The persistence of intervention: changing circumstances, forms and perspectives

ABSTRACT

Situating the rise of non-Western states in the context of a pluralistic and heterogenous modernity is helpful for recognising changes in the techniques, rationales and, to an extent, the conceptual foundations of the practice of intervention. Intervention is both controversial and difficult. Non-Western states are developing fresh strategies through which intervention is but part of a wider complex of policy instruments which help to cultivate the conditions for intervention to be effective, if it needs to be used at all. Differences in the experience of modernity on the part of Western and non-Western states will also prove significant for the practice of intervention. There is the practical issue of the disjuncture between existing sovereign state borders and the boundaries of political community perceived in ethnic or religious terms. This is, however, itself a reflection of competing authority claims that contain within them different spatialities of the inside/outside, or political domains, that intervention stands to transgress.

KEYWORDS:

• Intervention
• modernity
• world society

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank participants in the EISA panel in Prague, 2018 and, in particular, the conveners, Florian Kühn and Mandy Turner, for insightful comments on an earlier draft of this piece.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Bull, Preface to Intervention in World Politics, iv.

2. Reus-Smit, ‘The Concept of Intervention’.

3. See for example Oppenheim, International Law, 430; Tilemma, ‘Foreign Overt Military Intervention’, 180–181.

4. See Turner, ‘“Aid Intervention” in the OPT’; and Forough, ‘Intervention with Chinese Characteristics’.

5. Charbonneau, ‘Intervention as Counter-Insurgency’. See also Hameiri, Regulating Statehood; Duffield, Development, Security and Unending War; Turner, ‘Securing and Stabilising’.

6. Cunliffe, ‘Framing Intervention’.

7. Smith, The Utility of Force; Angstrom, ‘Exploring the Utility of Armed Force’.

8. Williams, ‘Development, Intervention and International Order’, 1216.

9. Ziadah, ‘Importance of the Saudi-UAE Alliance’.

10. Heathershaw and Owen, ‘Authoritarian Conflict Management’.

11. Forough, ‘Intervention with Chinese Characteristics’.

12. Kühn, ‘Universal Patterns of Intervention’.

13. Mac Ginty, ‘Post-Legitimacy and Post-Legitimation’.

14. See Jung, ‘The Political Sociology of World Society’.

15. Henry, ‘Keeping the Peace’.

16. Gallagher and Robinson, ‘The Imperialism of Free Trade’.

17. Mill, ‘A Few Words on Non-Intervention’; Mayall, Nationalism and International Society.

18. Finnemore, The Purpose of Intervention.

19. Westad, The Global Cold War.

20. Jung, ‘The Political Sociology of World Society’, 456.

21. See Lawson et al., ‘Intervention and the Ordering’.

22. See International Affairs, Special Issue on ‘Contentious Borders’.

23. Hoffmann, ‘Neo-Ottomanism’.

24. Cetinoglu, ‘“New” Humanitarianisms’.

25. See Arrighi, The Long Twentieth Century, 385–386; and Arrighi, Adam Smith in Beijing.

26. Forough, ‘Intervention with Chinese Characteristics’.

27. Wight, Power Politics, 158.

28. Feng, ‘China Extends Uighur Crackdown’.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

John MacMillan

John MacMillan has an interest in the politics of historical and contemporary interventions undertaken by democracies. He has published in journals including International Theory, Review of International Studies, Journal of Peace Research and Diplomacy and Statecraft.