Constitutionalizing Globalization: The Postmodern Revival of Confederal Arrangements

Studies of the emergence and function of international organizations and more informal international regimes are assuming a central place in the discipline of international relations. While this concern appeared at least as early as the work of Hugo Grotius (1583-1642), several recent books have significantly advanced this stream of study. Michael Walzer's Just and Unjust Wars (1992), for instance, employs the notion of a "domestic analogy" to investigate whether a parallel relationship exists between politics within a state, on one hand, and reaching normative consensus among actors within the international system, on the other.' R. B. J. Walker's Inside/Outside (1993) has challenged the validity of theoretical distinctions between politics within and beyond state borders, arguing that the long-understood theoretical distinction between domestic and international politics is an aspect of world politics and not an explanation of them. Finally, Paul Wapner's Environmental Activism and World Civic Politics (1996) has argued for the existence of a global civil society which, along with states, serves to "define and shape [global] public affairs."