For the Global Policy Journal, I reviewed Kyle M. Lascurettes’ book ‘Orders of Exclusion’, which provides thought-provoking insights into world history.
International orders, including today’s world order, are often seen as a means to foster cooperation between states and achieve a more peaceful and prosperous world.
Kyle M. Lascurettes in his book ‘Orders of Exclusion: Great Powers and the Strategic Sources of Foundational Rules in International Relations’ challenges this idea and argues that powerful states often created systems not primarily to enhance cooperation, but to exclude certain actors.
Lascurettes uses several case studies in world history, including the order after 1648 and after the War of the Spanish Succession, the Concert of Europe, the post-World War I order and the contemporary Bretton Woods System, to illustrate his theory.
He shows that dominant states whose future security or primacy on the world stage is threatened, create world orders to exclude and weaken their enemies.
Lascurettes provides a thought-provoking long-term view of international history that should stimulate theorists and practitioners in their work on a world order for the future.
Read the full review of ‘Orders of Exclusion’ in the Global Policy Journal.