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This book presents the state of the art of international relations theory through an analysis of the work of twelve key contemporary thinkers; John Vincent, Kenneth Waltz, Robert O. Keohane, Robert Gilpin, Bertrand Badie, John Ruggie, Hayward Alker, Nicholas G. Onuf, Alexander Wendt, Jean Bethke Elshtain, R.B.J. Walker and James Der Derian. The authors aim to break with the usual procedure in the field which juxtaposes aspects of the work of contemporary theorists with others, presenting them as part of a desembodied school of thought or paradigm. A more individual focus can demonstrate instead, the well-rounded character of some of the leading oeuvres and can thus offer a more representative view of the discipline. This book is designed to cover the work of theorists whom students of international relations will read and sometimes stuggle with. The essays can be read either as introductions to the work of these theorists or as companions to it. Each chapter attempts to place the thinker in the landscape of the discipine, to identify how they go about studying International Relations, and to discuss what others can learn from them.
No set of international relations is as thoroughly analyzed, commented on, taken apart and critiqued as the ties between Europe and the United States. A period of post-Cold War integration has been buffeted by trade disputes, economic strife and differences in prosecuting the fight against global terrorism. Now for the first time there is an accessible and theory-based analysis of European foreign policies in the post-Cold War era. The authors argue that EU- and NATO-mediated geopolitics prevails in most of Europe, but that raw geopolitics tends to pop up at the fringes of this thoroughly institutionalized area. Moreover, the effects of past geopolitics persist in the collective memories of ...
Why would Georgia attack South Ossetia in August 2008, with Russian forces conducting exercises nearby? This remains a puzzle to analysts-on a not inconsiderable list of foreign policy puzzles. Hans Mouritzen and Anders Wivel use the example of the Russo-Georgian war to illustrate and evaluate their original model for explaining foreign policy behavior. The authors apply the model to the actions of 40 countries in relation to the 2008 war. Uniquely linking system, interstate, and intrastate levels of explanation, and benefiting from the WikiLeaks revelations, they offer an important new tool for foreign policy analysis.
First published in 1998, this volume deals with the explanation of international politics and foreign policy. Levels of explanation and their interrelationships offer the book’s structure. Based on critiques of major IR approaches, a ‘bottom-up’ instead of a systemic ‘top-down’ perspective (Waltz) is advocated, but without falling prey to reductionism explaining international politics from domestic factors. Explanation of state behaviour should primarily stress states’ salient environment, but occasionally also their historical lessons from previous experience with this environment. International organizations or other non-state actors may be allowed an influence of their own in certain areas, but the state remains in ultimate control.
This book provides the first lengthy study of awkward states/partners in regional integration. Is awkwardness a characteristic of states in many global regions, or is it reducible to the particular case of the United Kingdom in European integration? The authors assess how far the concept of ‘awkwardness’ can travel, and apply it to the cases of the Nordic States’ involvement in and with the European Union - Denmark, Finland, Sweden, Iceland and Norway. The renewed interest in the Nordic region is in part thanks to recent events in the on-going crisis of European integration, and particular its member states’ response to the refugee question, which appears to be undermining years of intra-regional solidarity even between the Nordic countries. The security dimension of the region further broadens the book’s readership beyond Nordic Politics specialists to IR scholars, as the Nordic countries share borders with Russia and are key players in the Baltic Sea Strategy seeking to involve Russia in looser forms of regional cooperation.
This book is the first comprehensive study of how and why the European Union has enlarged to become northern Europe’s leading power. Pami Aalto presents a new approach to the under-theorized field of EU foreign policy studies, showing how, since 1990, the EU has enlarged to include Finland, Sweden, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland, and also incorporated the former East Germany. He also examines how this northern expansion has led the EU to reflect on relations with Russia and its north-western regions. This unique study includes: a fresh approach to the under-theorized field of EU foreign policy key empirical material, including hundreds of documents, interviews and field experiments in-depth case studies of relations between the EU, Nordic states, Baltic states and Russia with its north-western regions. This is essential reading for all students of European politics, Russian studies and international relations.
This material on Scandinavian converts tells the unique story of how Europeans embrace a new religion and their tendency to adjust and modify the social message of their new religion to the social values handled by the society they live in.
'Due Process of Inquiry, says Waltz' is a book about theory on political plate tectonics launched by Kenneth N. Waltz (1924 - 2013) in his very well-known book 'Theory of International Politic;' a book that establishes his work as neo-realism. Waltz’s core theory depicts in a tentative axiomatic system his chief postulate of the two co-existing political systems namely the complementarity of hierarchy and anarchy; complementary as defined by Bohr. It is empirical theory that measures power in the political anarchy in polarity; judged on the standards of Sir Karl Popper. It is also theory that can serve as framework for logics of situation as they spring from the distributional structural d...
This book explores the uses of the past in foreign policy-making. It outlines why and how political leaders refer to historical events in contemporary foreign policy discourses; the goals they hope to achieve; and the sometimes unintended foreign policy consequences of their (ab)use of historical memory. Furthermore, it looks at how political leaders shape domestic collective memories in pursuit of their international agendas, and highlight historical events leaders forget, reinterpret or obscure through selective narratives. The chapters explore a variety of theoretical concepts that shed light on how memory and foreign policy are linked in a complex and reciprocal way. The following mechan...
Jorg Friedrich presents an important new introduction to the existence and relevance of European approaches to IR theory and sets an agenda for the progressive development of a 'Eurodiscipline' of IR studies.