About the Author
Robert Cooper, a member of the British Diplomatic Service, is currently director, Asia-Pacific, of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. He has previously served as head of the policy planning staff, and as minister of the British Embassy in Bonn. He is also the author of The Post-Modern State and the World Order (1996). An earlier version of this essay was presented at a June 1998 conference in Warsaw on “International Relations and Democracy,” cosponsored by the International Forum for Democratic Studies, the Stefan Batory Foundation (Warsaw), and the Institute for National Policy Research (Taipei). The opinions expressed in this article are the author’s own and should not be taken as an expression of government policy.