Andrew Linklater - The Problem of Harm in World Politics. Theoretical Investigations [2011][A]

Book Description
Publication Date: March 21, 2011
The need to control violent and non-violent harm has been central to human existence since societies first emerged. This book analyses the problem of harm in world politics which stems from the fact that societies require the power to harm in order to defend themselves from internal and external threats, but must also control the capacity to harm so that people cannot kill, injure, humiliate or exploit others as they please. Andrew Linklater analyses writings in moral and legal philosophy that define and classify forms of harm, and discusses the ways in which different theories of international relations suggest the power to harm can be controlled so that societies can co-exist with the minimum of violent and non-violent harm. Linklater argues for new connections between the English School study of international society and Norbert Elias' analysis of civilizing processes in order to advance the study of harm in world politics.

Reviews
"A seminal intervention, drawing together, and brilliantly refashioning, insights from Eliasian historical sociology and English School International Relations. The result not only advances these theories onto new terrain, but creates a novel research agenda that should refashion the disciplines of Sociology and IR in new and exciting ways."- John M. Hobson, University of Sheffield

"One of the most important contributions to the study of international relations in decades, Linklater's book does not moralize or philosophize about the harm that states do to each other. Instead, in a spirit of factual research, Linklater, connecting the English School of international relations with Norbert Elias's theory of civilizing processes, shows how and why standards of conduct in international affairs have changed and are changing over time."- Stephen Mennell, University College Dublin

Book Description II
Force, humiliation, enslavement and exploitation are all examples of forms of harm. This book analyses the problem of harm in world politics, emphasizing how societies have acquired the ability to inflict destructive forms of harm over greater distances in the shape of war and harm to the physical environment.

About the Author
Andrew Linklater is Woodrow Wilson Professor of International Politics at Aberystwyth University as well as a Fellow of the British Academy, the Academy of Social Science, and a Founding Fellow of the Learned Society of Wales. He has published several major works on the theory of international relations including Critical Theory of World Politics (2007), The English School of International Relations (Cambridge University Press, 2006, with Hidemi Suganami), The Transformation of Political Community (1998), Beyond Realism and Marxism (1990) and Men and Citizens in the Theory of International Relations (1982 and 1990).