Among his topics are the historical evolution of the international order, the balance-of-power system 1700-1815, the
concert of Europe 1815-54, the liberal order and the Cold War 1945-89, and what future for liberal order.
And, since the Napoleonic Wars spawned the
Concert of Europe, the increasing destructiveness of war, especially the charnel houses of 1914-18 and 1939-45, propelled the search for alternative ways of structuring and conducting international relations: governments and invisible principles such as the balance of power had failed to maintain peace.
It could then hurl itself into a revived "
concert of Europe", and convince the EU's council of ministers to convene a conference on reform.
Ottoman leaders did their best to uphold the universalism of the
Concert of Europe but became increasingly identified as inferior by European writers.
The result of Trump's victory might be something resembling the
Concert of Europe, which stabilised the continent between 1815 and World War I.
* The modern international order has much in common with the era known as the
Concert of Europe (1815-1914), "given that today's 'complex interdependence' ties the financial, trade, and manufacturing wealth and individual quality of life within the sovereign states to the daily functioning of the 'global common' as a whole." (22) This is worrisome when one considers "territory and values have more often than not been rightly linked since the rise of nationalism in the last 1700's." (75) Nationalism, both between states--and between groups within states--can create a volatile mix that threatens the rule of existing elites and can escalate to war.
At its heart the system, which came to be known as the
Concert of Europe, was designed to maintain the monarchical status quo, contain French ambitions, and define the territorial boundaries of the post Napoleonic state system.
The alternative to this
concert of Europe was chaos.
Throughout modern history, from the
Concert of Europe in the early 19th Century to the establishment of the United Nations after World War II, international laws and institutions were as strong as the "great powers" of the moment allowed them to be.