Introduction

Abstract

Today there is a growing consensus that morality is returning to the study and practice of international relations. This optimism is grounded in the belief that the nation-state, which long held a central position in the international order, has been increasingly side-lined by new international actors, orientated around more universalist beliefs and motivations. In particular, the world’s states are held to be squeezed from ‘above’ by institutional frameworks, understood to presage the growth of new forms of global governance, and from ‘below’ by a myriad of non-state actors and networks, which operate on both a domestic and an international level. The boundaries of sovereignty, once seen to clearly demarcate a geo-political map of the world, now seem to be much more ‘fuzzy’ at the edges and to represent little to those seeking to understand the mechanisms shaping the international order in the 21^st century. Instead of state interests being the determining factor in world affairs, it appears the debate is increasingly opening out to encompass more and more voices. At every level it seems new approaches are being taken to decision-making and at the heart of this process of change has appeared a new actor, an actor whose precise shape and contours may be indeterminate and disputed, but whose presence is not: global civil society.