Intervention before Interventionism: A Global Genealogy

The era of liberal interventionism is over, and the prevailing international discourse is once again about defending state borders and putting up walls. This broad re-assertion of sovereignty and non-intervention---often considered the normative foundation of the BRICS countries, of the Non-Aligned Movement, of Bandung, of the

Table of Contents:
Part One: Theory 1: Re-constituting intervention: Contestation and the Princeton Conference Part Two: Practice 2: Dictatorial intervention and the UN Charter 3: Anti-colonial intervention and the Bandung Spirit 4: 'Friendly' intervention and the Special Committee 5: Emancipatory intervention and the New International Orders 6: Liberal intervention and the Responsibilities to Protect

About the Author :
Patrick Quinton-Brown is Assistant Professor of International Relations at Singapore Management University. Previously he was Departmental Lecturer in International Relations at Oxford University where he also held a Senior College Lectureship at University College, Oxford.

Review :
It remains worthwhile to try to prevent more wars like the one that took place in Vietnam, which was certainly one of Rosenau's goals. Although popular stories of intervention seem to remain focused on heroes violating the directive, the seemingly odd debate about the best way to define intervention remains, in fact, pertinent and relevant. There is no trivializing how much Quinton-Brown's impressive research and thinking has augmented the retrieval of the postcolonial agenda in IR. The results are magisterial. It is very much to be hoped that the book creates a new starting-point in this field... ...an essential read for IR students and scholars. Quinton-Brown not only uncovers the history and development of the concept of intervention, but he also brings to the forefront the issues that global South state leaders were negotiating; what visions for global ordering they had; and how they saw their role in the global system, advocating for interdependence between freedom and peace. This is a meticulously researched, and carefully constructed analysis...not simply a diplomatic history but an exploration of meaning making as political practice and political contestation in the constitution of orders. Intervention before Interventionism boldly encourages us to rethink what it means to 'intervene'. Patrick Quinton-Brown analyses the views and practice of non-aligned countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America in the post-1945 period, and his approach reveals that there was a competitive discursive practice around the concept of intervention throughout the Cold War. Intervention before Interventionism: a Global Genealogy by Patrick Quinton-Brown is a much-needed global genealogy of the intervention concept in world politics. This book comes at a critical moment; one in which the (recent) hegemonic meaning of this timeless problematique has come undone. Much ink will be spilled in praising, challenging, and engaging with the divergent strands of Quinton-Brown's argument. Quinton-Brown succeeds in his attempt to foreground the importance of what we now call the Global South to debates about intervention, and by the same token, he succeeds in adding a more post-colonial aspect to the English School.