Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of tables
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- PART I Conceptual framework
- 1 What are international orders?
- 2 Accounting for the transformation of international orders
- PART II The historical transformation of international orders
- PART III Contemporary challenges and future trajectories of world order
- Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Index
- Cambridge Studies in International Relations
1 - What are international orders?
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 January 2011
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of tables
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- PART I Conceptual framework
- 1 What are international orders?
- 2 Accounting for the transformation of international orders
- PART II The historical transformation of international orders
- PART III Contemporary challenges and future trajectories of world order
- Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Index
- Cambridge Studies in International Relations
Summary
You must understand, therefore, that there are two ways of fighting: by law or by force. The first way is natural to men, and the second to beasts. But as the first way often proves inadequate one must needs have recourse to the second. So a prince must understand how to make a nice use of the beast and the man. The ancient writers taught princes about this by an allegory, when they described how Achilles and many other princes of the ancient world were sent to be brought up by Chiron, the centaur, so that he might train them this way. All the allegory means, in making the teacher half beast and half man, is that a prince must know how to act according to the nature of both, and that he cannot survive otherwise …
Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince.Order under the centaur's shadow
In taking the centaur to personify the dualistic character of political power, Machiavelli captured an essential truth about the nature of order, one that obtains equally in the domestic and international spheres. Both the power of moral suasion and the force of material sanctions sustain political order. This elementary observation is worth emphasising, precisely because it is so often overlooked in the study of international relations. Far from constituting mere decorative artifice, the rules, norms, principles and moral conventions that infuse political orders provide the essential media through which co-operation is realised and conflict mitigated between social agents.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- War, Religion and EmpireThe Transformation of International Orders, pp. 15 - 33Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2010