This diary is a book review of Kees van der Pijl’s (2007) work on “foreign relations,” Nomads, Empires, States. Van der Pijl argues that the field of “foreign relations” must be rethought, and doing this will allow us to see why relations between nation-states are only one mode of foreign relations, and not necessarily the most important one in this era. Rethinking foreign relations, then, we should be able to understand why the regime of “global governance” has failed to triumph in a world without endemic warfare between nation-states.
(crossposted at Big Orange)