Review by Choice Review
The European Union takes longer to respond to crises than other regional organizations. Why? Hardt argues that the delay is due to the EU's formal institutional culture. The three other organizations considered--African Union, Organization of American States, and Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe--tend to foster interpersonal relations among their diplomats, thereby creating a more informal culture and speeding up decision making in times of crisis. The interests of the member states do matter, but the informal relations and favorable norms can moderate them when decisions must be arrived at quickly. Understanding an organization's informal culture, however, is no easy task. Hardt relies on personal interviews of 50 ambassadors and diplomats (conducted in various capitals) and uses the resulting data to discern the importance of informal institutional factors in explaining variations in organizational efficiency (defined as speed of response). The findings described in the book challenge the realist view of international relations. Hardt makes the case that humans, even diplomats, are social creatures, and interpersonal dynamics, rather than national interest alone, can influence the timeliness of a multinational response to crisis. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty. --Sanjay Paul, Elizabethtown College
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
