Alexandru V Grigorescu
Alexandru V. Grigorescu publishes book on international and domestic politics
Grigorescu, Professor of Political Science, applies his novel comparative model
Alexandru V. Grigorescu, PhD, Professor in the Department of Political Science and the founding director of the Center for Research on International Affairs within the College of Arts and Sciences at Loyola University Chicago, has published a book, Restraining Power through Institutions: A Unifying Theme for Domestic and International Politics with Oxford University Press. The book leverages a novel approach to comparing domestic politics and international affairs by examining institutional restraints of power.
“Dr. Grigorescu is a nationally and internationally recognized scholar in the fields of international relations and international organizations and one of our most prominent leaders in expanding the international linkages of the College of Arts and Sciences,” said Peter J. Schrader, Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Loyola University Chicago. “His innovative approach in his most recent book compares domestic and international politics to provide a deeper understanding of the evolving role of international institutional restraints on global power and is a testament to the theoretical innovation with practical insights that we strive to foster in the College of Arts and Sciences.”
Grigorescu’s unique path to becoming an expert in the field of international relations began in his native country of Romania following its revolution in 1989.
“Many in my generation found ourselves making drastic career changes and preparing for a completely new type of society,” he explained. “In 1991, I gave up my career as a physicist and applied for a job with the Romanian Foreign Ministry. They were looking to hire people who had not been ‘tainted’ by the old totalitarian regime and spoke foreign languages well, even if they knew little about international relations.”
Soon after Grigorescu was hired, he was posted as the Vice-Consul at the Romanian Consulate-General in New York City. From there, he was appointed as the Second Secretary at the Romanian Mission at the United Nations (UN) at its headquarters in Midtown Manhattan.
“It was a fascinating experience, one that triggered my long interest in international relations and especially international organizations (IOs).”
Grigorescu worked as a diplomat for six years.
“I discovered I was much more interested in broad foreign policy analyses rather than the day-to-day details of the UN’s work,” he said. “Perhaps it was the former physicist in me that craved interesting generalizations and theoretical observations over short-term practical developments.”
It was this craving that led Grigorescu to explore his options in academia. While continuing to work in diplomacy, he pursued MA and PhD degrees in political science. When the time came, he plunged into teaching and research full-time, his diplomatic experience empowering him to provide value to practitioners of international relations.
“We, in academia, cannot ‘compete’ with them when it comes to detailed knowledge of applying policy. We cannot give them the kind of narrow advice they need to resolve very specific issues,” explained Grigorescu. “Instead, we can offer them with a bird’s eye view that helps them gain a better understanding of their daily work and place their actions in the broader context of international relations.”
Providing new ideas and observations through broad analyses, comparisons, and generalizations can be enlightening for officials at IOs. It's the work of academics, says Grigorescu, that allows IO officials to realize that they often face the same challenges and barriers as staff from other IOs and, moreover, that these challenges have persisted over decades and centuries.
Grigorescu’s latest and third book ventures to investigate the relationship between domestic and international politics, a historically under-researched and overlooked dimension of political science.
“The literature has taken for granted that IOs such as the International Monetary Fund or the World Health Organization function very differently than a state’s ministry of finance or ministry of health. But, my research shows that this is not the case.”
In fact, contemporary IOs can learn a great deal from how domestic institutions formed and function, Grigorescu argues.
“Comparisons must take into account that states and their domestic structures have existed for millennia while IOs have only existed for one or two centuries. Therefore, the best ‘models’ for IOs are the very early national institutions."
Grigorescu offers examples such as the Witan, the precursor to the English Parliament that functioned about 1,000 years ago, and the 14th century Parlement of Paris, a judicial institution that lasted over 400 years.
“By comparing domestic institutions to existing IOs, we can both learn more about IOs and explain better how some national political systems work, especially authoritarian ones.”
This is a novel approach for the field, which has historically avoided comparing the two and evaluates how institutional power is gained. Instead, more can be learned by looking at how power is restrained and limited.
“Just as domestic institutions have slowly evolved to place restraints on the most powerful individuals within states, we should expect international law and IOs to slowly develop increasingly significant restraints on powerful states,” said Grigorescu, offering the Russo-Ukraine war as an example of the importance of restraints on great powers such as Russia.
Therefore, we should expect IOs to become increasingly powerful and use that power to restrain states, including great powers like the United States and China.
“Moreover, it suggests that we can use theoretical approaches regarding domestic politics that were dominant when powerful states were emerging across Europe, such as classical liberalism of the 17th and 18th centuries, to understand international politics today.”
These conclusions have only inspired Grigorescu to investigate these relationships more, who has written a new book on the application of John Locke’s theories to international relations with Claudio Katz, Professor Emeritus in the Department of Political Science. Their book is due to appear in Cambridge University Press in 2024.
Learn more about Grigorescu’s work here, the Center for Research on International Affairs, and his book with the Oxford University Press.
About the College of Arts and Sciences
The College of Arts and Sciences is the oldest of Loyola University Chicago’s 15 schools, colleges, and institutes. More than 150 years since its founding, the College is home to 20 academic departments and 37 interdisciplinary programs and centers, more than 450 full-time faculty, and nearly 8,000 students. The 2,000+ classes that we offer each semester span an array of intellectual pursuits, ranging from the natural sciences and computational sciences to the humanities, the social sciences, and the fine and performing arts. Our students and faculty are engaged internationally at our campus in Rome, Italy, as well as at dozens of University-sponsored study abroad and research sites around the world. Home to the departments that anchor the University’s Core Curriculum, the College seeks to prepare all of Loyola’s students to think critically, to engage the world of the 21st century at ever deepening levels, and to become caring and compassionate individuals. Our faculty, staff, and students view service to others not just as one option among many, but as a constitutive dimension of their very being. In the truest sense of the Jesuit ideal, our graduates strive to be “individuals for others.”
Grigorescu, Professor of Political Science, applies his novel comparative model
Alexandru V. Grigorescu, PhD, Professor in the Department of Political Science and the founding director of the Center for Research on International Affairs within the College of Arts and Sciences at Loyola University Chicago, has published a book, Restraining Power through Institutions: A Unifying Theme for Domestic and International Politics with Oxford University Press. The book leverages a novel approach to comparing domestic politics and international affairs by examining institutional restraints of power.
“Dr. Grigorescu is a nationally and internationally recognized scholar in the fields of international relations and international organizations and one of our most prominent leaders in expanding the international linkages of the College of Arts and Sciences,” said Peter J. Schrader, Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Loyola University Chicago. “His innovative approach in his most recent book compares domestic and international politics to provide a deeper understanding of the evolving role of international institutional restraints on global power and is a testament to the theoretical innovation with practical insights that we strive to foster in the College of Arts and Sciences.”
Grigorescu’s unique path to becoming an expert in the field of international relations began in his native country of Romania following its revolution in 1989.
“Many in my generation found ourselves making drastic career changes and preparing for a completely new type of society,” he explained. “In 1991, I gave up my career as a physicist and applied for a job with the Romanian Foreign Ministry. They were looking to hire people who had not been ‘tainted’ by the old totalitarian regime and spoke foreign languages well, even if they knew little about international relations.”
Soon after Grigorescu was hired, he was posted as the Vice-Consul at the Romanian Consulate-General in New York City. From there, he was appointed as the Second Secretary at the Romanian Mission at the United Nations (UN) at its headquarters in Midtown Manhattan.
“It was a fascinating experience, one that triggered my long interest in international relations and especially international organizations (IOs).”
Grigorescu worked as a diplomat for six years.
“I discovered I was much more interested in broad foreign policy analyses rather than the day-to-day details of the UN’s work,” he said. “Perhaps it was the former physicist in me that craved interesting generalizations and theoretical observations over short-term practical developments.”
It was this craving that led Grigorescu to explore his options in academia. While continuing to work in diplomacy, he pursued MA and PhD degrees in political science. When the time came, he plunged into teaching and research full-time, his diplomatic experience empowering him to provide value to practitioners of international relations.
“We, in academia, cannot ‘compete’ with them when it comes to detailed knowledge of applying policy. We cannot give them the kind of narrow advice they need to resolve very specific issues,” explained Grigorescu. “Instead, we can offer them with a bird’s eye view that helps them gain a better understanding of their daily work and place their actions in the broader context of international relations.”
Providing new ideas and observations through broad analyses, comparisons, and generalizations can be enlightening for officials at IOs. It's the work of academics, says Grigorescu, that allows IO officials to realize that they often face the same challenges and barriers as staff from other IOs and, moreover, that these challenges have persisted over decades and centuries.
Grigorescu’s latest and third book ventures to investigate the relationship between domestic and international politics, a historically under-researched and overlooked dimension of political science.
“The literature has taken for granted that IOs such as the International Monetary Fund or the World Health Organization function very differently than a state’s ministry of finance or ministry of health. But, my research shows that this is not the case.”
In fact, contemporary IOs can learn a great deal from how domestic institutions formed and function, Grigorescu argues.
“Comparisons must take into account that states and their domestic structures have existed for millennia while IOs have only existed for one or two centuries. Therefore, the best ‘models’ for IOs are the very early national institutions."
Grigorescu offers examples such as the Witan, the precursor to the English Parliament that functioned about 1,000 years ago, and the 14th century Parlement of Paris, a judicial institution that lasted over 400 years.
“By comparing domestic institutions to existing IOs, we can both learn more about IOs and explain better how some national political systems work, especially authoritarian ones.”
This is a novel approach for the field, which has historically avoided comparing the two and evaluates how institutional power is gained. Instead, more can be learned by looking at how power is restrained and limited.
“Just as domestic institutions have slowly evolved to place restraints on the most powerful individuals within states, we should expect international law and IOs to slowly develop increasingly significant restraints on powerful states,” said Grigorescu, offering the Russo-Ukraine war as an example of the importance of restraints on great powers such as Russia.
Therefore, we should expect IOs to become increasingly powerful and use that power to restrain states, including great powers like the United States and China.
“Moreover, it suggests that we can use theoretical approaches regarding domestic politics that were dominant when powerful states were emerging across Europe, such as classical liberalism of the 17th and 18th centuries, to understand international politics today.”
These conclusions have only inspired Grigorescu to investigate these relationships more, who has written a new book on the application of John Locke’s theories to international relations with Claudio Katz, Professor Emeritus in the Department of Political Science. Their book is due to appear in Cambridge University Press in 2024.
Learn more about Grigorescu’s work here, the Center for Research on International Affairs, and his book with the Oxford University Press.
About the College of Arts and Sciences
The College of Arts and Sciences is the oldest of Loyola University Chicago’s 15 schools, colleges, and institutes. More than 150 years since its founding, the College is home to 20 academic departments and 37 interdisciplinary programs and centers, more than 450 full-time faculty, and nearly 8,000 students. The 2,000+ classes that we offer each semester span an array of intellectual pursuits, ranging from the natural sciences and computational sciences to the humanities, the social sciences, and the fine and performing arts. Our students and faculty are engaged internationally at our campus in Rome, Italy, as well as at dozens of University-sponsored study abroad and research sites around the world. Home to the departments that anchor the University’s Core Curriculum, the College seeks to prepare all of Loyola’s students to think critically, to engage the world of the 21st century at ever deepening levels, and to become caring and compassionate individuals. Our faculty, staff, and students view service to others not just as one option among many, but as a constitutive dimension of their very being. In the truest sense of the Jesuit ideal, our graduates strive to be “individuals for others.”