E-Book Overview
In this revised edition of his 1979 classic Political Theory and International Relations , Charles Beitz rejects two highly influential conceptions of international theory as empirically inaccurate and theoretically misleading. In one, international relations is a Hobbesian state of nature in which moral judgments are entirely inappropriate, and in the other, states are analogous to persons in domestic society in having rights of autonomy that insulate them from external moral assessment and political interference. Beitz postulates that a theory of international politics should include a revised principle of state autonomy based on the justice of a state's domestic institutions, and a principle of international distributive justice to establish a fair division of resources and wealth among persons situated in diverse national societies.
E-Book Content
POLITICAL THEORY AND INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
POLITICAL THEORY AND
INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS With a New Afterword by the Author
Charles R. Beitz
PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS PRINCETON, NEW JERSEY
Copyright © 1979 by Princeton University Press Published by Princeton University Press, 41 William Street, Princeton, New Jersey 08540 In the United Kingdom: Princeton University Press, 3 Market Place, Woodstock, Oxfordshire OX20 1SY Afterword © 1999 by Princeton University Press All Rights Reserved
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Beitz, Charles R. Political theory and international relations / Charles R. Beitz. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-691-07614-6 1. International relations. 2. World politics. I. Title. JZ1305.B45 1999 327. 1'01— dc21 99-12992 This book has been composed in VIP Baskerville
www.pup.princeton.edu
Contents
Part One.
Part Two.
Preface Introduction International Relations as a State of Nature
vii 3
1. 2. 3. 4. 5.
15 27 35 50
The Skepticism of the Realists The Hobbesian Situation International Relations as a State of Nature The Basis of International Morality From International Skepticism to the Morality of States
The Autonomy of States 1. State Autonomy and Individual Liberty 2. Nonintervention, Paternalism, and Neutrality 3. Self-determination 4. Eligibility, Boundaries, and Nationality 5. Economic Dependence 6. State Autonomy and Domestic Social Justice
Part Three. International Distributive Justice 1. Social Cooperation, Boundaries, and the Basis of Justice 2. Entitlements to Natural Resources 3. Interdependence and Global Distributive Justice 4. Contrasts between International and Domestic Society 5. The Rights of States 6. Applications to the Nonideal World
11
63 67 71
83 92 105 116 121
125 129 136 143
154 161 169
Conclusion
177
Afterword
185
Works Cited
221
Index
237
Preface have paid insufficient attention to a P variety oftheorists philosophically interesting and practically imOLITICAL
portant normative problems of international relations because they have accepted uncritically the conception of the world developed by Hobbes and taken over by many recent writers. By accepting the conception of international relations as a state of nature, they have committed themselves to the view that international relations is primarily concerned with "the rivalries of nation-states, and with the traditional ultima ratio of those rivalries—war."1 As a result, other pressing questions of contemporary international relations have been neglected, and the current debate about new structures of world order has taken place without benefit of the insight and criticism that political philosophers should provide. This book is an attempt to work o