When and why do countries seek to enact major changes to international order, the broad set of rules that condition behavior in world politics? This book argues that great powers' motivation to build order has historically been exclusionary, centered on combatting others rather than cooperating with them. When great powers seek to enact fundamentally new order principles, they do so for the purpose of targeting a perceived threat. The goal of order building is weakening, opposing, and-above all-excluding the enemy from amassing further influence. Thus, Lascurettes concludes that order building is the continuation of traditional statecraft.
