and superpower geopolitical confrontations—it fails, ultimately, to fulfil its potential as a theory of global Cold War. Halliday's temporalization of the Cold War and his insistence on the autonomy of the superpower arms race and strategic competition end up detaching developments in the Third World from the axis of superpower conflict and, consequently, suggests a residual Eurocentrism within his theory. The article begins by contextualizing the wider theorization of the Cold War and the (absence) place of the Third World in it. It then proceeds to assess critically Halliday's conceptualization of the Third World in the Cold War. The final section outlines an alternative theoretical framework for a theory of global Cold War that builds on elements of inter‐systemic conflict focused on how geopolitical confrontations involving the superpowers derived from the revolutionary consequences of uneven capitalist development.     

Fred Halliday,Marxism and the Cold War

Though possibly best known today as a specialist on the Middle East and Islam, it is often forgotten how central the Cold War was in defining Fred Halliday's understanding of world politics before 1989 and indeed even after. Building on the earlier work of Isaac Deutscher and E. H. Carr, Halliday developed a distinct theory of the Cold War which afforded him great insights but ultimately failed in explaining the complexities of the East–West relationship, and why it came to an abrupt conclusion in the late 1980s.     

An Army of Educators: Gender,Revolution and the Cuban Literacy Campaign of 1961

The conventional scholarly narrative of gender in post‐revolutionary Cuba is that the revolutionary government prevented the emergence of an expressly feminist movement by addressing women's basic needs and simultaneously eliminating autonomous space for female organising. Recent scholarship has increasingly considered women's participation in revolutions in order to understand women's roles in post‐revolutionary societies. Looking beyond armed insurrection for instances of female participation in revolution, this article considers women's roles in the Cuban Literacy Campaign. An analysis of the testimonies of female former volunteer teachers and of the official rhetoric and content of the campaign suggests that the broader narrative of cooption, while certainly accurate overall, threatens to obscure instances in which women did challenge traditional gender norms in meaningful ways. This paper argues that the Cuban Literacy Campaign and the participation of women in that campaign significantly impacted Cuban patriarchal culture at a crucial moment of consolidation for the revolutionary regime. In other words, though the male‐led revolution did not give women the space to organise against patriarchy, by actively participating in the revolution, women did help change the nature of Cuban patriarchy.     

Was the Revolution Tweeted? Social Media and the Jasmine Revolution in Tunisia

Tunisia's Internet freedom prior to the “Jasmine Revolution” that overthrew longtime authoritarian leader Zine el‐Abidine Ben Ali has been described as roughly on par with that of China. Despite that, Tunisia's revolution has been described as one of the first “Twitter” or Internet revolutions, in which Internet technologies are said to have played a significant role This article illuminates how Internet technologies were (and weren't) used in challenging the Ben Ali regime. Based on interviews with Tunisian activists in early 2013, the research sheds light on Internet activities bridging street activism and Internet dissent. Whether through Internet or traditional face‐to‐face means, building the capacity to mobilize street protests long before mass mobilization was crucial to Tunisia's successful revolution.     

Locke on representation in politics

This article contextualises Hegel's writings on international order, especially those concerning war and imperialism. The recurring theme is the tragic nature of the struggles for recognition which are instantiated by these phenomena. Section one examines Hegel's analysis of the Holy Roman Empire in the context of French incursions into German territories, as that analysis was developed in his early essay on ‘The German Constitution’ (1798–1802). The significance of his distinction between the political and civil spheres is explored, with particular attention being paid to its implications for Hegel's theory of nationalism. The second section examines Hegel's development of the latter theory in The Phenomenology of Spirit (1807), stressing the tragic interpenetration of ‘culture’ and intersubjective recognition. A recurring theme here is the influence of this theory on Hegel's interpretation of Napoleon's World-Historic mission, as that was revealed in his contemporaneous letters. Section three traces the tragic dynamic underlying the discussion of war between civilised states in The Philosophy of Right (1821). Section four examines three other types of imperial action in Hegel's mature writings, particularly The Philosophy of History (1832). These are relations between civilised states and culturally developed yet politically immature societies; colonial expansion motivated by capitalist under-consumption; and conflict between civilised states and barbarous peoples. It is concluded that it is misleading to claim that Hegel glorified conflict and war, and that he did not see domination by ‘civilised states’ as the ‘final stage’ of World History.     

Iranian Exceptionalism and Twelver Shi‘ism

Homa Katouzian's exceptionally perceptive, influential, and wide-ranging scholarship has been marked by three mutually reinforcing characteristics: a profound and detailed mastery of Iran's multi-civilizational heritage; a comparatively informed focus on the country's distinct historical trajectory; and an existentially grounded pluralist perspective in examining and evaluating the country's major political turning points and actors. These features are already fully displayed in his early magnum opus, The Political Economy of Modern Iran (1981), whose historical and political conclusions have been underlined time and again by the subsequent and often shocking national and international turns. In the intervening period, Katouzian has developed the cyclical theory of Iran's history as an “aridosolatic,” “pickaxe” or “short-termist” society. Of the important questions that his contributions raise or address, this paper examines the long-term continuity of Twelver/Imami Shi‘ism's trajectory which uniquely in the twentieth century Muslim and other worlds produced the leaders of two great revolutions. The result entails the addition of a still unfolding evolutionary-institutional layer within Katouzian's research program which may enhance its explanatory power and reinforce its political vision.     

Ten years on: Obama's war on terrorism in rhetoric and practice

Ten years after the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington DC on September 11, 2001, the United States remains embroiled in a long‐term struggle with what George W. Bush termed the existential threat of international terrorism. On the campaign trail, his successor as US President, Barack Obama, promised to reboot the ‘war on terror’. He claimed that his new administration would step back from the rhetoric and much of the Bush administration policy, conducting a counterterrorism campaign that would be more morally acceptable, more focused and more effective—smarter, better, nimbler, stronger. This article demonstrates, however, that those expecting wholesale changes to US counterterrorism policy misread Obama's intentions. It argues that Obama always intended to deepen Bush's commitment to counterterrorism while at the same time ending the ‘distraction’ of the Iraq War. Rather than being trapped by Bush's institutionalized construction of a global war on terror, the continuities in counterterrorism can be explained by Obama's shared conception of the imperative of reducing the terrorist threat to the US. The article assesses whether Obama has pursued a more effective counterterrorism policy than his predecessor and explores how his rhetoric has been reconstituted as the actions of his policy have unfolded. By addressing his policies toward Afghanistan and Pakistan, Guantánamo Bay and torture, the uses of unmanned drone attacks and domestic wire‐tapping, this article argues that Obama's ‘war’ against terrorism is not only in keeping with the assumptions and priorities of the last ten years but also that it is just as problematic as that of his predecessor.     

Book reviews

Books reviewed in this issue. International Relations theory The social in the global: social theory, governmentality and global politics. By Jonathan Joseph . Power, Realism and constructivism. By Stefano Guzzini . International organization, law and ethics * 1 See also Alex J. Bellamy, Massacres and morality: mass atrocities in an age of civilian immunity, pp. 1029–30.
The law of targeting. By William H. Boothby. Just business: multinational corporations and human rights. By John Ruggie . Unimaginable atrocities: justice, politics, and rights at the war crimes tribunal. By William Schabas. No one's world: the West, the rising rest and the coming global turn. By Charles A. Kupchan. Conflict, security and defence The Cambridge history of war, volume IV: war in the modern world. Edited by Roger Chickering, Dennis Showalter and Hans van de Ven. Invisible armies: an epic history of guerrilla warfare from ancient times to the present. By Max Boot . Massacres and morality: mass atrocities in an age of civilian immunity. By Alex J. Bellamy . After war ends: a philosophical perspective. By Larry May . Ballistic missile defence and US national security policy: normalisation and acceptance after the Cold War. By Andrew Futter . Privatizing war: private military and security companies under public international law. By Lindsey Cameron and Vincent Chetail . Governance, civil society and cultural politics Federal dynamics: continuity, change, and the varieties of federalism. Edited by Arthur Benz and Jörg Broschek . Of virgins and martyrs: women and sexuality in global conflict. By David Jacobson . Political economy, economics and development New spirits of capitalism? Crises, justifications, and dynamics. Edited by Paul du Gay and Glenn Morgan . Masters of the universe: Hayek, Friedman, and the birth of neoliberal politics. By Daniel Stedman Jones . Governing guns, preventing plunder: international cooperation against illicit trade. By Asif Efrat . Energy, environment and global health China's environmental challenges. By Judith Shapiro. Green innovation in China: China's wind power industry and the global transition to a low‐carbon economy. By Joanna I. Lewis . The governance of energy in China: transition to a low‐carbon economy. By Philip Andrews‐Speed . Global health and International Relations. By Colin McInnes and Kelley Lee . International history The sleepwalkers: how Europe went to war in 1914. By Christopher Clark . Lenin's terror: the ideological origins of early Soviet state violence. By James Ryan . Hitler's philosophers. By Yvonne Sherratt . Empire of secrets: British intelligence, the Cold War and the twilight of empire. By Calder Walton . Nasser's gamble: how intervention in Yemen caused the Six‐Day War and the decline of Egyptian power. By Jesse Ferris . The killing zone: the United States wages Cold War in Latin America. By Stephen G. Rabe . Visions of power in Cuba: revolution, redemption and resistance, 1959–1971. By Lillian Guerra . Europe European security: the roles of regional organisations. By Bjørn Møller . Six moments of crisis: inside British foreign policy. By Gill Bennett . Defending the realm? The politics of Britain's small wars since 1945. By Aaron Edwards . A special relationship? British foreign policy in the era of American hegemony. By Simon Tate . Britain's quest for a role: a diplomatic memoir from Europe to the UN. By David Hannay . Russia and Eurasia * 2 See also James Ryan, Lenin's terror: the ideological origins of early Soviet state violence, pp. 1046–7; and Marlene Laruelle and Sebastien Peyrouse, The Chinese question in Central Asia: domestic order, social change and the Chinese factor, pp. 1076–7.
Wheel of fortune: the battle for oil and power in Russia. By Thane Gustafson . Edge of empire: a history of Georgia. By Donald Rayfield . Georgia: a political history since independence. By Stephen Jones . Middle East and North Africa Revolutionary Iran: a history of the Islamic Republic. By Michael Axworthy . Lebanon after the Cedar Revolution. Edited by Are Knudsen and Michael Kerr . Dynamics of change in the Persian Gulf: political economy, war and revolution. By Anoushiravan Ehteshami . Sub‐Saharan Africa Multiethnic coalitions in Africa: business financing of opposition election campaigns. By Leonardo R. Arriola . Nigeria since independence: forever fragile? By J. N. C. Hill . Peacebuilding, power, and politics in Africa. Edited by Devon Curtis and Gwinyayi A. Dzinesa . South Asia Policing Afghanistan. By Antonio Giustozzi and Mohammed Isaqzadeh . East Asia and Pacific * 3 See also Judith Shapiro, China's environmental challenges; Joanna I. Lewis, Green innovation in China: China's wind power industry and the global transition to a low‐carbon economy; and Philip Andrews‐Speed, The governance of energy in China: transition to a low‐carbon economy, pp. 1041–3.
The Chinese question in Central Asia: domestic order, social change and the Chinese factor. By Marlene Laruelle and Sebastien Peyrouse . China's search for energy security: domestic sources and international implications. Edited by Suisheng Zhao . North America Foreign policy begins at home: the case for putting America's house in order. By Richard N. Haass . US foreign policy and democracy promotion: from Theodore Roosevelt to Barack Obama. Edited by Michael Cox, Timothy J. Lynch and Nicolas Bouchet . The Secretary: a journey with Hillary Clinton from Beirut to the heart of American power. By Kim Ghattas . Latin America and Caribbean * 4 See also Stephen G. Rabe, The killing zone: the United States wages Cold War in Latin America, pp. 1052–3; and Lillian Guerra, Visions of power in Cuba: revolution, redemption and resistance, 1959–1971, pp. 1054–5.
The Mapuche in modern Chile: a cultural history. By Joanna Crow .     

The rise of the new model army

In this paper the contribution of Robert R. Palmer to the now booming Atlantic history is put into perspective. It describes the main features of the political and historiographical context that inspired the writing of his book, The Age of the Democratic Revolution in the early 1950s (first volume published in 1959, second volume in 1964). It also argues that the war experience Palmer had in the historical section of the Army Ground Forces has been important in reviving the interest for the transatlantic dimension in modern history that was central in his PhD dissertation. This paper shows how the liberal-tocquevillian approach that Palmer adopted to explain the multiple revolutions that shook North America and Europe in the last quarter of the 18th century earned him the attacks of the Marxist historians. In its last part this paper makes use of private letters to claim that in the 1970s and 1980s the Italian historian Franco Venturi revived the scholarly interest in Palmer's perspective despite methodological differences between his Settecento riformatore and Palmer's analysis. Settecento riformatore and The Age of the Democratic Revolution have contributed to the interest in a transatlantic approach to 18th-century history that is now pursued under the heading of “entangled histories”.     

Book reviews

Book Reviewed in this articles. International Relations theory Security as practice: discourse analysis and the Bosnian war. By Lene Hansen. Informal coalitions: mastering the hidden dynamics of organizational change. By Chris Rodgers. The anarchical society in a globalized world. Edited by Richard Little and John Williams. Human rights and ethics Guantánamo and the abuse of presidential power. By Joseph Margulies. Complicity with evil: the United Nations in the age of modern genocide. By Adam LeBor. International law and organization Max Planck commentaries on world trade law: world economic order, world trade law. Edited by Peter‐Tobias Stoll and Frank Schorkopf. Max Planck commentaries on world trade law: institutions and dispute settlement. Edited by Rüdiger Wolfrum, Peter‐Tobias Stoll and Karen Kaiser. Key issues in WTO dispute settlement: the first ten years. Edited by Rufus Yerxa and Bruce Wilson. Crimes against humanity. By Geoffrey Robertson. Laws of fear: beyond the precautionary principle. By Cass R. Sunstein. Democracy, minorities and international law. By Steven Wheatley. Foreign policy Seize the hour: when Nixon met Mao. By Margaret MacMillan. Conflict, security and armed forces Nation‐building: beyond Afghanistan and Iraq. Edited by Francis Fukuyama. Kosovo between war and peace: nationalism, peacebuilding and international trusteeship. Edited by Tonny Brems Knudsen and Carsten Bagge Laustsen. Empire in denial: the politics of state‐building. By David Chandler. The age of war: the United States confronts the world. By Gabriel Kolko. Terror on the internet: the new arena, the new challenges. By Gabriel Weimann. Political economy, economics and development The World Economic Forum: a multi‐stakeholder approach to global governance. By Geoffrey Allen Pigman. Mapping the markets: a guide to stockmarket analysis. By Deborah Owen and Robin Griffiths. Ethnicity and cultural politics Islam and global dialogue: religious pluralism and the pursuit of peace. Edited by Roger Boase. Energy and environment Field notes from a catastrophe: climate change: is time running out? By Elizabeth Kolbert. History Stalin's wars: from world war to Cold War, 1939–53. By Geoffrey Roberts. Suez 1956: the inside story of the first oil war. By Barry Turner. Keith Kyle died on 21 February 2007. He will be much missed by all at Chatham House and particularly by the editors of International Affairs, not least for his authoritative articles and reviews, and generous advice. Twelve days: revolution 1956. By Victor Sebestyen Churchill's man of mystery: Desmond Morton and the world of intelligence. By Gill Bennett. The battle for Spain: the Spanish civil war 1936‐1939. By Antony Beevor. Europe The new Atlanticist: Poland's foreign and security policy priorities. By Kerry Longhurst and Marcin Zaborowski. Endgame in the Balkans: regime change European style. By Elizabeth Pond. Europeanization, varieties of capitalism and economic performance in Central and Eastern Europe. By Lucian Cernat. Democracy in the new Europe. By Christopher Lord and Erika Harris. Russia and Eurasia Putin's Russia and the enlarged Europe. By Roy Allison, Margot Light and Stephen White. Dependent on oil and gas: Russia's integration into the world economy. Edited by Shinichiro Tabata. Middle East and North Africa Killing Mr Lebanon: the assassination of Rafik Hariri and its impact on the Middle East. By Nicholas Blanford. Sub‐Saharan Africa The new multilateralism in South African diplomacy. Edited by Donna Lee, Ian Taylor and Paul D. Williams. Peace without power: Ghana's foreign policy 1957‐66. By Kwesi Armah. Asia and Pacific The king never smiles: a biography of Thailand's Bhumibol Adulyadej. By Paul M. Handley. China's trapped transition: the limits of developmental autocracy. By Minxin Pei. China: a guide to economic and political developments. By Ian Jeffries. Regionalism and globalization in East Asia: politics, security and economic development. By Mark Beeson. North America The silence of the rational center: why American foreign policy is failing. By Stefan Halper and Jonathan Clarke. Ethical realism: a vision for America's role in the world. By Anatol Lieven and John Hulsman. Is Iraq another Vietnam? By Robert K. Brigham. Überpower: the imperial temptation of America. By Josef Joffe. Latin America and Caribbean Hugo Chávez: oil, politics and the emerging threat to the US. By Nikolas Kozloff. Empire's workshop: Latin America, the United States, and the rise of the new imperialism. By Greg Grandin.     

Book reviews

Book reviewed in this articles. Constructivism and international relations: Alexander Wendt and his critics. Edited by Stefano Guzzini and Anna Leander. Agents, structures and international relations: politics as ontology. by Colin Wight. Harry Potter and international relations. Edited by Daniel H. Nexon and Iver B. Neumann. The ethics of territorial borders: drawing lines in the shifting sand. by John Williams. The parliament of man: the United Nations and the quest for world government. by Paul Kennedy. Peace at any price: how the world failed Kosovo. by Iain King and Whit Mason. The first ten years of the WTO, 1995‐2005. by Peter Gallagher. Normalization of US‐China relations: an international history. Edited by William C. Kirby, Robert S. Ross and Gong Li. Of law and war. by David Kennedy. War and the law of nations: a general history. by Stephen C. Neff. The making of a terrorist: recruitment, training and root causes. Edited by James Forest. Economic justice in an unfair world: toward a level playing field. by Ethan B. Kapstein. The next great globalization: how disadvantaged nations can harness their financial systems to get rich. by Frederic S. Mishkin. Italy and Albania: financial relations in the fascist period. by Alessandro Roselli. International law and sustainable development: lessons from the law of international watercourses. by Alistair Rieu‐Clarke. From world war to Cold War: Churchill, Roosevelt and the international history of the 1940s. by David Reynolds. War and state formation in ancient China and early modern Europe. by Victoria Tin‐bor Hui. A time for peace: the legacy of the Vietnam War. by Robert D. Schulzinger. The rift between America and old Europe: the distracted eagle. by Peter H. Merkl. The geopolitics of Euro‐Atlantic integration. by Hans Mouritzen. Managing EU‐US relations: actors, institutions and the new transatlantic agenda. by Rebecca Steffenson. Designing democracy: EU enlargement and regime change in post‐communist Europe. by Geoffrey Pridham. The year of Europe: America, Europe and the energy crisis 1972‐4. Edited by Keith Hamilton and Patrick Salmon. Albania as dictatorship and democracy: from isolation to the Kosovo war, 1946‐8. by Owen Pearson. I. B. Military and society in post‐Soviet Russia. Edited by Stephen L. Webber and Jennifer G. Mathers. Russian conservatism and its critics: a study in political culture. by Richard Pipes. The Middle East in international relations: power, politics and ideology. by Fred Halliday. Constructing international relations in the Arab world. by Fred H. Lawson. The trouble with Africa: why foreign aid isn't working. by Robert Calderisi. Security dynamics in Africa's Great Lakes region. Edited by Gilbert M. Khadiagala. In the line of fire: a memoir. by Pervez Musharraf. China's rise in Asia: promises and perils. by Robert G. Sutter. Making China policy: from Nixon to G. W. Bush. by Jean A. Garrison. Hungry for peace: international security, humanitarian assistance, and social change in North Korea. by Hazel Smith. How Bush rules: chronicles of a radical regime. by Sidney Blumenthal. The one percent doctrine: deep inside America's pursuit of its enemies since 9/11. by Ron Suskind.     

Tzvetan Todorov,the ‘Responsible Intellectual’, and the new world disorder

This article assesses Tzvetan Todorov's intellectual evolution from structuralist literary critic to ‘responsible intellectual’. It contrasts his notion of the responsibility of the intellectual with traditional definitions of commitment, and analyses why for Todorov figures such as Camus, Aron, and Tillion are exemplary, whereas Communist intellectuals are not. The article examines Todorov's positions vis‐à‐vis current crises and controversies, including the bombing of Kosovo, the validity of the ICT, and America's war in Iraq. Finally, it discusses Todorov's ideas for a stronger and more independent Europe as articulated in his most recent book, Le Nouveau Désordre mondial.     

The problem of “technological unemployment” in the industrial research of the 1930's in the United States∗

The article surveys the findings and debates about “technological unemployment” carried out in the 1920's and 1930's in the United States. The huge productivity increases of the 1920's had sizable labour‐displacing effects, which were not matched by the job‐creating trends of prosperity. Unemployment was therefore a sizable and observable phenomenon as early as the late 1920's, while manufacturing employment shrank. After 1929, it was found that the Depression had hit production and investment hard, but productivity per man‐hour continued to increase. This meant that, because of the increases in population of working age and because of technological progress, in the late 1930's it would have been necessary to outgrow the levels of investment and production of 1929 in order to bring unemployment down to the 1929 rate. Even the recovery of 1937 remained much below those levels: the cause was seen in the behavior of large, concentrated industrial firms that administered prices and only applied technological advances in order to reduce costs. Their limited spending did not foster enough demand to move the economy out of the slump. The recovery was eventually brought about not by spontaneous, market‐driven economic behaviour, but by the deus‐ex‐machina of war‐induced Government spending.

A separate study of the theories of technological progress out‐distancing the job‐creating trends of prosperity is in preparation.     

Between Internationalism and Empire: Ireland,the ‘Like-Minded’ Group,and the Search for a New International Order, 1974–82

This article examines the response of a group of small and medium-sized states to the Global South's demands for a new international economic order in the 1970s and early 1980s. Reading that experience through the eyes of the group's smallest state, Ireland, it describes the rise of a loosely organised collective whose support for economic justice was based on three pillars: social democracy; Christian justice; and a broadly held (if variously defined) anti-colonialism. Internationalism, and in particular support for the institutions of the United Nations, became another distinguishing feature of ‘like-minded’ action, and was an attempt by those states to carve out a space for independent action in the cold war. Détente and the decline of US hegemony helped in that respect, by encouraging a more globalist reading of the world order. Once the United States resumed its interventionist policies in the late 1970s, the room for ‘like-minded’ initiatives declined. Yet the actions of the ‘like-minded’ states should not be understood solely in terms of the changing dynamics of the cold war. This article concludes by arguing for the prominence of empire, decolonisation, and the enduring North–South binary in shaping international relations in a post-colonial world.     

International nuclear order: a rejoinder

The article‘Nuclear enlightenment and counter‐enlightenment by William Walker opened the special issue of International Affairs which was published in May 2007. In it, he claimed that the United States departed in the late 1990s and early 2000s, at the height of its hegemonic influence, from a conception of international nuclear order that it had held to, with few interruptions, over several decades. By so doing, it contributed substantially to the order's currently perceived demise. In responding to criticisms from other participants in the special issue, William Walker defends his arguments while acknowledging the enlightenment trope's fragility; reemphasizes the essential contractual nature of the Nuclear Non‐Proliferation Treaty (NPT) which some critics denied; stresses the order's reliance on a judicious balancing (which has temporarily been lost) of realist and constitutional strategies; rejects assertions that the NPT is not a disarmament treaty; argues that the‘muddling through’advocated by some authors cannot suffice; and offers reasons why the despondency of several among them may have been overplayed, and why a new phase of consolidation of order might (just might) lie ahead, not least because of the reconsideration of US international strategies that has begun and the widely perceived urgency of preventing further proliferation and avoiding a resumption of arms racing.