The moral purpose of the state
Subtitle: culture, social identity, and institutional rationality in international relations
By: Christian Reus-Smit
Series: Princeton studies in international history and politics
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Published: 1999
Place of publication: Princeton, N.J
Language: eng
Number of pages: 199
Subjects: International relations -- Moral and ethical aspects; International relations and culture
Description: "This book seeks to explain why different systems of sovereign states have built different types of fundamental institutions to govern interstate relations. Why, for example, did the ancient Greeks operate a successful system of third-party arbitration, while international society today rests on a combination of international law and multilateral diplomacy? Conventional explanations of basic institutional practices have difficulty accounting for such variation.

Christian Reus-Smit addresses this problem by presenting an alternative, "constructivist" theory of international institutional development, one that emphasizes the relationship between the social identity of the state and the nature and origin of basic institutional practices."--BOOK JACKET.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [171]-191) and index