TY - JOUR
T1 - Global civilizing processes and the ambiguities of interconnectedness
AU - Linklater, Andrew
PY - 2010/6
Y1 - 2010/6
N2 - ncreased social power over the millennia has led to remarkable achievements in varied spheres of endeavour while introducing new possibilities for more destructive forms of harm over greater distances. Efforts to create moral frameworks to protect persons from senseless harm have been critical replies to the ambiguities of human interconnectedness. Over the millennia, societies have become entangled in global ‘civilizing processes’ such as the systems of communication that now encompass humanity as a whole, enabling different peoples to become better attuned to each other. Societies of states have immense significance for that long-term development. They have been arenas in which independent communities have discovered the prospects for, as well as the constraints on, agreements on norms that can be anchored in the most readily available points of solidarity between strangers — those vulnerabilities to mental and physical suffering that are shared by human beings everywhere. The recovery of ‘universal history from a cosmopolitan point of view’ can examine the contribution that international societies have made to global civilizing processes that harness such solidarities to restrain the human capacity to cause violent and non-violent harm to distant peoples. It can support the normative project of promoting global civilizing processes that employ unprecedented levels of collective power to reduce the tragic effects of the ambiguities that have accompanied long-term trends towards higher levels of human interconnectedness.
AB - ncreased social power over the millennia has led to remarkable achievements in varied spheres of endeavour while introducing new possibilities for more destructive forms of harm over greater distances. Efforts to create moral frameworks to protect persons from senseless harm have been critical replies to the ambiguities of human interconnectedness. Over the millennia, societies have become entangled in global ‘civilizing processes’ such as the systems of communication that now encompass humanity as a whole, enabling different peoples to become better attuned to each other. Societies of states have immense significance for that long-term development. They have been arenas in which independent communities have discovered the prospects for, as well as the constraints on, agreements on norms that can be anchored in the most readily available points of solidarity between strangers — those vulnerabilities to mental and physical suffering that are shared by human beings everywhere. The recovery of ‘universal history from a cosmopolitan point of view’ can examine the contribution that international societies have made to global civilizing processes that harness such solidarities to restrain the human capacity to cause violent and non-violent harm to distant peoples. It can support the normative project of promoting global civilizing processes that employ unprecedented levels of collective power to reduce the tragic effects of the ambiguities that have accompanied long-term trends towards higher levels of human interconnectedness.
KW - economic interdependence
KW - historical sociology
KW - international history
KW - International Relations
KW - society of states
UR - http://hdl.handle.net/2160/8631
U2 - 10.1177/1354066109350796
DO - 10.1177/1354066109350796
M3 - Article
SN - 1460-3713
VL - 16
SP - 155
EP - 178
JO - European Journal of International Relations
JF - European Journal of International Relations
IS - 2
ER -