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A World Without Meaning: The Crisis of Meaning in International Politics

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Zaki Laidi's book provides a very useful way for thinking about the structure (or lack of it) of the post-Cold War international system. The author takes a postmodern approach, arguing that the end of the Cold War brought about not only the end of communism, but the end of the Enlightenment project of the last two centuries as well (of which, of course, Marxism was a component). This argument, certainly a sobering counter to American triumphalism, is echoed in the last writings of Murakami Yasusuke (An Anticlassical Political Economic Analysis, 1992 and 1996). That the argument comes in two very different forms from scholars outside of American academia is equally significant. Laidi argues that the international system today has no meaning, or rather what we might call an overarching structure of meaning. Those states (Europe and the United States) that previously provided such meaning no longer can; neither can Japan because it has no universalist principles upon which to create a meaning other states can adhere to. Therefore, there is no end (telos) around which to organize identities and power. What we have are "multiple and emerging meanings," for example, regionalization of meaning centered around Europe or "Asia" but which has no broader goal. Students of international politics will find the work especially interesting. Scholars of hegemonic stability are likely to consider that Laidi's argument has already been made in different (i.e. not postmodern) language, but the author's focus on intangibles like "meaning" provides insight not often seen in studies focused on political and economic structures and processes. Indeed, the turn in international relations theory toward constructivism gives Laidi's work additional significance.