Issue 23.1
Briefly Noted
This section contains a round-up of recent notable books in the field of international affairs.
The End of the West? Crisis and Change in the Atlantic Order by Jeffrey Anderson, G. John Ikenberry, and Thomas Risse
This edited collection takes stock of the state of the Western alliance, seeking both to improve our theoretical understanding of conflict and crisis and to examine the relevance of theories of politics and international relations.
Network Power: The Social Dynamics of Globalization by David Singh Grewal
According to Grewal, we need to understand globalization as a process in which we participate by choice but not necessarily voluntarily—one in which common standards allow more effective coordination, yet also entrap us in their pull for convergence.
International Trade and Labor Standards: A Proposal for Linkage by Christian Barry and Sanjay G. Reddy
Barry and Reddy challenge us to envision a world where workers everywhere can make a living wage in safe conditions and globalization does not drive us to compete in a desperate “race to the bottom.”
Democracy Across Borders: Dêmos to Dêmoiby James Bohman
Bohman notes the extensive interdependence that characterizes the new circumstances of global politics, and argues that states have reacted either by strengthening state boundaries and increasing centralized authority or by delegating political authority.
The Moral Force of Indigenous Politics: Critical Liberalism and the Zapatistas by Courtney Jung
Jung offers a normatively informed and empirically grounded critique of approaches that justify minority rights on the basis of the need to protect culture.
Multicultural Odysseys: Navigating the New International Politics of Diversity by Will Kymlicka
Kymlicka extends his well known and widely respected defense of a liberal conception of multiculturalism to all states of the world, and asks causal questions about why liberal multiculturalism is spreading internationally.
“Torture Lite”: A Response
A morally significant distinction between full torture and torture lite, says Sussman, would attend to the role that fear and hope play in the experience. Full torture would thus be treatment that aims to make its victim feel absolutely vulnerable and utterly powerless.
