Theory and practice of international relations in the new millennium could well be seen as a confluence of different streams of thought and action that have evolved in this context since the creation of modern state system in the 17 century. Beginning with the Westpahalian system established in 1648, and continuing in the twentieth century with the onset of Cold War, emergence of the Third World, spread of globalization, and the rise of civil society, the multi-level structure of international relations today is too complex to be understood by shutting ourselves up in any one or the other school of thought. Polarisation in thought between the "economic" and "political", between the "domestic" and the "international", or even between "Realism" and "Liberalism", seems artificial, and divorced from reality. This book explores international relations with a broader concept of globalised states as they have developed over the last four centuries, more specifically during the last half-century. The traditional pattern, which automatically took the sovereign state and state-systems as the starting point on investigation, is no longer sufficient for a realistic understanding of international relations. The old models of sovereignty and democracy are not capable of providing good governance in a globalizing world. The campaigns of global society and the bottom-up pressure of citizen activism have become essential to both theory the practice of international relations. The state of present day international relations is very different therefore from the state of the discipline in the mid-to-late twentieth century. In practice, of course, the field will continue to exhibit competition between realists, liberals and new, critical theorists. However, it will also be important to develop international relations as a forum for widest possible global social science. Global state theory can offer what the new international relations has so far failed to achieve, not simply to criticise realism but to challenge it on its own ground. Here is a theoretical agenda, as well as a new context in which to link theory to practice.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR Sunil Sondhi
Sunil Sondhi is Reader in Political Science in the University of Delhi. After completing his doctoral research from the University of Delhi, Sunil Sondhi did post-doctoral research at the George Washington University, USA, and University of Toronto, Canada. during his distinguished academic career spanning more than two decades Sunil Sondhi has bagged many international research awards. These include: Harry S. Truman Institute Research Award (1987); Johen F. Kennedy Foundatiion Research Award (1989); Olive I. Reddick Award (1990); J. William Fulbright Fellowship (1992); Gerald R. Ford Foundatiion Research Award (1993); Rockefeller University Research Award (1994); and Salzburg Program Fellowship (1995). He was awarded the shastri Indo-Canadian Fellowship twice, in 1995 and 1999. In the year 2000, Sunil Sondhi was awarded the prestigious Canada Asia-Pacific Award by the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, Government of Canada, for research on Governance and Development in South Asia. He is the first Indian scholar to be honoured with this award. In the same Year, he was also awarded the Leadership Excellence Award by the American Biographical Institute. In 2003, Dr, Sondhi was awarded the Shastri Applied Reserach Porject Award by the Canadian International Development Agnecy, for research on Environmental Management. Sunil Sondhi has pubished extensively in Scholarly journals on International relations and organization, and has more than one hunred research paprs and articles to his credit. He has presented several research papers at interntaional conferences held in the US, UK, Canada, France, germany, Austria, Sweden, and New Zealand. His has published six books: Science Technology and India's Foreign Policy (1994); United Nationa in a Changing Woprld (1998); Global Terror (2001); Corruiption: The Asian Experience (2002); Global State (2002); and Canada: Today and Tommorrow (Co-Editor) (2003). Dr. Sondhi has been a Trustee of Indian Association of American trustee of Indian Association of American Studies, and is now the Secretary-General of Fulbright alumni Association.
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