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Why did some countries transition peacefully from communist rule to political freedom and market economies, while others did not? Why did the United States enjoy a brief moment as the sole remaining superpower, and then lose power and influence across the board? What are the prospects for China, the main challenger to American hegemony? In Complexity Science and World Affairs, Walter C. Clemens Jr. demonstrates how the basic concepts of complexity science can broaden and deepen the insights gained by other approaches to the study of world affairs. He argues that societal fitness—the ability of a social system to cope with complex challenges and opportunities—hinges heavily on the values and way of life of each society, and serves to explain why some societies gain and others lose. Applying theory to several rich case studies, including political developments across post–Soviet Eurasia and the United States, Clemens shows that complexity science offers a powerful set of tools for advancing the study of international relations, comparative government, and, more broadly, the social sciences.
Student-friendly and professor-endorsed, Dynamics of International Relations is an innovative, introductory level core text. It compares realist and idealist theories and the paradigm of interdependence against case studies of recurrent problems--why wage war, how to make peace, how to transcend conflict, when and where to mediate, how to increase GDP but also quality of life, and how to organize for peace and promote human rights. Against a backdrop of the threat of terrorism, Clemens clearly demonstrates both the danger and opportunities inherent in a growing global interdependence.
Given that a new president will soon occupy the White House, Walter C. Clemens Jr. argues that now is the time to reconsider US diplomatic efforts in North Korea. In 'North Korea and the World', Clemens poses the question, 'Can, should, and must we negotiate with a regime we regard as evil?'. Weighing the needs of all the stakeholders he concludes that the answer is yes.
President George W. Bush had pinned North Korea to an "axis of evil" but then neglected Pyongyang until it tested a nuclear device. Would the new administration make similar mistakes? When the Clinton White House prepared to bomb North Korea's nuclear facilities, private citizen Jimmy Carter mediated to avert war and set the stage for a deal freezing North Korea's plutonium production. The 1994 Agreed Framework collapsed after eight years, but when Pyongyang went critical, the negotiations got serious. Each time the parties advanced one or two steps, however, their advance seemed to spawn one or two steps backward. Clemens distils lessons from U.S. negotiations with North Korea, Russia, China, and Libya and analyses how they do-and do not-apply to six-party and bilateral talks with North Korea in a new political era.
As the rest of the world worries about what a future might look like under Chinese supremacy, Luttwak worries about China’s own future prospects. Applying the logic of strategy for which he is well known, he argues that the world’s second largest economy may be headed for a fall unless China’s leaders check their military ambitions.
In 1961 South Korea was mired in poverty. By 1979 it had a powerful industrial economy and a vibrant civil society in the making, which would lead to a democratic breakthrough eight years later. The transformation took place during the years of Park Chung Hee's presidency. Park seized power in a coup in 1961 and ruled as a virtual dictator until his assassination in October 1979. He is credited with modernizing South Korea, but at a huge political and social cost. South Korea's political landscape under Park defies easy categorization. The state was predatory yet technocratic, reform-minded yet quick to crack down on dissidents in the name of political order. The nation was balanced uneasily...
The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists is the premier public resource on scientific and technological developments that impact global security. Founded by Manhattan Project Scientists, the Bulletin's iconic "Doomsday Clock" stimulates solutions for a safer world.
From an award-winning historian, a concise overview of the deep and longstanding ties between China and the Koreas, providing an essential foundation for understanding East Asian geopolitics today. In a concise, trenchant overview, Odd Arne Westad explores the cultural and political relationship between China and the Koreas over the past 600 years. Koreans long saw China as a mentor. The first form of written Korean employed Chinese characters and remained in administrative use until the twentieth century. Confucianism, especially Neo-Confucian reasoning about the state and its role in promoting a virtuous society, was central to the construction of the Korean government in the fourteenth ce...
Integrating theory and case studies, this cogent text explores the processes and factors that shape foreign policy. In her thoroughly revised and updated edition, Laura Neack considers both old and new lessons, drawing on a rich array of real foreign policy choices and outcomes. In new cases, Neack explores decision making in the Eurozone crisis, increasing nationalism in Germany and Japan and what seems to be growing bellicosity among Canadians, Obama’s grand strategy and the responses of rising powers Brazil and India, and the Egyptian youth revolution. Following a levels-of-analysis organization, the author considers all elements that influence foreign policy, including the role of leaders, bargaining, national image, political culture, public opinion, the media, and nonstate actors.