A masterful study of the rise and evolution of institutional restraints on power in world politics. Looking back at the emergence of courts, parliaments, and bureaucracies in early modern Europe and subsequent efforts by nation-states to build global assemblies and organizations, Grigorescu illuminates the complex and often surprising parallels between domestic and international efforts to circumscribe and limit the concentration of power. A smart and original contribution to our understanding of the limits and possibilities of institutional controls on power.
G. John Ikenberry, Albert G. Milbank Professor of Politics and International Affairs, Princeton University
Do you see international and domestic politics as following fundamentally distinct logics? Think again. In this masterly study, Alexandru Grigorescu marshals an impressive array of evidence and insights to demonstrate that political life within and between countries is more similar than commonly thought, when we take a broader historical perspective. Strikingly, it is not just that the pursuit of power features in both domains-it is the development of institutions for restraining power that emerges as central unifying theme in the long run. After reading this book it is difficult not to look at global politics in a different light.
Mathias Koenig-Archibugi, Associate Professor of Global Politics, The London School of Economics and Political Science
This is a very important book that makes a major contribution to IR theory. It offers a coherent and empirically supported justification for the 'optimism' about international institutions. By shifting back more to some of the Lockean rather than Kantian arguments about how institutions that constrain power can and do arise, Grigorescu makes sense of the real consequences of international law and courts, assemblies, and bureaucracies, that many IR scholars simply ignore either because their theories cannot account for them or because, guided by such limited theories, they have never looked closely at what modern international institutions actually do.
Craig N. Murphy, Betty Freyhof Johnson '44 Professor Emeritus of Political Science, Wellesley College
In Restraining Power through Institutions Grigorescu goes straight at some of the most fundamental questions on international politics - how do institutions constrain the power of governments, how do small and medium states fit into a world of great powers, and how has world politics changed over the past centuries? He offers a strikingly novel account of world politics by tracing how institutional constraints arise around concentrations of power. Tracing the work of constraints on power, in theory and in practice, Grigorescu deftly combines IR theory with history, domestic politics with the international, and past with present, into an engaging take on fundamental issues of the discipline.
Ian Hurd, Professor of Political Science, Northwestern University
Restraining Power through Institutions offers a major new argument regarding international order-namely, that the causal logics that explain the development of important domestic institutional restraints on power also explain the development of international institutional restraints. Although the two levels are at different stages of development, their common logic of institutional consolidation is carefully traced through Grigorescu's historical analysis. This is a highly ambitious work with a bold argument and an encompassing scope. It will surely be an important contribution to ongoing debates about the development of international institutions.
Lora Anne Viola, Professor for North American Foreign Policy, Freie Universität Berlin
A book with stupendous scope and a bold argument. It makes masterful use of large complementary literatures that span political theory, comparative politics, and especially international relations, all while capturing national and international developments in legal, parliamentary, and bureaucratic institutions across a millennium.
Orfeo Fioretos, International Politics Review
An important contribution to the literature on international institutions... Grigorescu's outstanding analysis presents new avenues for research.
Theresa Squatrito, International Politics Review