The Purpose of Intervention : Changing Beliefs About the Use of Force Martha, Finnemore

The author uses one type of force, military intervention, as a window onto the shifting character of international society. She examines the changes, over the past four hundred years, in why countries intervene militarily as well as in how they have intervened. It is not the fact of intervention that has altered, she says, but rather the reasons for and meaning behind intervention - the conventional understanding of the purposes for which states can and should use force. The author looks at three types of intervention: collecting debts, addressing humanitarian crises, and acting against states perceived as threats to international peace. In all three, author finds that intervention that is now considered obvious was vigorously contested or even rejected by people in earlier periods for well-articulated and logical reasons. A broad historical perspective allows her to explicate long-term trends: the steady erosion of force's normative value of international politics, the growing influence of equality norms in many aspects of global political life, and the increasing importance of law in intervention practices.