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When and why do powerful countries seek to enact major changes to international order, the broad set of rules that condition behavior in world politics? This question is particularly important today, as Donald Trump's apparent disregard for the liberal international order and uncertainty over what China might seek to replace it with mean that queries about great power motives vis-à-vis order will remain at the forefront of debates over the future of world politics. In seeking to explain this phenomenon, prior studies have focused on the consensus- driven and inclusive origins of international orders. By contrast, I argue in this book that the propelling motivation for great power order building at important historical junctures has most often been exclusionary, centered around combatting other actors rather than cooperatively engaging with them. My core contention is that dominant actors pursue fundamental changes to order only when they perceive a major new threat on the horizon, a threat to their security or to their enduring primacy. When these actors seek to enact fundamentally new order principles, they do so for the purpose of targeting this perceived threat, be it another powerful state, a contrary alliance or a foreboding ideological movement. The goal of order building, then, is weakening, opposing and above all excluding that threatening entity from amassing further influence in world politics. Far from falling outside the bounds of traditional statecraft, order building is, to paraphrase Clausewitz, the continuation of power politics by other means.

When and why do powerful countries seek to enact major changes to international order, the broad set of rules that guide behavior in world politics? This question is particularly important today given the Trump administration's clear disregard for the reigning liberal international order in the United States. Across the globe, there is also uncertainty over what China might seek to replace that order with as it continues to amass power and influence. Together, these developments mean that what motivates great powers to shape and change order will remain at the forefront of debates over the future of world politics. The goal of foundational rule writing in international relations, then, is blocking that threatening entity from amassing further influence, a motive Lascurettes illustrates at work across more than three hundred years of history.

"This Perspective describes the key principles of the Concert of Europe, analyzes its effects, and draws implications for future U.S. policy toward the international order. The Concert was a system of informal rules that were both recognized and practiced between the great powers of Europe beginning in 1814, after the French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars. In the Concert's early years, regular consultation among these actors and a norm against unilateral attempts at aggrandizement on the continent fostered great-power peace and territorial stability in Europe. U.S. policymakers can learn from the strengths of the Concert system, which included accepting the realities of unequal power between its members and developing flexible processes for resolving disputes. The Concert's stabilizing influence on great-power relations diminished by the outbreak of the Crimean War in 1853, partly because of disagreements about how to respond to revolutionary movements within states throughout Europe. As the United States considers future policies toward the post-World War II, liberal international order, it should develop agreed upon processes for resolving deep disagreements before they become insurmountable."--Publisher's description

Introduction : risks of great power conflict in the 21st century / Harald Müller, Carsten Rauch and Iris Wurm -- The concert of Europe and international security governance : how did it operate, what did it accomplish, what were its shortcomings, what can we learn? / Matthias Schulz -- Concerts as a mode of ordering in world politics : an ideal type approach / Adam Humphreys -- The dark side of the European concert of powers : caveats to be taken into account for successfully managing peace / Andreas Fahrmeir -- The dangers of great power connivance / Bertrand Badie -- The club practices of concert diplomacy : the paradox and effects of selective cooperation with global objectives / Mélanie Albaret and Delphine Lagrange -- The concert and existing organizations and legal structures at the global level / Stefan Kadelbach -- The normative foundations for a new global concert in an age of western retrenchment / Kyle Lascurettes and Sara B. Moller -- The concert of powers and competing government models / Hans-Joachim Spanger -- Just a concert or a just concert : the role of justice and fairness considerations / Harald Müller, Daniel Müller and Carsten Rauch -- The exclusion problem and the need for legitimacy / Konstanze Jüngling and Siddharth Mallavarapu -- Ownership matters in a 21st century concert of powers / Pang Zhongying and Mao Weizhun -- Between informality and formality : concert operations in a densely institutionalized world / Kanti Bajpai and Harald Müller -- Concert of concerts : the geopolitical role of regional inter-state organizations / Alexander Nikitin and Oleg Demidov -- Great power accommodation, nuclear weapons and concerts of power / Nicola Leveringhaus and Andrew Hurrell -- Managing power transitions with a concert of powers / Harald Müller and Carsten Rauch