This book is an open access book. Many scholars have wondered if a non-Western theory of international politics founded on different premises, be it from Asia or from the “Global South,” could ...release international relations from the grip of a Western, “Westphalian” model. This book argues that a Buddhist approach to international relations could provide a genuine alternative. Because of its distinctive philosophical positions and its unique understanding of reality, human nature and political behavior, a Buddhist theory of IR offers a way out of this dilemma, a means for transcending the Westphalian predicament. The author explains this Buddhist IR model, beginning with its philosophical foundations up through its ideas about politics, economics and statecraft.
Has globalization the phenomenon outgrown "globalization" the concept? In Distant Proximities, one of America's senior scholars presents a work of sweeping vision that addresses the dizzying ...anxieties of the post-Cold War, post-September 11 world. Culminating the influential reassessment of international relations he began in 1990 with Turbulence in World Politics, James Rosenau here undertakes the first systematic analysis of just how complex these profound global changes have become. Among his many conceptual innovations, he treats people-in-the-street as well as activists and elites as central players in what we call "globalization." Deftly weaving striking insights into arresting prose, Rosenau traces the links and interactions between people at the individual level and institutions such as states, nongovernmental organizations, and transnational corporations at the collective level. In doing so he masterfully conveys how the emerging new reality has unfolded as events abroad increasingly pervade the routines of life at home and become, in effect, distant proximities. Rosenau begins by distinguishing among various local, global, and private "worlds" in terms of their inhabitants' orientations toward developments elsewhere. He then proceeds to cogently analyze how the residents of these worlds shape and are shaped by the diverse collectivities that crowd the global stage and that sustain such issues as human rights, corruption, the global economy, and global governance. Throughout this richly imaginative, fluidly written book, Rosenau examines how anti-globalization protests and the terrorist attacks on America amount to quintessential distant proximities. His book is thus a pathbreaking inquiry into the dynamics that lie beyond globalization, one that all thoughtful observers of the world scene will find penetrating and provocative.
The strategic rivalry between the United States and China has heightened since COVID-19. Secondary states face increasing difficulties maintaining a 'hedging' strategy between the United States and ...China. This Element introduces a preference-for-change model to explain the policy variations of states during the order transition. It suggests that policymakers will perceive a potential change in the international order through a cost-benefit prism. The interplays between the perceived costs and the perception of benefits from the order transition will shape states' policy choices among four strategic options: (1) hedging to bet on uncertainties; (2) bandwagoning with rising powers to support changes; (3) balancing against rising powers to resist changes; and (4) buck-passing to ignore changes. Four case studies (Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, and Thailand) are conducted to explore the policy choices of regional powers during the international order transition. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.
This book provides the first detailed analysis of international rivalries, the long-standing and often violent confrontations between the same pairs of states. The book addresses conceptual ...components of rivalries and explores the origins, dynamics, and termination of the most dangerous form of rivalry—enduring rivalry—since 1816. Paul Diehl and Gary Goertz identify 1166 rivalries since 1816. They label sixty-three of those as enduring rivalries. These include the competitions between the United States and Soviet Union, India and Pakistan, and Israel and her Arab neighbors. The authors explain how rivalries form, evolve, and end. The first part of the book deals with how to conceptualize and measure rivalries and presents empirical patterns among rivalries in the period 1816-1992. The concepts derived from the study of rivalries are then used to reexamine two central pieces of international relations research, namely deterrence and "democratic peace" studies. The second half of the book builds an explanation of enduring rivalries based on a theory adapted from evolutionary biology, "punctuated equilibrium." The study of international rivalries has become one of the centerpieces of behavioral research on international conflict. This book, by two of the scholars who pioneered such studies, is the first comprehensive treatment of the subject. It will become the standard reference for all future studies of rivalries.
Contracting states Cooley, Alexander; Spruyt, Hendrik
2009., 20090420, 2009, 2009-04-20, 20090101
eBook
Increasingly today nation-states are entering into agreements that involve the sharing or surrendering of parts of their sovereign powers and often leave the cession of authority incomplete or vague. ...But until now, we have known surprisingly little about how international actors design and implement these mixed-sovereignty arrangements.Contracting Statesuses the concept of "incomplete contracts"--agreements that are intentionally ambiguous and subject to future renegotiation--to explain how states divide and transfer their sovereign territory and functions, and demonstrate why some of these arrangements offer stable and lasting solutions while others ultimately collapse.
Building on important advances in economics and law, Alexander Cooley and Hendrik Spruyt develop a highly original, interdisciplinary approach and apply it to a broad range of cases involving international sovereign political integration and disintegration. The authors reveal the importance of incomplete contracting in the decolonization of territories once held by Europe and the Soviet Union; U.S. overseas military basing agreements with host countries; and in regional economic-integration agreements such as the European Union. Cooley and Spruyt examine contemporary problems such as the Arab-Israeli dispute over water resources, and show why the international community inadequately prepared for Kosovo's independence.
Contracting Statesprovides guidance to international policymakers about how states with equally legitimate claims on the same territory or asset can create flexible, durable solutions and avoid violent conflict.
How do states know what they want? Asking how interests are defined and how changes in them are accommodated, Martha Finnemore shows the fruitfulness of a constructivist approach to international ...politics. She draws on insights from sociological institutionalism to develop a systemic approach to state interests and state behavior by investigating an international structure not of power but of meaning and social value. An understanding of what states want, she argues, requires insight into the international social structure of which they are a part.
States are embedded in dense networks of transnational and international social relations that shape their perceptions and their preferences in consistent ways. Finnemore focuses on international organizations as one important component of social structure and investigates the ways in which they redefine state preferences. She details three examples in different issue areas. In state structure, she discusses UNESCO and the changing international organization of science. In security, she analyzes the role of the Red Cross and the acceptance of the Geneva Convention rules of war. Finally, she focuses on the World Bank and explores the changing definitions of development in the Third World. Each case shows how international organizations socialize states to accept new political goals and new social values in ways that have lasting impact on the conduct of war, the workings of the international political economy, and the structure of states themselves.
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