Models of Neutrality: The Traditional and Modern

Abstract

In contemporary international relations neutrality is not disappearing, nor is it fully its old self. It is loaded with both problems and promises. This duality calls for a discussion on the space available for neutrality on two different levels: the policies of the main actors and the structural developments of international relations and the level of understanding. It appears, in broad terms, that the latter is a constraint on the former. Neutrality appears to be rich and promising in terms of its history and existing reality, but an underdeveloped, fragmented and too dependent concept of dominant international relations theory. It is therefore the constitutive aspects of neutrality and the space delineated to it in the ordinary discourse that deserve the prime attention in the on-going debate.