Rule-ing the world.

• Author: Joyner, Christopher C.
• Position: A New World Order - Book review

Review of the book: A New World Order. By Anne-Marie Slaughter. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005. Pp. xviii, 341. $45.00 cloth.)

Anne-Marie Slaughter, Dean of the Woodrow Wilson School of Public Affairs at Princeton University, argues that transnational networks are guiding international relations toward a more just world order. That is, the 21st century heralds an era of globalization in which international relations are increasingly being conducted through integrated networks--i.e., systems of things or people that are purposively interconnected--and these networks can make good things happen between states. The operation of these networks, she suggests, improves the human condition and offers more lucrative opportunities for attaining greater justice for more peoples in more lands, governed more effectively through the rule of law.

As Professor Slaughter rightly observes, certain paradoxes earmark contemporary globalization. While interdependence demands the need for more regulation on a global level, such increased regulation generates greater apprehension over the possibility that too much control might accrue to supranational governmental structures. To counter this apprehension, a contemporary fact of international relations must be realized: Transgovernmental ties involving contemporary "unitary state" actors are shifting to the status of "disaggregated states"--a situation that reflects the increasing need for governments to operate beyond borders and regulate activities beyond a state's national jurisdiction. For the unitary state, international cooperation is legally forged through multilateral agreements, which allowed the international system to concentrate on traditional international organizations and institutions created by governments of states. But with the rise of the disaggregated state, she contends, the new world order requires that governments seek out and create new transnational networks of cooperation. This new world of government networks consists of judges, regulators, legislators who interact with their foreign counterparts and work collaboratively to produce new policies intended to solve common transnational problems.

It is important to realize how these networks create and maintain world order. Professor Slaughter suggests that the key here is "soft power," i.e., the power of information. She believes that the pen is mightier than the sword, or perhaps better put in today's context, the computer...