One Response

1. John Maszka

   July 12th, 2008 at 6:58 pm

   1

   I’m 100% in agreement with your cause. I believe it’s wrong to put minors to death. I also believe the death penalty in the US should be done away with.

   We need to understand, however, that Iran has its own culture and we need to respect its sovereignty. The young people of Iran will change their own society in the due course of time. The last thing we should do is impose our values upon another state (outside of clear cases of genocide …etc)..

   Constructive Sovereignty is an emerging international relations theory intended to address globalization’s increasing onslaught against state sovereignty.

   The theory maintains that states are not the primary actors, their constituents are. Therefore, their preferences are not fixed. Since states merely represent the preferences of their constituents, they will only adhere to and ultimately embed those international norms that their respective constituencies will accept.

   Rather than push for larger and more powerful international organizations that will impose global norms from the outside in, the theory of Constructive Sovereignty posits that ultimately change must come from the inside out. That is to say, from each state’s own constituency.

   As each state’s constituents become more and more international, they will become more receptive to international norms and they will voice their acceptance of these norms both politically and (especially) as consumers.

   It is therefore a central pillar of the theory that privatization is not only the driving force behind globalization, but also that private enterprise possesses the incentive to implement those international norms reflected in the preferences of consumers (profit).

   Private enterprise is also the primary consumer of proprietary data used to measure the preferences of consumers, and as such remains the most up-to-date source of changing consumer preferences.

   As private enterprise meets the increasingly international demands of consumers, it will itself become more international in scope. The cycle is self-perpetuating.

   In this way international norms are embedded and viewed with legitimacy by each state’s constituency, while state sovereignty is maintained and respected.