Representants and International Orders

Different units of international politics, such as states or the church, cannot be present in their entirety during international interactions. Political rule needs to be represented for international actors to coordinate their activities. Representants (i.e. maps, GDP, buildings, and diplomatic and warfare practices) establish collective understandings about the nature of authority and its configuration. Whilst representants are not exact replica, they highlight and omit certain features from the units they stand in for. In these inclusions and exclusions lies representants' irreducible effect. This book studies how representants define the units of the international system and position them in relation to each other, thereby generating an international order. When existing representants change, the international order changes because the units are defined differently and stand in different relations to each other. Power is therefore defined differently. Spanning centuries of European history, Alena Drieschova traces the struggles between actors over these representations.

Author: Alena Drieschova
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 05/08/2025
Pages: 336
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 1.00lbs
Size: 9.00h x 6.00w x 0.70d
ISBN13: 9781009575843
ISBN10: 1009575848
BISAC Categories:
- Political Science | International Relations | General