You may have to Search all our reviewed books and magazines, click the sign up button below to create a free account.
Neoclassical realism is an important approach to international relations. Focusing on the interaction of the international system and the internal dynamics of states, neoclassical realism seeks to explain the grand strategies of individual states as opposed to recurrent patterns of international outcomes. This book offers the first systematic survey of the neoclassical realist approach. The editors lead a group of senior and emerging scholars in presenting a variety of neoclassical realist approaches to states' grand strategies. They examine the central role of the 'state' and seek to explain why, how, and under what conditions the internal characteristics of states intervene between their leaders' assessments of international threats and opportunities, and the actual diplomatic, military, and foreign economic policies those leaders are likely to pursue.
Neoclassical realism is a major theoretical approach to the study of foreign policy. In Neoclassical Realist Theory of International Relations, Norrin M. Ripsman, Jeffrey W. Taliaferro, and Steven E. Lobell argue that it can explain and predict a far broader range of political phenomena in international politics. Neoclassical realism challenges other approaches, including structural realism, liberalism, and constructivism.
This book adds a new dimension to the discussion of the relationship between the great powers and the weaker states that align with them—or not. Previous studies have focused on the role of the larger (or super) power and how it manages its relationships with other states, or on how great or major powers challenge or balance the hegemonic state. Beyond Great Powers and Hegemons seeks to explain why weaker states follow more powerful global or regional states or tacitly or openly resist their goals, and how they navigate their relationships with the hegemon. The authors explore the interests, motivations, objectives, and strategies of these 'followers'—including whether they can and do challenge the policies and strategies or the core position of the hegemon. Through the analysis of both historical and contemporary cases that feature global and regional hegemons in Europe, Latin America, the Middle East, Africa, Asia, and South Asia, and that address a range of interest areas—from political, to economic and military—the book reveals the domestic and international factors that account for the motivations and actions of weaker states.
The Challenge of Hegemony explains how international forces subtly influence foreign, economic, and security policies of declining world powers. Using detail-rich case studies, this sweeping study integrates domestic and systemic policy to explain these countries' grand strategies. The book concludes with a discussion of the implications for the future of American foreign policy. "His conceptually rigorous and tightly reasoned study . . . reminds us that power is never value neutral but organizes commercial systems in liberal or imperial terms." ---Perspectives on Politics "Lobell's book is tightly written, nicely argued and thoroughly researched to a fault. He seems to delight in historical...
This handbook examines the regional and international dynamics of the Middle East. It challenges the state society dichotomy to make sense of decision-making and behavior by ruling regimes. The 33 chapter authors include the world’s leading scholars of the Middle East and International Relations (IR) in order to make sense of the region. This synthesis of area studies expertise and IR theory provides a unique and rigorous account of the region’s current dynamics, which have reached a crisis point since the beginning of the Arab Spring. The Middle East has been characterized by volatility for more than a century. Although the region attracts significant scholarly interest, IR theory has r...
The years between the World Wars represent an era of broken balances: the retreat of the United States from global geopolitics, the weakening of Great Britain and France, Russian isolation following the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, the resurgence of German power in Europe, and the rise of Japan in East Asia. All these factors complicated great-power politics. This book brings together historians and political scientists to revisit the conventional wisdom on the grand strategies pursued between the World Wars, drawing on theoretical innovations and new primary sources. The contributors suggest that all the great powers pursued policies that, while in retrospect suboptimal, represented conscious, rational attempts to secure their national interests under conditions of extreme uncertainty and intense domestic and international political, economic, and strategic constraints.
Addresses how to accommodate and integrate rising powers peacefully into the international order in the nuclear and globalized age.
This book moves scholarly debates beyond the old question of whether or not international institutions matter in order to examine how they matter, even in a world of power politics. Power politics and international institutions are often studied as two separate domains, but this is in need of rethinking because today most states strategically use institutions to further their interests. Anders Wivel, T.V. Paul, and the international group of contributing authors update our understanding of how institutions are viewed among the major theoretical paradigms in international relations, and they seek to bridge the divides. Empirical chapters examine specific institutions in practice, including the United Nations, International Atomic Energy Agency, and the European Union. The book also points the way to future research. International Institutions and Power Politics provides insights for both international relations theory and practical matters of foreign affairs, and it will be essential reading for all international relations scholars and advanced students.
Although the United States is currently the world's only military and economic superpower, the nation's superpower status may not last. The possible futures of the global system and the role of U.S. power are illuminated by careful study of the past. This book addresses the problems of conceptualizing and assessing hegemonic rise and decline in comparative and historical perspective. Several chapters are devoted to the study of hegemony in premodern world-systems. And several chapters scrutinize the contemporary position and trajectory of the United States in the larger world-system in comparison with the rise and decline of earlier great powers, such as the Dutch and British empires. Contributors: Kasja Ekholm, Johnny Persson, Norihisa Yamashita, Giovanni Arrighi, Beverly Silver, Karen Barkey, Jonathan Friedman, Christopher Chase-Dunn, Rebecca Giem, Andrew Jorgenson, John Rogers, Shoon Lio, Thomas Reifer, Peter Taylor, Albert Bergesen, Omar Lizardo, Thomas D. Hall.
Scientific realism is the view that our best scientific theories give approximately true descriptions of both observable and unobservable aspects of a mind-independent world. Debates between realists and their critics are at the very heart of the philosophy of science. Anjan Chakravartty traces the contemporary evolution of realism by examining the most promising strategies adopted by its proponents in response to the forceful challenges of antirealist sceptics, resulting in a positive proposal for scientific realism today. He examines the core principles of the realist position, and sheds light on topics including the varieties of metaphysical commitment required, and the nature of the conflict between realism and its empiricist rivals. By illuminating the connections between realist interpretations of scientific knowledge and the metaphysical foundations supporting them, his book offers a compelling vision of how realism can provide an internally consistent and coherent account of scientific knowledge.