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Most studies of Islamism have focused on the role of oppositional forces. Increasingly, states are also important Islamist actors. States pursue Islamization not only in reaction to Islamist challenges but also because in Islamism they see the opportunity to address the inherent weaknesses of the postcolonial state structure, and to significantly increase the power and capacity of the state. This trend is most evident in Pakistan and Malaysia where both the weakness of the postcolonial state and the opportunity inherent in Islamization have been greatest. These cases deviate from other models of state formation in the Muslim world, and provide new insights not only into state formation in the Muslim world but also into the study of the role of religion in state expansion in comparative politics.

In the 1980s, Malaysia adopted the policy of state‐led Islamization. The ruling UMNO party co‐opted ABIM, fashioned itself as an Islamically oriented party, and adopted many Islamist ideas. The state created Islamic institutions, and supported Islamic cultural, political, and economic activities. It used Islamization to expand its power and to penetrate the Malay society. The state also embarked on rapid economic growth to address racial tensions. It used its control of Islam to manage Islamic politics and define Islamic values with a view of economic growth and accommodating globalization.

Why did only Malaysia and Pakistan adopt state‐led Islamization as a strategy for expansion of state power? How did this strategy serve their interests? What was the impact of this strategy on these countries and their societies? In the end, Islamization did serve state interests, but at the cost of laws and procedures that were neither viable in the long run nor were they socially beneficial. Furthermore, Islamization strategy ultimately proved untenable as interests of the state and those of Islamist actors began to diverge, especially with the onset of the Asian Financial Crisis, and implementation of IMF reforms.

This chapter examines the original meaning of the Privileges or Immunities Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment in order to determine what stance federal courts should take toward state laws. The original Constitution contained several explicit restrictions on state power. In the early years of the Republic, federal courts actively scrutinized state enactments to ensure they did not violate these expressed prohibitions, especially the Contracts Clause. When it came to legislation not implicating these prohibitions, however, the courts deferred to states in their exercise of their police power. The chapter first considers what the term “privileges or immunities” encompasses before discussing the Supreme Court decision in the so-called Slaughter-House Cases, which set aside the original meaning of the Privileges or Immunities Clause. It then looks at the Due Process Clauses and shows that the due process of law includes judicial review.

This chapter discusses how the argument about the systemic sources of conflict is far more problematic, even in principle, than many people seem prepared to admit. It further argues that there are ways in which systemic forces can play a stabilizing role. The chapter begins by outlining the kind of thinking that lies behind the view that a system based on power is not inherently unstable—or, more precisely, the basis for the view that realist policies, policies that make sense in terms of the basic logic of the system, actually make for a relatively stable international order. It then examines some key arguments on the other side, especially fundamental arguments about the way an anarchic system is supposed to work. The final section looks at policy arguments, and especially at what they can tell us about the fundamental assumptions that lie at the heart of the realist understanding of international politics.

Stalin understood the military and political significance of atomic weapons and directed all available Soviet resources to obtaining this weapon. However, he remained largely a statesman operating on the premises and experience of the pre‐nuclear age. For him, the emergence of atomic weapons made the prospect of a future war more terrifying, but no less likely. America's atomic monopoly in the first phase of the Cold War did not play a substantial role in deterring Stalin. He was determined to defend his spheres of influence and to dispel any sign of possible Soviet weakness in the face of America's atomic saber rattling. Stalin, a genius of state terror, power broking, and war diplomacy, was different from statesmen in the democratic countries, but his outlook on world politics was consistent with the realpolitik of the pre‐nuclear age. He had as much inclination as some of his ’liberal’ Western counterparts to regard nuclear power as a means of augmenting military power and, in larger terms, the power of the state.

In mid‐July, the revision committee turned its attention to the draft's language on the structure of government in Japan's new parliamentary system: the make‐up and powers of the Diet, the “highest organ of state power” (including the House of Representatives and House of Councillors), the executive (cabinet) and the judiciary; and explicit restrictions on the exercise of governmental power by the emperor. Ch. 15 traces the brilliant performance of Kanamori as interpreter and expositor of constitutional language.

The core security concern for the United States, and its allies, consists of the troika of terrorism, failed states, and WMD. This chapter traces the emergence of this contemporary view of the security problem, and argues that this view is perplexing, given the dominant view of power politics and security. None of our models of international politics, including those that emphasize the role of power, can explain why the most powerful country in the international system would be preoccupied with a threat allegedly posed by states so weak that they cannot even project power within their own borders. Nor for that matter can those models explain why the totally powerless would attack the most powerful. By way of an explanation, the chapter delineates the implications of an age of vastly asymmetric power on the strategies of both the weakest and the most powerful.

Despite the centrality of the concept of power to our thinking, international relations scholars still lack robust theories to explain many basic puzzles about the way state power works in the world. Strong states lose small wars, resource-rich states “fail,” resource-poor states may become empires. Understanding the many puzzles surrounding state power and its effects requires us to reexamine basic concepts and assumptions. Three changes in our thinking are particularly important. First, we must broaden our understanding of what power is and how it creates outcomes. Power has many “faces,” and attention to its diverse characteristics can enrich our explanations. Second, we must rethink our assumptions about states and the nature of sovereignty. Both are changing in contemporary politics, and this is changing power’s role. Third, we must reexamine our notions about the contexts in which states exercise power, attending to the normative and institutional factors that so often determine outcomes.

Sovereignty and power are both ubiquitous and highly contested terms in international relations. Sovereignty comes in various forms, and these forms do not necessarily co-vary. Power, too, comes in many forms, and they do not co-vary either. All of which makes an understanding of the reciprocal relationship between sovereignty and power even more taxing. I explore this relationship by zooming in and out of three different scenes of contemporary international relations: the ascent of China as a great power, variations in regionalism, and the evolving nonproliferation regime. I argue that ideal-typical models of political survival (internationalizing, inward looking) provide one important analytical anchor for thinking about these complex relationships. Relying on this common conceptual framework, the three scenes illuminate why domestic models are both a crucial driver of sovereignty compromises and consequential for attaining various forms of power; how the sovereignty bundle is a continuously evolving construct; and why maximizing sovereignty does not necessarily entail maximizing power, while reductions in sovereignty don’t automatically lead to reductions in power.

This chapter presents a general discussion of state constitutional distribution or separation of powers. The federal Constitution does not mandate any particular arrangement of governmental powers in the states. By contrast to rights provisions, the federal Constitution's separation of powers doctrine has not been incorporated into the federal Constitution so as to apply to the states. For this reason federal separation of powers doctrines should be even less persuasive in state courts than federal constitutional rights interpretation. Many states' constitutions, unlike the federal Constitution, contain textual requirements of separation of powers and bans on dual office holding. Further, however, the states' constitutional distribution of powers arrangements differ a good deal from state to state. The chapter therefore describes the importance of a state-specific separation of powers analysis based on that state's specific arrangements. Examples are given where a state has a particularly strong governor or legislature. The chapter distinguishes between functional and formalist separation of powers analysis, and provides an example of state separation of powers approaches to the delegation of legislative authority.

Conventional approaches, which focus on material resources as the basis of power and altering foreign policies as the primary objective of states, are incomplete. Power is reflected not only in the ability to make threats and offer rewards based on material resources (military and economic), but also in the capacity to change the identities, the self-conceptions, of weaker targets. More powerful states may focus not just on changing the foreign policies of their counterparts in other countries but also on state building, altering the domestic authority structures within which these counterparts are embedded. State building will not disappear as a goal of foreign policy because, as a result of the spread of nuclear and biological capability, weaker states pose a threat to the security of the stronger. Changing domestic authority structures in other states, however, remains a formidable challenge better accomplished through bargaining, or voluntary agreement, than through power in any of its multifold manifestations.

Despite its central role in theories of international politics, scholars have an impoverished conception of power. Focusing almost exclusively on material capabilities and coercion, scholars ignore and even actively deny the role of political authority in relations between states. I attempt to demonstrate the importance of authority for world politics by showing how the concept makes coherent previously problematic or incomplete theories of international relations and produces new insights for future research. After distinguishing between authority and coercion as two major forms of power, I show that authority is central to variations in sovereignty, hegemonic orders, the conflict between developed and developing states, and the current debate over failed states and international trusteeship. International relations cannot be explained only by material capabilities and coercion. We need to bring authority “back in” to the study of world politics.

This chapter examines the stages of development of administrative law in Great Britain during the twentieth century, describing the different attitudes towards the exercise of state power and its legal control over the century. It explains that the century began with a concern for procedural justice and a particular concept of the rule of law, and ended with judicial constraints upon both the procedures and the substance of official decisions, justified by constitutional rights.

This chapter considers the status quo—the punishments and rewards used by steward states as part of their foreign policy to advance human rights today. Although they are not the only stewards, the chapter focuses on the United States and the European Union and the ways that they already use their political authority, resources, and reach for human rights promotion. The limits of punishments, such as military intervention and nonmilitary punishments, and rewards are discussed, along with two important lessons about how stewards can be more effective: one concerns localization, and the other is about setting priorities. The chapter argues that a more strategic use of state power has enormous potential to enhance the effectiveness of stewardship.

This chapter examines how engagement with nongovernmental organizations (NGOs)—such as local chapters of multinational human rights organizations and especially homegrown NGOs—can lead to localization. It first explains how localization through NGOs actually leads to legitimacy and the congruence of local with international policies around human rights. It then considers what NGOs actually do and put their operations into perspective and highlights some of the troubles that arise when NGOs play these roles. It also argues why there is value to legitimizing the use of state power (and thus advocacy) in a local context and evaluates practical strategies that foreign stewards can adopt to localize how they wield their power for human rights. The chapter argues that NGOs can directly assist in implementing foreign-backed punishments, rewards, and other forms of diplomacy for human rights promotion, while improving the possibility that those policies resonate with local issues, customs, and practices.

This chapter examines whether a stewardship strategy is good for international law. To date, most discussions of human rights promotion strategies are strongly rooted in the belief that the process must be universal and the rights indivisible. While universalism is attractive because it involves everyone, it is also a liability. It can lead to fraud and defiance, and it obscures the fact that allocating finite resources to alleviate suffering requires choices. The chapter explains how international law and state power can work in tandem to promote and protect human rights. It argues that putting the two together—anchored on a clear strategy of triage and active localization efforts by stewards—can make the aspirations of human rights protection more of a reality.