The involvement of non-state actors in world politics can hardly be characterised as novel, but intensifying economic and social exchange and the emergence of new modes of international governance have given them much greater visibility and, many would argue, a more central role. Non-state Actors in World Politics offers analyses of a diverse range of economic, social, legal (and illegal), old and new actors, such as the Catholic Church, trade unions, diasporas, religious movements, transnational corporations and organised crime.

Since they were pioneered in the 1970s by Robert Keohane and others, the broad range of neoliberal institutionalist theories of international relations have grown in importance. In an increasingly globalized world, the realist and neorealist focus on states, military power, conflict, and anarchy has more and more given way to a recognition of the importance of nonstate actors, nonmilitary forms of power, interdependence, international institutions, and cooperation. Drawing together a group of leading international relations theorists, this book explores the frontiers of new research on the role of such forces in world politics. The topics explored in these chapters include the uneven role of peacekeepers in civil wars, the success of human rights treaties in promoting women's rights, the disproportionate power of developing countries in international environmental policy negotiations, and the prospects for Asian regional cooperation. While all of the chapters demonstrate the empirical and theoretical vitality of liberal and institutionalist theories, they also highlight weaknesses that should drive future research and influence the reform of foreign policy and international organizations. In addition to the editors, the contributors are Vinod Aggarawal, Jonathan Aronson, Elizabeth DeSombre, Page Fortna, Michael Gilligan, Lisa Martin, Timothy McKeown, Ronald Mitchell, Layna Mosley, Beth Simmons, Randall Stone, and Ann Tickner.

One of the most notable trends in the study of international relations is the resurgence of interest in international organizations, particularly those outside the United Nations. Regional international governmental organizations, multinational corporations, international labor unions, and transnational ethnic groups have become increasingly salient actors in world politics. OPEC, NATO, EEC, and PLO, for example, are all widely understood acronyms, and even a casual review of the crises in Iran and Afghanistan reveals the pervasive involvement of NATO, the European Community, the Islamic Conference, the International Olympic Committee, and more than one hundred other international governmental and nongovernmental organizations. Although international organizations are not likely to replace nation-states as the primary actors in world politics, their growing involvement in global political and economic issues challenges the assumptions of the traditionalists' state-centric model, as well as those whose interests begin and end with the United Nations. This book goes beyond the traditional UN-focused studies of nonstate actors to provide students with a comprehensive analytical survey of the many other organizations that help shape today's events. A common framework is used to examine what each nonstate actor does, how it organizes to achieve its ends, and how it makes multilateral/international decisions. The degree of integration in each nonstate actor is evaluated.

This analysis of 'globalised' standard-setting processes draws together insights from law, political sciences, sociology and social anthropology to assess the authority and accountability of non-state actors and the legitimacy and effectiveness of the processes. The essays offer new understandings of current governance problems, including environmental and financial standards, rules for military contractors and complex public-private partnerships, such as those intended to protect critical information infrastructure. The contributions also evaluate multi-stakeholder initiatives (such as the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative), and discuss the constitution of public norms in stateless areas. A synopsis of the latest results of the World Governance Indicator, arguably one of the most important surveys in the area today, is included.

The human rights of communities in many resource-rich, weak governance States are adversely affected, not only by the acts of States and their agents, but also by powerful non-State actors. Contemporary phenomena such as globalisation, privatisation and the proliferation of internal armed conflict have all contributed to the increasing public influence of these entities and the correlative decline in State power. This book responds to the persistent challenges stemming from non-State actors linked to extractive industries. In light of the intersecting roles of multinational enterprises and non-State armed groups in this context, these actors are adopted as the primary analytical vehicles. The operations of these entities highlight the practical flaws of existing accountability regimes and permit an exploration of the theoretical challenges that preclude their direct legal regulation at the international level. Drawing insights from discursive democracy, compliance theories and the Pure Theory of Law, the book establishes a conceptual foundation for the creation of binding international obligations addressing non-State actors. Responding to the recent calls for a binding business and human rights treaty at the UN Human Rights Council, and the growing influence of armed non-State actors, the book makes a timely contribution to debates surrounding the direction of future developments in the field of international human rights law.

The role and position of non-state actors in international law is the subject of a long-standing and intensive scholarly debate. This book explores the participation of this new category of actors in an international legal system that has historically been dominated by states. It explores the most important issues, actors and theoretical approaches with respect to these new participants in international law. It provides the reader with a comprehensive and state-of-the-art overview of the most important legal and political developments and perspectives. Relevant non-state actors discussed in this volume include, in particular, international governmental organisations, international non-governmental organisations, multinational companies, investors and armed opposition groups. Their legal position is considered in relation to specific issue-areas, such as humanitarian law, human rights, the use of force and international responsibility. The main legal theories on non-state actors' position in international law – neo-positivism, the policy-oriented approach and transnational law – are covered at the beginning of the book, and the essential political science perspectives – on non-state actors' role in international politics and globalisation, as well as their soft power – are presented at the end.

How legitimate are outcomes, outputs and impacts of global environmental regimes? Can non-state actors contribute to improve the output- and input-oriented legitimacy of global environmental governance? Helmut Breitmeier responds to these questions, balancing the volume with both theoretical and empirical chapters.

Non-state actors have always been treated with ambivalence in the works of international law. While their empirical existence is widely acknowledged and their impact and influence uncontested, non-state actors are still not in the centre of international legal research. The idea that non-state actors are not law-makers, however, stands in sharp contrast with the growing notion of non-state actors as law-takers. This book examines the position of non-state actors in international law as law-makers and law-takers and questions whether these different positions can or should be separated from each other. Each contribution reveals both the political and normative aspects of the question as well as the positivistic possibilities and constraints to accommodate non-state actors as law-takers and law-makers in the contemporary international legal system. Altogether, each expert reveals that the position of non-state actors in international law is not a fixed one but changes with the functional and theoretical perspectives of the observer. Non-State Actor Dynamics in International Law is a welcomed addition to an under researched field of legal study. An indispensable read to scholars and policy makers wishing to gain new insights into general discourse on non-state actors in international law and the process of norm formation in the international realm.

This book provides a detailed survey and analysis of US–Kurdish relations and their interaction with domestic, regional and global politics. Using the Kurdish issue to explore the nature of the engagement between international powers and weaker non-state entities, the author analyses the existence of an interactive US relationship with the Kurds of Iraq. Drawing on governmental archives and interviews with political figures both in Northern Iraq and the United States, the author places the case study within a broader International Relations context. The conceptual framework centres on the inter-relations between actors (both state and non-state) and structures of material and ideational kinds, while the detailed survey and analysis of US–Kurdish relations, in their interaction with domestic, regional and global politics, forms the empirical core of the study. Stressing the intertwining of domestic and foreign policy as part of the same set of dynamics, the case study explains the emergence of the interactive and institutionalized US relationship with the Kurds of Iraq that has brought about the formation, within an Iraqi framework, of an undeclared US official Kurdish policy in the post-Saddam era. Filling a gap in the literature on US–Kurdish relations as well as the broader topic of International Relations, this book will be of great interest to those in the areas of International Relations, Middle Eastern and Kurdish Politics.

Meant primarily for students studying international relations, aspirants of civil services, International Relations Today: Concepts And Applications captures the drastic changes in international relations after the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War in 1991. It also examines the rise of China as a major military and economic power, and the potential of Russia, India and Germany as tomorrow's big powers. It will also be useful for those interested in the discipline.