Constructing Global Order: Agency and Change in World.

• Author: Acharya, Amitav

The number of academic papers criticizing the discipline of international relations (IR) for neglecting states and societies outside the core Western countries in the establishment, consolidation, and maintenance of international systems is steadily increasing. (1) However, these texts focus considerably more on the marginalization of the non-Western world than on identifying its positive agency. Constructing Global Order: Agency and Change in World Politics (2) differs from these texts in that it focuses on the role of non-Western states, particularly postcolonial ones, in legitimizing and transforming the US-led Western international system into a genuinely global order. In this context, Amitav Acharya's book considers the pluralization of agency in the global order to be important for fostering and managing such transition and change.

Amitav Acharya, professor of International Relations at Washington University, argues that a truly global order would be impossible or incomplete without the consent and participation of actors other than the core group of Western countries, particularly the postcolonial states. Normative agencies of international and global systems, contrary to what socialization theory argues, include not just the powerful states, but also weak/small ones with functions that go beyond a passive acceptance of Western ideas and values. While powerful Western states constructed the postwar system, newly independent states, particularly those in the Global South, were not passive, but active participants. These states challenged many of the postwar global order's leading ideas, norms, and institutions. This book makes the case that these challenges significantly contributed to the expansion and reinterpretation of the norms of sovereignty and security.

Acharya's book is divided into seven parts. The first section theorizes both the agency of world orders (normative) and the process of norm dissemination. The main argument is that norm agencies involve not just powerful states, but also small ones, and that norm formulation is a matter of ongoing contestation and circulation. Acharya refers to historical incidents in the remaining chapters to support his arguments. He highlights the active involvement of non-Western states, notably in Asia, Latin America, Africa, and the Middle East, in localizing Westphalian norms of sovereignty and security, while establishing new subsidiary norms of non-intervention and positive security.

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