Non-State Actors in the Middle East: A Challenge for Rationalist Legal Theory

摘要

If the aim of rationalism is to provide a predictive theory of international relations, its failure to account for the impact of non-state actors limits its effectiveness as a tool for analyzing the contemporary Middle East. Operation Cast Lead and the overthrow of Ghaddafi's regime in Libya suggest not only that non-state actors matter, but that international legal norms influence state and non-state actors in crucial ways. In the age of electronic media, international legal theory and IR theory need to be much more attuned to the complex dynamics through which international legal norms can now be disseminated and deployed by both states and non-state actors. Versions of normative theory receptive to the significance of non-state actors and attuned to the independent valence of legal norms provide scholars with better models for understanding the dynamics underlying the conduct of all actors on the international political and legal scene.