"Toward a global partnership : security cooperation in the information age" offers a new perspective on motion and change in international system building, examining one effort to construct shared identity and collective meaning in a postmodern realm of defense and military cooperation. Grounded in the Critical Theory perspective of "communicative action" developed by the German philosopher Jürgen Habermas, the thesis illustrates the "Partnership" approach in confronting the security challenges of a globalizing world economy. Supported by five case studies drawn from the experiences of NATO's Partnership for Peace (PfP) initiative, it illustrates how networked security communities can help to promote emancipation from modernity's strictures of manipulation and control. Written from the "observer-participant" perspective of a practitioner, the thesis identifies seven transformation principles that open the door to new forms of communication, capacity building, and bottom-up models of governance that are universally applicable and can be implemented anywhere in the world today