Book review of Martha Finnemore, The Purpose of Intervention, Changing Beliefs about the Use of Force

Book review of Martha Finnemore, The Purpose of Intervention, Changing Beliefs about the Use of Force, Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2004. The main purpose of this book, according to Nolte, is to persuade her American-style political scientist colleagues to adopt broader and more constructivist approaches for the interpretation of changes in states’ behaviour with respect to military interventions. ‘Her general claim is that the so-called realist or neo-realist schools, by identifying certain aspects of material ‘power’, ‘interests’, and ‘systems’ as the determining factors for military intervention, overlook or underestimate softer factors, such as international institutions and law, professions and epistemic communities, social movements, persuasions and communicative action, ‘affective mechanisms such as liking and empathy’, and finally ‘social influence plus internalization’.’ While this approach is not entirely new, according to Nolte, Finnemore undertakes to demonstrate her point by analysing three types of military intervention in their historical development: interventions to collect debts, humanitarian interventions, and interventions for the purpose of preserving international order.’

Georg Nolte, Book review of The purpose of Intervention, Changing beliefs about the use of force, Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2004 in The European Journal of International Law Vol. 16 no. 3 (2005), p. 167-169

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The Purpose of Intervention