Description
The proposed paper is a draft of my concluding chapter for a book manuscript on the evolution of international institutional restraints on power. I first summarize the patterns in the emergence and changes over more than a century in international courts (such as the Permanent Court of Arbitration, International Court of Justice, and International Criminal Court), international assemblies (such as the League Assembly, UN General Assembly and European Parliament), and international secretariats (such as those in the Central Commission for the Navigation of the Rhine, League of Nations, and World Bank). I draw three main conclusions listed in order from lowest to highest level of generalization: 1) developments involving international institutional restraints mirror those of domestic institutional restraints in medieval European states; 2) the three phases in the evolution of both domestic and international institutional restraints (emergence, change, and consolidation) can best be explained through institutionalist approaches (rational choice, sociological, and historical, respectively); 3) the evolution of institutional restraints in both realms is primarily driven by fear of concentrated power that can best be described through a “Lockean” version of liberalism as applied to IR. This Lockean strand of liberalism complements existing “Kantian” and “Rawlsian” forms of liberalism in IR.
