front cover of Scriptures, Shrines, Scapegoats, and World Politics
Scriptures, Shrines, Scapegoats, and World Politics
Religious Sources of Conflict and Cooperation in the Modern Era
Zeev Maoz and Errol A. Henderson
University of Michigan Press, 2021

The effect of religious factors on politics has been a key issue since the end of the Cold War and the subsequent rise of religious terrorism. However, the systematic investigations of these topics have focused primarily on the effects of religion on domestic and international conflict. Scriptures, Shrines, Scapegoats, and World Politics offers a comprehensive evaluation of the role of religion in international relations, broadening the scope of investigation to such topics as the relationship between religion and cooperation, religion and conflict, and the relationship between religion and the quality of life. Religion is often manipulated by political elites to advance their principal goal of political survival. Zeev Maoz and Errol A. Henderson find that no specific religion is either consistently more bellicose or consistently more cooperative than other religions. However, religious similarity between states tends to reduce the propensity of conflict and increase the opportunity for security cooperation. The authors find a significant relationship between secularism and human security.

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Shaky Foundations
The Politics-Patronage-Social Science Nexus in Cold War America
Solovey, Mark
Rutgers University Press, 2015
“Solovey’s social scientists are neither naïve researchers exploited by the military-industrial complex nor greedy masterminds eagerly anticipating their patrons’ needs. Instead, he presents us with a series of encounters between program managers, disciplinary spokesmen, and political partisans, each of which demonstrates its participants’ unexpectedly complex positions. In what feels like a prelude to contemporary partisan investigations of the social sciences, Shaky Foundations recounts numerous instances of McCarthy-era attacks on social scientists as leftist agitators.” —Science
 
“Shaky Foundations offers an important new argument about how the American social sciences interacted with wider social and political forces during the Cold War era. Solovey has done very important work in establishing the bitterly contested character of postwar epistemological and institutional shifts.” —Isis
 
“This is an important book. The brilliance of this book lies in pinpointing the origins of the terms that are still used in contemporary debates on the role of social science in the United States. This book is a critical tool in approaching the most essential question —what’s next for American social science?” —LSE Review of Books
 
“Solovey leaves readers with a sharpened understanding of the travails of social science research during the first two decades of the Cold War.” —Journal of American History
 
“Solovey makes a valuable contribution to the growing literature on the development of social sciences in the U.S. during the 20th century. A major achievement is the author’s presentation of this often complicated and complex story in a clearly written and well-documented manner. Highly recommended.” —Choice
 
“Shaky Foundations impressively pulls back the curtain on American social scientists and their complex relationships with funding agencies, offering crucial insights into the past—and the future—of social science.” —David C. Engerman, author of Know Your Enemy: The Rise and Fall of America’s Soviet Experts
 
“In this clearly written and thoroughly researched book, Mark Solovey takes a new approach to writing the history of the social sciences in America by ‘following the money’ and examining how patrons and their agendas shaped the development of the field.” —Nadine Weidman, author of Constructing Scientific Psychology: Karl Lashley’s Mind-Brain Debates
 
 

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Shaper Nations
Strategies for a Changing World
William I. Hitchcock, Melvyn P. Leffler, and Jeffrey W. Legro
Harvard University Press, 2016

Shaper Nations provides illuminating perspectives on the national strategies of eight emerging and established countries that are shaping global politics at the beginning of the twenty-first century. The volume’s authors offer a unique viewpoint: they live and work primarily in the country about which they write, bringing an insider’s feel for national debates and politics.

The conventional wisdom on national strategy suggests that these states have clear central authority, coherently connect means to ends, and focus on their geopolitical environment. These essays suggest a different conclusion. In seven key countries—Brazil, China, Germany, India, Israel, Russia, and Turkey—strategy is dominated by nonstate threats, domestic politics, the distorting effect of history and national identity, economic development concerns, and the sheer difficulty, in the face of many powerful internal and external constraints, of pursuing an effective national strategy.

The shapers represent a new trend in the international arena with important consequences. Among them is a more uncertain world in which countries concentrate on their own development rather than on shared problems that might divert precious resources, and attend more to regional than to global order. In responding to these shaper states, the United States must understand the sources of their national strategies in determining its own role on the global stage.

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The Shock of the Global
The 1970s in Perspective
Edited by Niall Ferguson, Charles S. Maier, Erez Manela, and Daniel Sargent
Harvard University Press, 2010

From the vantage point of the United States or Western Europe, the 1970s was a time of troubles: economic “stagflation,” political scandal, and global turmoil. Yet from an international perspective it was a seminal decade, one that brought the reintegration of the world after the great divisions of the mid-twentieth century. It was the 1970s that introduced the world to the phenomenon of “globalization,” as networks of interdependence bound peoples and societies in new and original ways.

The 1970s saw the breakdown of the postwar economic order and the advent of floating currencies and free capital movements. Non-state actors rose to prominence while the authority of the superpowers diminished. Transnational issues such as environmental protection, population control, and human rights attracted unprecedented attention. The decade transformed international politics, ending the era of bipolarity and launching two great revolutions that would have repercussions in the twenty-first century: the Iranian theocratic revolution and the Chinese market revolution.

The Shock of the Global examines the large-scale structural upheaval of the 1970s by transcending the standard frameworks of national borders and superpower relations. It reveals for the first time an international system in the throes of enduring transformations.

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Silent War
Furedi, Frank
Rutgers University Press, 1999

"The Silent War transcends the disciplinary line that divides race relations from international relations. It is an enterprise in sociological investigation which seeks to mobilize the insights of history to clarify how the consciousness of race has evolved." - Kofi Buenor Hadjor

Racial identity has been one of the defining characteristics of the twentieth century. Yet, argues Frank Furedi in this provocative study, advocates of racial identity have long felt uncomfortable with the racialized global order which they created.

Furedi traces the history of Western colonial racist ideology and its role in subjugating non-Western peoples. He analyzes the changing perception of racism in the West and how the use of "race" has altered during the course of the twentieth century.

Focusing on the Second World War as the critical turning point in racist ideology, Furedi argues that the defeat of Nazism left the West uneasy with its own racist past. He assesses how this was redefined in the postwar period-especially during the Cold War- and demonstrates that, although white supremacist views gradually became obsolete in international affairs, Western nations were initially unwilling to accept criticism of their past and sought to portray racism as a natural part of human condition. As a result the West continued to adopt the moral high ground well into the postwar period, to the ultimate detriment of non-Western nations.

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Sovereignty in Ruins
A Politics of Crisis
George Edmondson and Kalus Mladek, editors
Duke University Press, 2017
Featuring essays by some of the most prominent names in contemporary political and cultural theory, Sovereignty in Ruins presents a form of critique grounded in the conviction that political thought is itself an agent of crisis. Aiming to develop a political vocabulary capable of critiquing and transforming contemporary political frameworks, the contributors advance a politics of crisis that collapses the false dichotomies between sovereignty and governmentality and between critique and crisis. Their essays address a wide range of topics, such as the role history plays in the development of a politics of crisis; Arendt's controversial judgment of Adolf Eichmann; Strauss's and Badiou's readings of Plato's Laws; the acceptance of the unacceptable; the human and nonhuman; and flesh as a biopolitical category representative of the ongoing crisis of modernity. Altering the terms through which political action may take place, the contributors think through new notions of the political that advance countermodels of biopolitics, radical democracy, and humanity.

Contributors. Judith Butler, George Edmondson, Roberto Esposito, Carlo Galli, Klaus Mladek, Alberto Moreiras, Andrew Norris, Eric L. Santner, Adam Sitze, Carsten Strathausen, Rei Terada, Cary Wolfe
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Staging Growth
Modernization, Development, and the Global Cold War
David C. Engerman
University of Massachusetts Press, 2003
Beginning in the 1950s, the theory of modernization emerged as the dominant paradigm of economic, social, and political development within the American foreign policy establishment. Purporting to explain the stages through which all nations pass on the road to industrial modernity, it provided a rationale for a broad range of cultural and political projects aimed at fostering Third World growth while simultaneously combating communism.

But modernization theory was more than simply an expression of Cold War ideology. As the essays in this volume show, the ideal of modernization proliferated throughout the postcolonial world and across ideological lines in places as diverse as East Asia, Southern Africa, and South Asia. Indeed, it was embraced by all who shared the American enthusiasm for the increased production and higher standards of living promised by industrialization -enemies and allies alike.

Situating modernization theory historically, Staging Growth avoids conventional chronologies and categories of analysis, particularly the traditional focus on conflicts between major powers. The contributors employ a variety of approaches-from economic and intellectual history to cultural criticism and biography-to shed fresh light on the global forces that shaped the Cold War and its legacies. Most of the pieces are comparative, exploring how different countries and cultures have grappled with the implications of modern development. At the same time, all of the essays address similar fundamental questions. Is modernization the same thing as Westernization? Is the idea of modernization universally valid? Do countries follow similar trajectories as they undertake development? Does modernization bring about globalization?

In addition to the editors and Akira Iriye, contributors include Michael Adas, Laura Belmonte, Gregg Andrew Brazinsky, Christina Klein, J. Victor Koschmann, and Michael R. Mahoney.
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Sticks and Stones
Living with Uncertain Wars
Padraig O'Malley
University of Massachusetts Press, 2006
Albert Einstein famously remarked that he did not know what weapons would be used in World War III, but World War IV would be fought with sticks and stones. In this volume, a distinguished group of scholars, government officials, politicians, journalists, and statesmen examine what can be learned from the wars of the twentieth century and how that knowledge might help us as we step ever so perilously into the twenty-first.

Following an introduction by Padraig O'Malley, the book is divided into four sections: "Understanding the World as We Have Known It"; "Global Uncertainties"; "Whose Values? Whose Justice?"; and "Shaping a New World." The first section reviews what we have learned about war and establishes benchmarks for judging whether that knowledge is being translated into changes in the behavior of our political cultures. It suggests that the world's premier superpower, in its effort to promote Western-style democracy, has taken steps that have inhibited rather than facilitated democratization.

The second section examines the war on terror and the concept of global war. From the essays in this section emerges a consensus that democracy as practiced in the West cannot be exported to countries with radically different cultures, traditions, and values. The third section visits the question of means and ends in the context of varying value systems and of theocracy, democracy, and culture. In the final section, the focus shifts to our need for global institutions to maintain order and assist change in the twenty-first century.

Although each contributor comes from a different starting point, speaks with a different voice, and has a different ideological perspective, the essays reach startlingly similar conclusions. In sum, they find that the West has not absorbed the lessons from the wars of the last century and is inadequately prepared to meet the new challenges that now confront us.

Contributors to the volume include J. Brian Atwood, Susan J. Atwood, John Cooley, Romeo Dallaire, Ramu Damodaran, Valerie Epps, Michael J. Glennon, Stanley Heginbotham, Robert Jackson, Winston Langley, Alfred W. McCoy, Greg Mills, Jonathan Moore, Chris Patten, Gwyn Prins, Jonathan Schell, John Shattuck, Cornelio Sommargua, Brian Urquhart, Stephen Van Evera, and Robert Weiner.
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A Study of Crisis
Michael Brecher and Jonathan Wilkenfeld
University of Michigan Press, 2000
As the twentieth century draws to a close, it is time to look back on an epoch of widespread turmoil, including two world wars, the end of the colonial era in world history, and a large number of international crises and conflicts. This book is designed to shed light on the causes and consequences of military-security crises since the end of World War I, in every region, across diverse economic and political regimes, and cultures. The primary aim of this volume is to uncover patterns of crises, conflicts and wars and thereby to contribute to the advancement of international peace and world order.
The culmination of more than twenty years of research by Michael Brecher and Jonathan Wilkenfeld, the book analyzes crucial themes about crisis, conflict, and war and presents systematic knowledge about more than 400 crises, thirty-one protracted conflicts and almost 900 state participants. The authors explore many aspects of conflict, including the ethnic dimension, the effect of different kinds of political regimes--notably the question whether democracies are more peaceful than authoritarian regimes, and the role of violence in crisis management. They employ both case studies and aggregate data analysis in a Unified Model of Crisis to focus on two levels of analysis--hostile interactions among states, and the behavior of decision-makers who must cope with the challenge posed by a threat to values, time pressure, and the increased likelihood that military hostilities will engulf them.
This book will appeal to scholars in history, political science, sociology, and economics as well as policy makers interested in the causes and effects of crises in international relations. The rich data sets will serve researchers for years to come as they probe additional aspects of crisis, conflict and war in international relations.
Michael Brecher is R. B. Angus Professor of Political Science, McGill University. Jonathan Wilkenfeld is Professor and Chair of the Department of Government and Politics, University of Maryland. They are the coauthors of Crises in the Twentieth Century: A Handbook of International Crisis, among other books and articles.
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The Superpowers and Africa
The Constraints of a Rivalry, 1960-1990
Zaki Laidi
University of Chicago Press, 1990
That Africa—one of the superpowers' crucial diplomatic and economic battlegrounds—now verges on political developments as dramatic as those of eastern Europe compels us to consider the tremendous influence that East and West have wielded in recent African political development. Drawing from American diplomatic archives, firsthand interviews, and the African and international press, Zaki Laidï presents a historical analysis of how the dialectical relationships of the United States, Soviet Union, and African actors evolved to their present state.

The lapse of European influence in the 1960s left a diplomatic void, which the superpowers rushed to fill. Just as Dien Bien Phû and the Suez crisis thrust Asia and the Near East, respectively, into the diplomatic spotlight, so the Angolan crisis lent a multifaceted cast to Africa's international relations. The ebb and flow of African crises is now linked to the rhythm of superpower relations, but Laidï is quick to warn that Africa's internal political circumstances shape the boundaries for external influence and constrain any efforts of the superpowers to exert total control.

Laidï's provocative study, here in its first English translation, addresses diplomatic strategy, often neglected economic considerations, the growing influence of the Bretton Woods institutions, and the decline of French influence in Africa.
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