Intervention

Intervention is a topic of great normative controversy within the field of international/global political theory. Conceptually, intervention pre-supposes a society of distinct units with separate spheres of agency, authority, and responsibility. Intervention paradigmatically entails an external agent acting within the preserved domain of another agent or unit. Conventionally in the study and practice of world politics, intervention as a concept refers to coercive acts by states that violate or displace the sovereignty—that is, the political independence or territorial integrity—of another state. This definition of the concept is generally favored by theorists of the English School or “international society” tradition, but is disputed by international “realists,” who typically adopt a narrower conception, and cosmopolitan theorists, who endorse a more expansive account that goes beyond a state-centric ...