The Empire of Civil Society:A Critique of the Realist Theory of International Relations

Thirtieth-anniversary edition of a provocative critique of the ‘realist’ theory in international relations, featuring a new afterword for the post–Cold War era

The Empire of Civil Society rejects outright the goal of theorising geopolitical systems in isolation from wider social structures. In a series of case studies – including Classical Greece, Renaissance Italy and the Portuguese and Spanish empires – Justin Rosenberg shows how his historical-materialist analysis is a surer guide to understanding geopolitical systems than the supposedly timeless verities of realism.

Rosenberg demonstrates that the distinctive properties of the sovereign-state system are best understood as corresponding to the framework of capitalist society. In this light, realism emerges as incapable of explaining what it has always insisted is the central feature of the interstate order – the balance of power.

Winner of the 1994 Deutscher Memorial Prize