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Intervention and the ordering of the modern world

The original research contribution of ‘intervention and the ordering of the modern world’ is in the development of the conceptual and historical understanding of intervention and its role or function in the international system. To this end the piece builds upon an earlier generation of English School scholarship through the introduction of historical sociological insights into the nature of the international system. It shows the distinctiveness of intervention as a specific modality of coercion which is particularly suited to the ordering and re-ordering of the tensions that arise between territoriality and transnationalism.

This contextualisation of the practice of intervention helps to explain its longevity (whilst such cognate practices as industrial inter-state warfare and formal colonial empire have withered); to appreciate the variation in intervention regimes over time; and to better understand the changing nature and problems of intervention in the present age. Within the wider literature on intervention the piece marks a counter-balance to the ‘presentist’, liberal normative focus of much contemporary research on the topic.

The ideas presented in this piece formed the basis of a successful bid for ESRC seminar series funding (RES-451-26-0667) and provided the framework within which participants developed their own contributions. The project was then successful in open competition for the award of a special issue of the Review of International Studies.