Martin Shaw/Global Society and International Relations
Preface to the online edition, 2000
Global Society and International Relations is a collection of essays on the interfaces of sociology and international relations, on the one hand, and state theory and global theory, on the other. The essays were written between 1988 and 1994, and more than half a decade later the debate and my ideas have moved on.
The early 1990s was of course a period of great upheaval, and some of the chapters in the book were written on its cusp. Moreover, as I explain in the first chapter of my forthcoming book, Theory of the Global State, the prominence of 'global' (and especially globalization) thinking corresponds to a particular stage of the historical change of our times and the development of 'globality' (a concept, indeed, that is not advanced in the original text).
In the first chapter of Global Society and International Relations I largely define 'global society' in terms of de facto social interconnectedness; in the second chapter, I largely accept the definition of the contemporary state as the 'nation-state' and 'international system', although later in the book I do reflect on the internationalization of the state. Today, however, I would argue beyond these positions, in the following ways:
These ideas are developed in Theory of the Global State and other writings on globality.
Global Society and International Relations, Copyright ©Martin Shaw 2000. Chapters are available to download for personal study only. Any unauthorised reproduction, electronic or printed, is an infringement of copyright.