Book Review of International Relations by Jacques coicaud

8/14/2019 Book Review of International Relations by Jacques coicaud

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With the end of the Cold War and the advent of globalization, the operating environment of

International Organizations has changed, creating a sense of legitimacy deficit.

Additionally, the conflicting views on legitimacy caused by the differences in the approaches

from the main traditions of political and social philosophy and in realism and institutionalism

have resulted in different interpretations of the concept of legitimacy. This book aims to

undertake an examination in order to understand the present state of International

Organizations with regards to legitimacy whilst avoiding the biasness caused by the differing

theoretical and philosophical approaches. Therefore, it has chosen to utilize contributions

from scholars from various disciplinary fields including political philosophy, law, political

science and environmental studies in order to create a more balanced picture.

To create a more balanced picture, the book looks at three sections. The first section, titled,

Theoretical and structural issues, looks at the theoretical issues regarding international

organizations. This includes the role of democratic principles and constitutionalism in global

governance, and the relationship between the use of force and the evolution of international

organizations. The focus of the book is then transferred to the second section, Current Issues:

The changing environment of international organizations, which focuses on the change in the

operating environment of the international organizations, in particular, the impact of

globalization and the challenges of the United Nations during the post Cold War era. The

final section, Selected Contexts: International organizations in transitions, concentrates on the

socio-economic context of international organizations, which includes the role of the

international trade regimes as part of the international structure, the attempts to create a new

international financial structure and such. With regards to the international organizations, this

book only looks at a few, namely, the World Trade Organization, the Security Council and

the World Bank. Additionally, due to the limitations in a review, it is not possible to examine


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the contributions for the three sections individually. Therefore, the review will mainly consist

of giving an overview of the three sections with focuses on the more important contributions.

By starting the book with the section that focuses on theoretical and structural issues, the

editors enable the reader to understand the history and formation of international

organizations. Besides the background of international organizations, this section also goes

into detail about the theories and the charters that make up international organizations. This is

important because firstly; the reader is able to understand how the international organizations

functions and how it is organized and secondly; this sets the stage for the next section, which

deals with current issues in international organizations.

As stated in the paragraph above, the second section examines the current issues of

international organizations in the changing environment. In particular, the contributions in

this section focuses on the problems of legitimacy for international organizations during

globalization in chapter five, and the legitimacy of involvement in internal conflicts, which is

in chapter seven. These two chapters are important because they provide the some answers to

the question of the book, which is to understand the present state of the legitimacy in

international organizations. G. C. A. Junnes International Organizations in a Period of

Globalization:New (Problems of) Legitimacy, chapter five, explores the effects of

globalization on the legitimacy of international organizations. This chapter is particularly

relevant because in this chapter, Junne looks at what creates the problems of legitimacy

during globalization. This enables the reader to begin to understand that due to globalization,

the alternative forms of coordination that are created as a result of the process pose a threat to

the legitimacy of international organizations. This chapter also answers part of the question


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that is posed by the book regarding the issue of legitimacy in international organizations

because this chapter includes the analysis of the concept of legitimacy and the consequence

that globalization has on international organizations. This analysis enables the reader to gain

further understanding that for international organizations, due to the process of globalization,

the legitimacy has waned slightly due in part, to the ineffectiveness of international

organizations, which causes the society to not fully accept the authority of international

organizations as effectiveness is one way of measuring legitimacy.

In chapter seven, written by Jean-Marc Coicaud and titled International democratic culture

and its sources of legitimacy: The case of collective security and peacekeeping operations in

the 1990s, the rise and fall of the United Nations is chronicled with reasons that are given for

the mismanagement of the peacekeeping operations. With regards to the aim of the book, this

chapter is relevant because in a world where the use of peacekeeping forces in conflict zones

around the world is becoming more frequent, it shows how the United Nations legitimacy is

linked to its effectiveness in is peace keeping missions in order to keep the peace and

security, and how in a changing environment, that legitimacy could fluctuate, that legitimacy

is not a given for international organizations.

The third sections focus is on specific international organizations and international finance

and climate change. This section mainly builds on the knowledge gained from the previous

sections by analyzing how the

One of the strengths of this book is that the arrangement of the books chapters supports an

easy flow for the readers, starting with the first section talking about the background and


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theories that help define international organizations, to the second section which is essentially

about the legitimacy issues of international organizations, and continuing on the last section

which focuses on the specific international organizations and international fields which are

finance and climate change and their problems of legitimacy. This arrangement style fosters a

greater development and building of the understanding of the problems of legitimacy in

international organizations because the reader begins to understand how international

organizations came into existence and the theories and charters associated with the

international organizations in the first section. This knowledge is then built on in the second

section which identifies what problems of legitimacy are evident in international

organizations during the period of globalization, the consequences of globalization, to name a

few. The third section consequently, builds on the understanding acquired in the first and

second sections by focusing on specific examples of issues in legitimacy in international

organizations and international fields

Another strength of this book is the cohesion between the chapters, which I feel is aided by

the good flow of chapters in this book. I would say this because the flow between the

chapters help create a sense of cohesion as the reader transitions from one section to another,

and as a result, the ideas that are introduced in the previous chapters are built upon in the

following chapters. In addition, when looking at the book in general, the cohesion between

the chapters in a section is especially strong as the ideas that are present in the chapters tie

together particularly well. However, I feel that the last two chapters of section two could have

been placed in the third section in order to bring higher cohesion for the second section.

Overall, this book does perform what it set out to do relatively well, which was to understand

the present state of international organizations with regards to legitimacy. This is because the


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book has managed to find, using analysis and examples of the international organizations,

that the legitimacy of international organizations are waning slightly, due to reasons such as

the decreasing of effectiveness and the inability to carry out peacekeeping missions

successfully.

Documents

Book Review of International Relations by Jacques coicaud