A New World Order [Paperback]

Anne-Marie Slaughter (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0691123977 | ISBN-13: 978-0691123974 | Publication Date: July 18, 2005

Global governance is here--but not where most people think. This book presents the far-reaching argument that not only should we have a new world order but that we already do. Anne-Marie Slaughter asks us to completely rethink how we view the political world. It's not a collection of nation states that communicate through presidents, prime ministers, foreign ministers, and the United Nations. Nor is it a clique of NGOs. It is governance through a complex global web of "government networks."

Slaughter provides the most compelling and authoritative description to date of a world in which government officials--police investigators, financial regulators, even judges and legislators--exchange information and coordinate activity across national borders to tackle crime, terrorism, and the routine daily grind of international interactions. National and international judges and regulators can also work closely together to enforce international agreements more effectively than ever before. These networks, which can range from a group of constitutional judges exchanging opinions across borders to more established organizations such as the G8 or the International Association of Insurance Supervisors, make things happen--and they frequently make good things happen. But they are underappreciated and, worse, underused to address the challenges facing the world today.

The modern political world, then, consists of states whose component parts are fast becoming as important as their central leadership. Slaughter not only describes these networks but also sets forth a blueprint for how they can better the world. Despite questions of democratic accountability, this new world order is not one in which some "world government" enforces global dictates. The governments we already have at home are our best hope for tackling the problems we face abroad, in a networked world order.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Breaking new ground in international relations theory, Slaughter urges readers to lose their "conceptual blind spot" and see how the world really works. Scholars, pundits and policymakers, she writes, have traditionally seen nations as "unitary"—that is, as single entities that "articulate and pursue a single national interest." In fact, she says, we would do better to focus on government networks, both horizontal and vertical. Horizontal networks link counterpart national officials across borders, such as police investigators or financial regulators. Vertical networks are relationships between a nation's officials and some supranational organization to which they have ceded authority, such as the European Court of Justice. Networks, she says, are the solution to the "globalization paradox": The world needs global governance to combat problems that jump borders, like crime and environmental degradation, and yet most people fear—rightly, Slaughter implies—the idea of a centralized, all-powerful world government. The book both describes the here and now and plots a course for the future: Strengthening existing networks and developing new ones "could create a genuine global rule of law without centralized global institutions." The author, who is the dean of the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton as well as president of the American Society of International Law, is steeped in these issues and offers genuinely original thinking. Written in dense academic language, this book will not pick up many casual readers, but it will likely attain instant textbook status and generate much discussion about foreign policy and whether, as Slaughter believes, the U.S. should welcome such networks in a globalized world.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

[An] important [book]. By showing how today's world--of what she calls 'disaggregated states'--actually works, Slaughter cuts the ground away from nationalists and internationalists alike. This, she says, is how it is, for America and everyone else. She also, quite clearly, believes that this how it should be . . . because nothing else will work. . . . I have absolutely no doubt that Slaughter is on to something. -- Tony Judt, New York Review of Books



Breaking new ground in international relations theory, Slaughter . . . offers genuinely original thinking. . . . [A New World Order] generates much discussion about foreign policy. -- Publishers Weekly



[A] major new statement about modern global governance. . . . Particularly revealing is Slaughter's remarkable account of the cooperation between national judicial authorities and international and regional courts. -- Foreign Affairs



[A] groundbreaking book, a striking combination of both pragmatism and vision. . . . Slaughter represents the cutting intellectual edge of this decade's new way of thinking about global governance. -- Kenneth Anderson, Harvard Law Review



This excellent, thought-provoking analysis covers a widespread but little studied shift in the way the world works. -- Financial Times/getAbstract



The new world order of network governance will be a better place, especially if the reforms proposed by Slaughter are adopted and networks open up, enabling broader participation and increased accountability. -- Andras Sajo, International Journal of Constitutional Law

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 368 pages
• Publisher: Princeton University Press (July 18, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0691123977
• ISBN-13: 978-0691123974
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #375,718 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

22 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Highly Recommended!, October 25, 2004

By 

Rolf Dobelli "getAbstract" (Switzerland) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A New World Order (Hardcover)

This excellent, thought-provoking analysis covers a widespread but little studied shift in the way the world works. The advance of international communications, technology, economics and finance networks has had an unmistakable effect on business and industry. The ways states function has also changed - shifting the operation of the world order. Author Anne-Marie Slaughter, dean of Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, is on expert ground. She asserts that networks of financiers, regulators, judges and even legislators can solve problems that would be intractable if left only to traditional states and familiar international organizations. She provides many examples of such networks, notes the criticism against them and suggests norms to govern their conduct. Her book is not light reading. Readers need some familiarity with international organizations and institutions (sometimes cited by unexplained acronyms), but we highly recommend this book to sophisticated observers of international policy.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Networks are the new soul of consenus, October 4, 2008

By 

L. King "Eclectic Reader" (Toronto Canada) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A New World Order (Hardcover)

What is new about the world in the 21st century? For Thomas L. Friedman its information networks that make the world flat for business and communication. Anne-Marie Slaughter makes the observation that governance too is being transformed by the telecommunication revolution. Because the barriers between us are being broken down it is possible for like minded people to share ideas and conclusions around the world.

The book looks at Regulatory Agencies, Jurisprudence and finally Legislative Processes and observes transnational influences and accommodations. Slaughter notes that borrowing of laws and principles from one society to another is not new, but it has become much more common. She shows that a number of precedents in bioethics, copyright law and commercial rights are now drawing on extranational deliberations and decisions in order add clarity and come to decisions more rapidly. If a copyright case in Paris is similar to one in Washington a judge may cite the case to draw similar conclusions.

Differences in definitions in such things as environmental legislation, labeling of goods and the establishing of standards are more easily handled between similar agencies rather than through top/down negotiation. The network of associations also extends to NGOs allowing relief, health care (ie: co-ordination during the SARS outbreak in 2003 or Bird Flu in 2006 - neither of which are covered in the book however the discussion in the book help illuminate both these situations) or standards organizations to co-operate with each other and to learn from each other's methods.

Overall Prof. Slaughter considers this a good thing that we are now learning to learn from each other on a planetary scale. What she doesn't consider is the potential downside in outsourcing part of our decision making processes to others as she prefers to focus on the influences of like minded groups. Another concern that she does touch on briefly (around pp194) is that such decision making reflects a change in our conception of "democracy" - decisions are made by consensus but only through the effort of interested or concerned participants.

I recommend this book for readers looking for examples of how transnational co-operation gets applied. The writing is warm and very accessible. For me it ties in nicely with the ideas of Duncan Watts (6 Degrees of Separation/Dynamic Networks) who's interest is in self organizing networks. Watts observes that networks usually contain focal nodes that act as bridges between subnets and thereby act as a conduit of information and ideas. With the growth of the Internet geography and time no longer limit the scope of these nets, so naturally they spread out horizontally between nations. Prof. Slaughter's writings are a timely observation of the phenomenon in the realm of international decision making. What is "new" about this world order is that it is not being imposed from above by single minded governments - it comes from all around us.

Regardless as to how one feels about the prospect of this kind of world it does get you to think. I like that, which is why I recommend this book and its author. :-)

11 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Exceptional Read, February 9, 2005

By 

Josh Campbell (Austin, Texas) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A New World Order (Hardcover)

This book is a must-read for any student of International Affairs. By providing historical and present-day examples of international and transnational relations among states, Dean Slaughter brilliantly lays the framework and provides justification for a new disaggregated, effective, and just world order. Both synoptic in organization and substantive throughout, this book will prove valuable to all readers regardless of political affiliation or school of thought.