The Associate professor at the University of Copenhagen in his book ‘Empire and International Order’ brings together scholars from different places who feel that ‘international’ politics has more to gain from analyzing empire as a powerful factor in any international order. The book offers an insight into ‘the organization of political power in the past, the present and even the future’ and enables the reader to ‘understand the desire to shift the ground of analysis away from the current literature of immediate issue of the US towards the disciplines of international relations, politics, and political/sociological theory.’
The following is an interview by Mehr News International Service with Prof. Noel Parker on his 2013 book, ‘Empire and International Order’:
What was your main concern and question in 'Empire and International Order'?
There are a number of questions in play in the analyses in the book: What constitutes an ‘international order’?; How its components might be broken down into sub-categories, and what should they be?; How do empires and international orders themselves evolve over the course of historical time?; What are the principal factors in the power of empires, and are they the same as those of other power institutions?; and how can we usefully distinguish empires from other forms of power. But I would not assume that that is a comprehensive list.
And for answering those questions and concerns, what hypothesis did you use?
There is no single hypothesis. Henrik Spruyt presents a hypothesis that the structure of international order has evolved over historical time to be less and less compatible with formal empire. My own essay attempts to demonstrate that zones of independent power, far from being an anathema to imperial orders are a natural corollary of them. Dan Nexon argues that any centre of empire-like power can only survive by balancing imperial dominance with multilateral institutions. In short, there are at least as many hypotheses as there are authors.
So as the author of the book, what do you think makes 'Empire and International Order' special?
‘Empire and International Order’ is a book of theoretical exploration informed by a rich tapestry of historical and contemporary factual knowledge. That is to say, it is a book that sets out different ways of understanding the phenomena in its focus, rather than making direct assertions about either empires or the international order. Nevertheless, it does appear in a period of profound international change, where naïve formulas about the community of sovereign states are more than ever suspect. One thing that all the writers had in common was the belief that these formulas were inadequate and seeing power in terms of empires will teach us about international orders. So, let us say that the need for the book is grounded in the continuing limitations in our way of understanding the international order.
Dr. Noel Parker is an Associate Professor in Political Theory and the History of Ideas at the Department of Political Science, University of Copenhagen.
Interview by Shabnam Shokouhi, edited by Marjohn Sheikhi
Your Comment