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Addresses the central problem of international relations - security - and constructs a novel framework for its analysis.
What is real? What can we know? How might we act? This book sets out to answer these fundamental philosophical questions in a radical and original theory of security for our times. Arguing that the concept of security in world politics has long been imprisoned by conservative thinking, Ken Booth explores security as a precious instrumental value which gives individuals and groups the opportunity to pursue the invention of humanity rather than live determined and diminished lives. Booth suggests that human society globally is facing a set of converging historical crises. He looks to critical social theory and radical international theory to develop a comprehensive framework for understanding the historical challenges facing global business-as-usual and for planning to reconstruct a more cosmopolitan future. Theory of World Security is a challenge both to well-established ways of thinking about security and alternative approaches within critical security studies.
The contributors reflect critically on security studies since the 1980s. They conclude that analysts and policy-makers have not been able to respond well to the changes that have occurred and that they must revise their approach if they are to meet the challenges of the future.
At a time when even the foundations and pre-eminence of the Western order are called into question by both the weaknesses of the transatlantic partnership and the spectacular rise of the Asia-Pacific region, suggesting a switch to a post-Atlantic order, the contributors to this volume provide specific answers to present-day interrogations pertaining to various processes of transformation. This book offers multidisciplinary perspectives on political, economic, social, technological and cultural dimensions of change, and proposes various possible responses to current global and regional challenges.
Bill McSweeney addresses the central problem of international relations - security - and constructs a novel framework for its analysis. He argues for the unity of the interpersonal, societal and international levels of human behaviour and outlines a concept of security which more adequately reflects the complexity and ambiguity of the topic. This book introduces an alternative way of theorizing the international order, within which the idea of security takes on a broader range of meaning, inviting a more critical and interpretative approach to understanding the concept and formulating security policy. The recent shift to sociology in international relations theory has not as yet realized its critical potential for the study of security. Drawing on contemporary trends in social theory, Dr McSweeney argues that human agency and moral choice are inherent features of the construction of the social and thus international order, and hence of our conception of security and security policy.
Catholic writers have made a rich contribution to British fiction, despite their minority status. Evelyn Waugh, Graham Greene, and Muriel Spark are well-known examples, but there are many other significant novelists whose work has a Catholic aspect. This is the first book to survey the whole range of this material and examine whether valid generalizations can be made about it. In charting such fiction from its development in the Victorian period through to the work of contemporaries such as David Lodge, the author analyses its complex relationships with changes in British society and the international Church. There is more than one way of being a Catholic, as Woodman shows, but he also demos...
This work tells the story of the Catholic Church's confrontation with communism, from the French Revolution onwards, but with particular emphasis on the post-War period. It sets out new evidence of how successive Popes unwittingly helped communism expand. Interwoven with this narrative is the life-story of Karol Woytyla, who as Pope John Paul II is the first Eastern European Pope to sit on the throne of Peter.
This title explores how the early years of the Cold War were marked by contradictions and conflict. It looks at how the turn from Stalin's discourse of danger to the discourse of difference under his successors explains the abrupt changes in relations with Eastern Europe, China, the decolonizing world, and the West.
John D'Arcy May's achievements motivate these essays on ecumenics. Amid today's scepticism about the ecumenical movement's relevance, the authors demonstrate the necessity of working together for the betterment of all. This book deepens our understanding of how theology, peace and reconciliation studies and interfaith dialogue critically cooperate for the flourishing of earth's life. The perspective of church unity amid ecclesial division is broadened to embrace interfaith and intercultural issues: ecumenics becomes visible as the intellectual paradigm of our times.