Governing the World: Great Powers and the Dilemmas of Inclusion and Exclusion—1815, 1919, 1945, and Today

Over the last two hundred years, the world’s great powers have made repeated efforts to build order and establish rules and institutions to manage their relations. These order building moments have tended to come after major wars—the Napoleonic Wars, the world wars, and the Cold War. At issue in each of these great conflicts was the governance of the international system. Allied summits, peace conferences, and settlement agreements followed. Victorious states were given opportunities to organise and lead the system. Institutions, rules, and diplomatic arrangements were put in place to manage the peace. Along the way, the chaos of violence was turned into a semblance of order.