From Empire to Community A Ne Approach to International Relations [Hardcover]

Whether one favors the U.S. global projection of force or is horrified by it, the question stands - where do we go from here? What ought to be the new global architecture? Amitai Etzioni follows a third way, drawing on both neoconservative and liberal ideas, in this bold new look at international relations. He argues that a clash of civilizations can be avoided and that the new world order need not look like America. Eastern values, including spirituality and moderate Islam, have a legitimate place in the evolving global public philosophy.
Nation-states, Etzioni argues, can no longer attend to rising transnational problems, from SARS to trade in sex slaves to cybercrime. Global civil society does help, but without some kind of global authority, transnational problems will overwhelm us. The building blocks of this new order can be found in the war against terrorism, multilateral attempts at deproliferation, humanitarian interventions and new supranational institutions (e.g., the governance of the Internet). Basic safety, human rights, and global social issues, such as environmental protection, are best solved cooperatively, and Etzioni explores ways of creating global authorities robust enough to handle these issues as he outlines the journey from empire to community.

Part I: The Emerging Global Normative Synthesis *Basic Contours * Specific Elements of the Synthesis * Containing Capitalism * Moral Dialogues * Implications for American (and Western) Foreign Policy *Part II: A New Safety Architecture *The War Against Terrorism and Saddam's Iraq: Contrasting Designs* Hobbesian Versus Lockean Global Agendas * Curtailing National Sovereignty: For What? *Part III: Beyond Global Safety* The Old System Is Overloaded * Global Civil Society: Its Scope and Limitations * New Global Authorities * Supranational Bodies * A Global GovernmentandCommunity?

Amitai Etzioni is the founder and director of the Communitarian Network and Unilƒ°