The study of security has been dominated for four decades by a scientific perspective that has been under attack since the end of the Cold War. In this book, Bill McSweeney discusses the inadequacy of this approach and criticizes the most recent attempts to surmount it. Drawing on contemporary trends in sociology, he develops a theory of the international order within which the idea of security takes on a broader range of meaning, inviting a more interpretive approach to understanding the concept and formulating security policy.

What is the English School of International Relations and why is there increasing interest in it? Linklater and Suganami provide a comprehensive account of this distinctive approach to the study of world politics which highlights coexistence and cooperation, as well as conflict, in the relations between sovereign states. In the first book-length volume of its kind, the authors present a comprehensive discussion of the rise and development of the English School, its principal research agenda, and its epistemological and methodological foundations. The authors further consider the English...

Classical political theorists such as Thucydides, Kant, Rousseau, Smith, Hegel, Grotius, Mill, Locke and Clausewitz are often employed to explain and justify contemporary international politics and are seen to constitute the different schools of thought in the discipline. However, traditional interpretations frequently ignore the intellectual and historical context in which these thinkers were writing as well as the lineages through which they came to be appropriated in International Relations. This collection of essays provides alternative interpretations sensitive to these political and...

Why are some regions prone to war while others remain at peace? What conditions cause regions to move from peace to war and vice versa? This book offers a novel theoretical explanation for the differences in levels of and transitions between war and peace. The author distinguishes between "hot" and "cold" outcomes, depending on intensity of the war or the peace, and then uses three key concepts (state, nation, and the international system) to argue that it is the specific balance between states and nations in different regions that determines the hot or warm outcomes: the lower the balance,...

This book examines a wide range of dissident practices, from street protests to political poetry, in an attempt to demonstrate that they are becoming an increasingly important aspect of global politics. The author draws on several case studies, including an analysis of the events that led to the collapse of the Berlin Wall. The theoretical discussions focus on how people influence the course of politics at a time when boundaries between domestic and international spheres are blurring.

This book provides the first general analysis of deterrence since the end of the Cold War, offering a new approach to its assumptions, and analyzing them using non-cooperative game theory. Drawing on numerous historical examples, the authors focus on the relationship among capability, preferences, credibility, and outcomes to achieve a new understanding of threats and responses. The book's distinctive approach yields some surprising conclusions, indicating that credible threats to respond to attack can sometimes make an attack more likely, and that incredible response threats can sometimes...

Schultz explores the effects of democratic politics on coercive diplomacy. He argues that open political competition between government and opposition parties influences threats in international crises, how rival states interpret those threats, and whether or not crises can be settled short of war. Compared to their nondemocratic counterparts, democracies make threats more selectively, but those they do make are more likely to be successful--that is, to gain a favorable outcome without war. Schultz uses game-theoretic models and tests the resulting hypothesis using both statistical analyses...

International negotiations have become an increasingly widespread feature of international affairs. Cecilia Albin argues that negotiators do not simply pursue their narrow interests or those of their countries, but regularly take principles of justice and fairness into account. Her analysis is based on cases in four important areas: the environment, international trade, ethnic conflict, and arms control. Drawing on a mass of empirical data, including a large number of interviews, she relates the abstract debate over international norms and ethics to the realities of international relations.

It is commonly said that democracies very seldom fight each other. This book asks whether the assumption of a "democratic peace" is valid and seeks to explain why. Explanations explored include the accountability of democratic leaders to domestic institutions; the norms of democratic competition which influence international affairs; and the common interests which democracies have pursued.

Why did Iranian students seize the American embassy in Tehran in 1979? Why did the Carter administration launch a rescue mission, and why did it fail so spectacularly? This book answers these and other puzzles using an analogical reasoning approach that highlights the role of historical analogies in decision making. Using interviews with key decision makers on both sides, Houghton provides an original analysis of one of the United States' greatest foreign policy disasters of recent years. The book will interest students and scholars of foreign policy analysis and international relations.