The Closure of the International System
How Institutions Create Political Equalities and Hierarchies

Explains how actors control access to international resources, creating a stratified international system of political equals and unequals.

Lora Anne Viola (Author)

9781108711760, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 27 July 2023

295 pages
22.8 x 15.1 x 1.6 cm, 0.44 kg

'The book develops a closure theory to explain why the rules and institutions of the international system exhibit this mix of equality and inequality of rights and privileges.' G. John Ikenberry, Foreign Affairs

As global governance appears to become more inclusive and democratic, many scholars argue that international institutions act as motors of expansion and democratization. The Closure of the International System challenges this view, arguing that the history of the international system is a series of institutional closures, in which institutions such as diplomacy, international law, and international organizations make rules to legitimate the inclusion of some actors and the exclusion of others. While international institutions facilitate collective action and common goods, Viola's closure thesis demonstrates how these gains are achieved by limiting access to rights and resources, creating a stratified system of political equals and unequals. The coexistence of equality and hierarchy is a constitutive feature of the international system and its institutions. This tension is relevant today as multilateral institutions are challenged by disaffected citizens, non-Western powers, and established great powers discontent with the distribution of political rights and authority.

1. False promises of universalism: the interdependent logics of equality and inequality in the international system
2. The closure thesis: social closure, club dynamics, and stratification in the international system
3. 'The master institution': diplomacy, practices of closure, and the emergence of an international system in early modern Europe
4. 'Dwarves and giants': international law, the monopolization of sovereign rights, and stratification in the international system
5. International organizations: between sovereign equality and the institutionalization of inequality
6. What remains of the promise of equality?
Index.

Subject Areas: International institutions [JPSN], International relations [JPS], Social theory [JHBA]