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751 books match the query 'International Relations' and 174 start with t

cover of The First Cold War: The Legacy of Woodrow Wilson in U.S. - Soviet Relations

The First Cold War

The Legacy of Woodrow Wilson in U.S. - Soviet Relations

Donald E. Davis & Eugene P. Trani

University of Missouri Press, 2002

In The First Cold War, Donald E. Davis and Eugene P. Trani review the Wilson administration’s attitudes toward Russia before, during, and after the Bolshevik seizure of power. They argue that before the Russian Revolution, Woodrow Wilson had little understanding of Russia and made poor appointments that cost the United States Russian goodwill. Wilson later reversed those negative impressions by being the first to recognize Russia’s Provisional Government, resulting in positive U.S.–Russian relations until Lenin gained power in 1917.
Wilson at first seemed unsure whether to recognize or repudiate Lenin and the Bolsheviks. His vacillation finally ended in a firm repudiation when he opted for a diplomatic quarantine having almost all of the ingredients of the later Cold War. Davis and Trani argue that Wilson deserves mild criticism for his early indecision and inability to form a coherent policy toward what would become the Soviet Union. But they believe Wilson rightly came to the conclusion that until the regime became more moderate, it was useless for America to engage it diplomatically.
The authors see in Wilson’s approach the foundations for the “first Cold War”—meaning not simply a refusal to recognize the Soviet Union, but a strong belief that its influence was harmful and would spread if not contained or quarantined. Wilson’s Soviet policy in essence lasted until Roosevelt extended diplomatic recognition in the 1930s. But The First Cold War suggests that Wilson’s impact extended beyond Roosevelt to Truman, showing that the policies of Wilson and Truman closely resemble each other with the exception of an arms race. Wilson’s intellectual reputation lent credibility to U.S. Cold War policy from Truman to Reagan, and the reader can draw a direct connection from Wilson to the collapse of the USSR. Wilsonians were the first Cold War warriors, and in the era of President Woodrow Wilson, the first Cold War began.
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cover of The First Global Prosecutor: Promise and Constraints

The First Global Prosecutor

Promise and Constraints

Martha Minow, C. Cora True-Frost, and Alex Whiting, editors

University of Michigan Press, 2015

The establishment of the International Criminal Court (ICC) gave rise to the first permanent Office of the Prosecutor (OTP), with independent powers of investigation and prosecution. Elected in 2003 for a nine-year term as the ICC’s first Prosecutor, Luis Moreno Ocampo established policies and practices for when and how to investigate, when to pursue prosecution, and how to obtain the cooperation of sovereign nations. He laid a foundation for the OTP’s involvement with the United Nations Security Council, state parties, nongovernmental organizations, victims, the accused, witnesses, and the media.

This volume of essays presents the first sustained examination of this unique office and offers a rare look into international justice. The contributors, ranging from legal scholars to practitioners of international law, explore the spectrum of options available to the OTP, the particular choices Moreno Ocampo made, and issues ripe for consideration as his successor, Fatou B. Bensouda, assumes her duties. The beginning of Bensouda’s term thus offers the perfect opportunity to examine the first Prosecutor’s singular efforts to strengthen international justice, in all its facets.
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cover of The Foreign Policy Disconnect: What Americans Want from Our Leaders but Don't Get

The Foreign Policy Disconnect

What Americans Want from Our Leaders but Don't Get

Benjamin I. Page with Marshall M. Bouton

University of Chicago Press, 2006

With world affairs so troubled, what kind of foreign policy should the United States pursue? Benjamin Page and Marshall Bouton look for answers in a surprising place: among the American people. Drawing on a series of national surveys conducted between 1974 and 2004, Page and Bouton reveal that—contrary to conventional wisdom—Americans generally hold durable, coherent, and sensible opinions about foreign policy. Nonetheless, their opinions often stand in opposition to those of policymakers, usually because of different interests and values, rather than superior wisdom among the elite. The Foreign Policy Disconnect argues that these gaps between leaders and the public are harmful, and that by using public opinion as a guideline policymakers could craft a more effective, sustainable, and democratic foreign policy. 

Page and Bouton support this argument by painting a uniquely comprehensive portrait of the military, diplomatic, and economic foreign policies Americans favor. They show, for example, that protecting American jobs is just as important to the public as security from attack, a goal the current administration seems to pursue single-mindedly. And contrary to some officials’ unilateral tendencies, the public consistently and overwhelmingly favors cooperative multilateral policy and participation in international treaties. Moreover, Americans’ foreign policy opinions are seldom divided along the usual lines: majorities of virtually all social, ideological, and partisan groups seek a policy that pursues the goals of security and justice through cooperative means. Written in a clear and engaging style, The Foreign Policy Disconnect calls, in an original voice, for a more democratic approach to creating such a policy.

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cover of The Foreign and Domestic Dimensions of Modern Warfare: Vietnam, Central America, and Nuclear Strategy

The Foreign and Domestic Dimensions of Modern Warfare

Vietnam, Central America, and Nuclear Strategy

Howard Mumford Jones

University of Alabama Press, 1988

An exploration of the nuclear arms race and the dangers arising with the advent of “limited warfare”

After the development of the atomic bomb in 1945, Americans became engaged in a "new kind of war" against totalitarianism. Enemies and objectives slipped out of focus, causing political and military aims to mesh as a struggle to contain communism both at home and abroad encompassed civilians as well as soldiers. In matters relating to Vietnam, Central America, and the nuclear arms race, the domestic and foreign dimensions of each issue became inseparable. Policymakers in Washington had to formulate strategies dictated by "limited war" in their search for peace.

Contributors to this volume demonstrate the multifaceted nature of modern warfare. Robert H. Ferrell establishes the importance of studying military history in understanding the post-World War II era. On Vietnam, Colonel Harry G. Summers, Jr., gives an intriguing argument regarding the U. S. Army; George C. Herring examines how America's decisions in 1954 assured deepened involvement; and Captain Mark Clodfelter uncovers new evidence concerning "Linebacker I." On the home front, Robert F. Burk analyzes the impact of the Cold War on the battle for racial justice; Charles DeBenedetti puts forth a challenging interpretation of the antiwar movement; and James C. Schneider provides perspective on the relationship between the Vietnam War and the Great Society. On Central America, two writers downplay communism in explaining the region's troubles. Ralph Lee Woodward, Jr., fits the Nicaraguan revolution in the long span of history, and Thomas M. Leonard shows how the Reagan administration forced Costa Rica to side with the United States's anti-Sandinista policy. Finally, on nuclear strategy, Donald M. Snow offers a thought-provoking assessment of the "star wars" program, and Daniel S. Papp recommends measures to promote understanding among the superpowers.

These essays demonstrate that the making of foreign policy is immensely complicated, not subject to easy solution or to simple explanation. Despite these complexities, the central objective of policymakers remained clear: to safeguard what was perceived as the national interest.

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cover of The Frontier of Loyalty: Political Exiles in the Age of the Nation-State

The Frontier of Loyalty

Political Exiles in the Age of the Nation-State

Yossi Shain

University of Michigan Press, 2005

Paperback edition of the pathbreaking book on the role of exiles in international relations, with a new foreword (including material on the war in Iraq).

"In a world increasingly shaped by transnational organizations and processes, this is a timely and welcome subject, and Yossi Shain provides an informative overview."
--Rogers Brubaker, Harvard University, in The American Journal of Sociology

"Engrossing."
--International Affairs

"Mr. Shain is at his best stitching together information that hitherto had not been systematically related to analytical themes. . . . A major contribution to understanding the patterns and complexities of the politics of those at home abroad."
--International Migration Review

"The Frontier of Loyalty is the first comprehensive and theoretically oriented study of exile politics; the types of exile activity; the relation to both the home and host governments; and the difficulties and ambiguities of exile politics, particularly the struggle for legitimacy as spokesman for the opposition at home and for recognition from the outside."
--- Juan J. Linz, Yale University

"An ingenious and sensitive analysis of political exiles as 'voice from without,' which contributes to our understanding of the transnational character of contemporary politics."
--- Aristide R. Zolberg, New School for Social Research

"Drawing upon a wide literature on contemporary political exiles, Yossi Shain presents a sophisticated, learned and sensible survey of their place in political life today. More important, his meditation on the role of exiles proves such essential political categories as legitimacy,
national loyalty, and opposition in the modern state. One test of any work of scholarship is whether it enhances our understanding of concepts that we have previously taken for granted. By this measure, Shain's book passes with flying colors."
--- Michael R. Marrus, University of Toronto
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cover of The Future of NATO: Regional Defense and Global Security

The Future of NATO

Regional Defense and Global Security

Andrew A. Michta and Paal Sigurd Hilde, editors

University of Michigan Press, 2014

 The conclusion of International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) operations in Afghanistan in 2014 closes an important chapter in the history of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). In this volume, European and US experts examine a range of perennial issues facing the Alliance, including relations with Russia, NATO’s institutional organization and command structure, and the role of the United States in the Alliance, in order to show how these issues shape today’s most pressing debate—the debate over the balance between NATO’s engagement in security operations globally and traditional defense within the North-Atlantic region. The volume’s contributors propose that NATO can indeed find a viable balance between competing, but not inherently incompatible, strategic visions.

A theoretically informed, empirical account and analysis of NATO’s recent evolution, this volume will appeal to both security scholars and practitioners from the policy community.
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cover of The Global Economy and Democracy in South Africa

The Global Economy and Democracy in South Africa

Koelble, Thomas A.

Rutgers University Press, 1998

Democracy differs dramatically in First and Third World countries. Academic debate in the West focuses on democractic institutional arrangements and concepts such as elections, freedom of association, and freedom of speech, and little attention is paid to the content of emancipatory policy. In the Third World and especially in South Africa, emancipation and socio-economic redistribution are more important aspects in the popular perception of what democracy means than considerations of how political institutions function. These variations put regimes such as the ANC-led government on a collision course with the West.
Arguing that a consolidation of democratic institutions depends on a redistribution of resources, Thomas Koelble analyzes two crucial policy arenas-housing and education-to clarify the enormous problems facing the current South African government. For successful consolidation of institutional democracy in South Africa, Western political and financial institutions must provide support for that redistribution. Without their support, the ANC constituency's expectations that democracy will improve the quality of life will go unrealized, and the government may fail.
Koelble also posits that while the new South African constitution encompasses aspects of a consensus oriented system in terms of its federal structures and various rights to minorities, it is a system dominated by one large political party that is not constitutionally required to share power. He suggests that the ANC would have better served the cause of democracy had it included rather than excluded their opposition from political power. This majoritarian rule may deteriorate into another version of "race politics". Such race politics will have deleterious effects on both South Africa's polity and economy.
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cover of The Global Republic: America's Inadvertent Rise to World Power

The Global Republic

America's Inadvertent Rise to World Power

Frank Ninkovich

University of Chicago Press, 2014

For decades the United States has been the most dominant player on the world’s stage. The country’s economic authority, its globally forceful foreign policy, and its leading position in international institutions tend to be seen as the result of a long-standing, deliberate drive to become a major global force. Furthermore, it has become widely accepted that American exceptionalism—the belief that America is a country like no other in history—has been at the root of many of the country’s political, military, and global moves. Frank Ninkovich disagrees.  

One of the preeminent intellectual historians of our time, Ninkovich delivers here his most ambitious and sweeping book to date. He argues that historically the United States has been driven not by a belief in its destiny or its special character but rather by a need to survive the forces of globalization. He builds the powerful case that American foreign policy has long been based on and entangled in questions of global engagement, while also showing that globalization itself has always been distinct from—and sometimes in direct conflict with—what we call international society. 

In the second half of the twentieth century, the United States unexpectedly stumbled into the role of global policeman and was forced to find ways to resolve international conflicts that did not entail nuclear warfare. The United States's decisions were based less in notions of exceptionalism and more in a need to preserve and expand a flourishing global society that had become essential to the American way of life.

Sure to be controversial, The Global Republic compellingly and provocatively counters some of the deepest and most common misconceptions about America’s history and its place in the world.
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cover of The Great Deception: Anglo-American Power and World Order

The Great Deception

Anglo-American Power and World Order

Mark Curtis

Pluto Press, 1998

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cover of The Great Enterprise: Sovereignty and Historiography in Modern Korea

The Great Enterprise

Sovereignty and Historiography in Modern Korea

Henry H. Em

Duke University Press, 2013

In The Great Enterprise, Henry H. Em examines how the project of national sovereignty shaped the work of Korean historians and their representations of Korea's past. The goal of Korea attaining validity and equal standing among sovereign nations, Em shows, was foundational to modern Korean politics in that it served a pedagogical function for Japanese and Western imperialisms, as well as for Korean nationalism. Sovereignty thus functioned as police power and political power in shaping Korea's modernity, including anticolonial and postcolonial movements toward a radically democratic politics.

Surveying historical works written over the course of the twentieth century, Em elucidates the influence of Christian missionaries, as well as the role that Japan's colonial policy played in determining the narrative framework for defining Korea's national past. Em goes on to analyze postcolonial works in which South Korean historians promoted national narratives appropriate for South Korea's place in the U.S.-led Cold War system. Throughout, Em highlights equal sovereignty's creative and productive potential to generate oppositional subjectivities and vital political alternatives.

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cover of The Great Global Transformation: The United States, China, and the Remaking of the World Economic Order

The Great Global Transformation

The United States, China, and the Remaking of the World Economic Order

Branko Milanovic

University of Chicago Press, 2026

From the essential chronicler of the world economy, a portrait of the Great Powers in transition.

The world’s two great economic powers are on opposite trajectories. In the United States, decades of neoliberal policies produced a small class of rich elites and gutted the middle class. In China, the same global forces have created a massive new upper class. The result is the greatest reshuffling of global incomes since the Industrial Revolution—a dramatic shakeup of each country’s political order. As the two powers retreat from one another, the implications for their futures, and for the world economy, are uncertain.

In The Great Global Transformation, acclaimed economist Branko Milanovic draws on original research to chart how these seismic shifts will shape the next century of the global economy. As both the US and China retreat into protectionism, Milanovic shows how a new and multipolar world order will follow—and how rising nationalism will have dramatically different effects on the two countries. And he shows us the fight ahead: as plutocracy returns, global war threatens, and a new system silently shapes our nations, driving populist discontent to the breaking point.

A worthy successor to Capitalism, Alone and his other landmark works, Milanovic’s new book announces the arrival of a new era he terms “national market liberalism,” in which liberalism survives in domestic economies, but not necessarily in the social arena. The Great Global Transformation is Milanovic’s indispensable account of the new twenty-first century now underway.
 
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cover of The Great Global Transformation: The United States, China, and the Remaking of the World Economic Order

The Great Global Transformation

The United States, China, and the Remaking of the World Economic Order

Branko Milanovic

University of Chicago Press, 2026

From the essential chronicler of the world economy, a portrait of the Great Powers in transition.

The world’s two great economic powers are on opposite trajectories. In the United States, decades of neoliberal policies produced a small class of rich elites and gutted the middle class. In China, the same global forces have created a massive new upper class. The result is the greatest reshuffling of global incomes since the Industrial Revolution—a dramatic shakeup of each country’s political order. As the two powers retreat from one another, the implications for their futures, and for the world economy, are uncertain.

In The Great Global Transformation, acclaimed economist Branko Milanovic draws on original research to chart how these seismic shifts will shape the next century of the global economy. As both the US and China retreat into protectionism, Milanovic shows how a new and multipolar world order will follow—and how rising nationalism will have dramatically different effects on the two countries. And he shows us the fight ahead: as plutocracy returns, global war threatens, and a new system silently shapes our nations, driving populist discontent to the breaking point.

A worthy successor to Capitalism, Alone and his other landmark works, Milanovic’s new book announces the arrival of a new era he terms “national market liberalism,” in which liberalism survives in domestic economies, but not necessarily in the social arena. The Great Global Transformation is Milanovic’s indispensable account of the new twenty-first century now underway.
 

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cover of The Great Satan vs. the Mad Mullahs: How the United States and Iran Demonize Each Other

The Great Satan vs. the Mad Mullahs

How the United States and Iran Demonize Each Other

William O. Beeman

University of Chicago Press, 2008

 
For more than twenty-five years, the United States and Iran have been diplomatically estranged, each characterizing the other not only as a political adversary, but also as devious, threatening, and essentially evil. According to William O. Beeman’s provocative book, The “Great Satan” vs. the “Mad Mullahs,” such demonization is a self-fulfilling prophecy, as both countries have embraced exactly the policies and rhetoric that would particularly threaten or insult the other. Drawing on his experience as a linguistic anthropologist, Beeman parses how political leaders have used historical references, religious associations, and the mythology of evil to inflame their own citizens against the foreign country, and proposes a way out of this dangerous debacle.
 
“William Beeman’s analysis of dissonant perceptions of Iran and the USA is compelling and important. . . . I am particularly grateful for this work.”—James Peacock, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
 
“[Beeman] is more interested in informing the reader than in impressing his peers. The other strength of the book lies in the author’s knowledge of Iranian history and culture. . . . It challenges the reader and forces him to question stereotypes about Iran and Washington’s perspective on the country.”—Abbas William Samii, Middle East Journal
 
 
 
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cover of The Imperial Discipline: Race and the Founding of International Relations

The Imperial Discipline

Race and the Founding of International Relations

Alexander E Davis

Pluto Press, 2021

This book questions the accepted origins of the field of International Relations (IR). Commonly understood to have emerged from the horrors of WW1 with the goal of bringing about world peace, the authors argue that on the contrary, IR came from a somewhat less noble tradition – that of the Round Table.

The Round Table were a network of imperialists emerging in the late 1800s across five key British imperial societies: Australia, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa and India. Their aim was to improve imperial governance, placing the empire into a position to control world affairs. Although they ultimately failed to rearrange world order according to their vision, they did help to build what we now call the discipline of IR.

The Round Table's 'scientific method' for the study of world affairs was rapidly subsumed into each geopolitical context. Through telling this story, the authors recover it, and interrogate its meanings for the discipline of IR today. They show the importance of the Global South to IR's foundations, and argue that IR scholarship in this period was intertwined with imperial racial thought in ways that it should not and cannot forget.

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cover of The Impossible Triangle: Mexico, Soviet Russia, and the United States in the 1920s

The Impossible Triangle

Mexico, Soviet Russia, and the United States in the 1920s

Daniela Spenser

Duke University Press, 1999

During the 1920s, Mexico was caught in a diplomatic struggle between the ideologies of two strong states. In The Impossible Triangle Daniela Spenser explores the tangled relationship between Russia and Mexico in the years following their own dramatic revolutions, as well as the role played by the United States during this turbulent period. Bringing together Mexican, Soviet, and North American (as well as British) perspectives, Spenser shows how the convergence of each country’s domestic and foreign policies precluded them from a harmonious triangular relationship.
Based on documents from the archives of several nations—including reports by former Mexican diplomats in Moscow that have never before been studied—the book analyzes the Mexican government’s motivation for establishing relations with the Soviet Union in the face of continued imperialist pressure and harsh opposition from the United States. After explaining how Mexico established diplomatic ties with the Soviet Union in 1924 in an attempt to broaden the spectrum of its alliances after several years of uneven relations with the United States, Spenser reveals the troubled nature of the relationship that ensued. Soviet policy toward Mexico was characterized by a series of profound contradictions, varying from neglect to strong involvement in Mexican politics and the belief that Mexico could become a center of world revolution. Working to resolve and explain these contradictions, Spenser explores how, despite U.S. objections to Mexico’s relations with the Soviet Union, Mexico continued its association with the Soviets until the United States adopted the Good Neighbor Policy and softened its stance toward Mexico’s revolutionary program after 1927.
With a foreword by Friedrich Katz and illustrated by illuminating photographs, The Impossible Triangle contributes to an understanding of the international dimension of the Mexican revolution. It will interest students and scholars of history, revolutionary theory, political science, diplomacy, and international relations.


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cover of The International Politics of Communication: Representing Community in a Globalizing World

The International Politics of Communication

Representing Community in a Globalizing World

Alan Chong

University of Michigan Press, 2025

In an era of globalization, international communication constantly takes place across borders, defying sovereign control as it influences opinion. While diplomacy between states is the visible face of international relations, this “informal diplomacy” is usually less visible but no less powerful. Information politics can be found in propaganda, Internet politics, educational exchanges, tourism, and even popular film. 

The International Politics of Communication examines this informational dimension of international politics, investigating how information is generated, conveyed through channels, and directed specifically at audiences. While citizens are often portrayed as faithfully loyal supporters and beneficiaries of the modern nation-state—a fiction supported by passports, identification papers, and other notarized credentials—they are subject to the pulls of loyalty from transnational tribal affiliations, mythological and historical narratives of ethnicity, as well as the transcendental claims of religion and philosophy. Increasingly, social media also enchants non-state individuals, providing new virtual communities as the center of loyalties rather than national affiliations. By reinterpreting taken-for-granted concepts in journalism, media, political economy, nationalism, development, and propaganda as information politics, this book prepares serious-minded scholars, citizens, politicians, and social activists everywhere to understand the power plays in international communication and use alternatives to begin transforming power relations.
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cover of The International Relations of Middle-earth: Learning from The Lord of the Rings

The International Relations of Middle-earth

Learning from The Lord of the Rings

Abigail E. Ruane and Patrick James

University of Michigan Press, 2012

Based on their successful undergraduate course at the University of Southern California, Abigail E. Ruane and Patrick James provide an introduction to International Relations using J. R. R. Tolkien's fantastically popular trilogy The Lord of the Rings. Because Tolkien's major themes---such as good versus evil and human agency versus determinism---are perennially relevant to International Relations, The Lord of the Rings is well suited for application to the study of politics in our own world. This innovative combination of social science and humanities approaches to illustrate key concepts engages students and stimulates critical thinking in new and exciting ways.

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cover of The Iwakura Embassy, 1871-1873, Volume I: The United States of America

The Iwakura Embassy, 1871-1873, Volume I

The United States of America

Kunitake Kume

MHM Limited, 2002

The newly established Meiji government sent a large delegation on a tour of Western countries to report on how Japan might modernize its political, economic, and social infrastructure. This embassy of some fifty top officials was headed by Iwakura Tomomi and included such luminaries as Ito Hirobumi and Kido Takayoshi. These emissaries journeyed to the United States and eleven European countries, making thorough investigations into each country's politics, military affairs, trade and industry, education, and culture. Their reports, which helped Japan emerge as a modern industrial nation, constitute an indispensable documentary resource. Volume I covers the departure of the Embassy from Yokohama, the Pacific crossing, the arrival in San Francisco, the wintry rail journey across the United States, the unexpectedly long stay in Washington, D.C., and the departure from Boston.
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cover of The Iwakura Embassy, 1871-1873, Volume II: Britain

The Iwakura Embassy, 1871-1873, Volume II

Britain

Kunitake Kume

MHM Limited, 2002

The newly established Meiji government sent a large delegation on a tour of Western countries to report on how Japan might modernize its political, economic, and social infrastructure. This embassy of some fifty top officials was headed by Iwakura Tomomi and included such luminaries as Ito Hirobumi and Kido Takayoshi. These emissaries journeyed to the United States and eleven European countries, making thorough investigations into each country's politics, military affairs, trade and industry, education, and culture. Their reports, which helped Japan emerge as a modern industrial nation, constitute an indispensable documentary resource. Volume II covers the period of seventeen weeks from August 16th, 1872, when the ambassadors sighted the Irish coast after a ten-day crossing from Boston, to December 15th, the day before they left Britain for France.
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cover of The Iwakura Embassy, 1871-1873, Volume III: Continental Europe, 1

The Iwakura Embassy, 1871-1873, Volume III

Continental Europe, 1

Kunitake Kume

MHM Limited, 2002

The newly established Meiji government sent a large delegation on a tour of Western countries to report on how Japan might modernize its political, economic, and social infrastructure. This embassy of some fifty top officials was headed by Iwakura Tomomi and included such luminaries as Ito Hirobumi and Kido Takayoshi. These emissaries journeyed to the United States and eleven European countries, making thorough investigations into each country's politics, military affairs, trade and industry, education, and culture. Their reports, which helped Japan emerge as a modern industrial nation, constitute an indispensable documentary resource. Volume III covers the first three and a half months of the journey across the Continent, recording the party's impressions in France, Belgium, Holland and Prussia.
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cover of The Iwakura Embassy, 1871-1873, Volume IV: Continental Europe, 2

The Iwakura Embassy, 1871-1873, Volume IV

Continental Europe, 2

Kunitake Kume

MHM Limited, 2002

"The newly established Meiji government sent a large delegation on a tour of Western countries to report on how Japan might modernize its political, economic, and social infrastructure. This embassy of some fifty top officials was headed by Iwakura Tomomi and included such luminaries as Ito Hirobumi and Kido Takayoshi. These emissaries journeyed to the United States and eleven European countries, making thorough investigations into each country's politics, military affairs, trade and industry, education, and culture. Their reports, which helped Japan emerge as a modern industrial nation, constitute an indispensable documentary resource. Volume IV covers the journeys made by the various members of the Embassy as they travelled through Russia, Denmark, Sweden, several of the German states, Italy and the Austro-Hungarian empire.
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cover of The Iwakura Embassy, 1871-1873, Volume V: Continental Europe, 3; and the Voyage Home

The Iwakura Embassy, 1871-1873, Volume V

Continental Europe, 3; and the Voyage Home

Kunitake Kume

MHM Limited, 2002

The newly established Meiji government sent a large delegation on a tour of Western countries to report on how Japan might modernize its political, economic, and social infrastructure. This embassy of some fifty top officials was headed by Iwakura Tomomi and included such luminaries as Ito Hirobumi and Kido Takayoshi. These emissaries journeyed to the United States and eleven European countries, making thorough investigations into each country's politics, military affairs, trade and industry, education, and culture. Their reports, which helped Japan emerge as a modern industrial nation, constitute an indispensable documentary resource. Volume V covers the ambassadors' visit to the Universal Exposition in Vienna, their travels in Switzerland, the few days they spent in Lyons and Marseilles, and their journey home, during which they travelled through the Mediterranean, the Suez Canal, the Arabian Sea, the Gulf of Bengal and the China Sea, calling at Aden, Galle (in Ceylon), Singapore (where a cholera epidemic prevented their landing), Saigon, Hong Kong and Shanghai.
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cover of The Japanese On Trial: Allied War Crimes Operations in the East, 1945–1951

The Japanese On Trial

Allied War Crimes Operations in the East, 1945–1951

By Philip R. Piccigallo

University of Texas Press, 1979

This comprehensive treatment of post–World War II Allied war crimes trials in the Far East is a significant contribution to a neglected subject. While the Nuremberg and, to a lesser degree, Tokyo tribunals have received considerable attention, this is the first full-length assessment of the entire Far East operation, which involved some 5,700 accused and 2,200 trials.

After discussing the Tokyo trial, Piccigallo systematically examines the operations of each Allied nation, documenting procedure and machinery as well as the details of actual trials (including hitherto unpublished photographs) and ending with a statistical summary of cases.

This study allows a completely new assessment of the Far East proceedings: with a few exceptions, the trials were carefully and fairly conducted, the efforts of defense counsel and the elaborate review procedures being especially noteworthy. Piccigallo’s approach to this emotion-filled subject is straightforward and evenhanded throughout. He concludes with a discussion of the broader implications of such war crimes trials, a matter of interest to the general reader as well as to specialists in history, law, and international affairs.

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cover of The Last Superpower Summits: Reagan, Gorbachev and Bush. Conversations that Ended the Cold War.

The Last Superpower Summits

Reagan, Gorbachev and Bush. Conversations that Ended the Cold War.

The National Security Archive Savranskaya

Central European University Press, 2017

This book publishes for the first time in print every word the American and Soviet leaders – Ronald Reagan, Mikhail Gorbachev, and George H.W. Bush – said to each other in their superpower summits from 1985 to 1991. Obtained by the authors through the Freedom of Information Act in the U.S., from the Gorbachev Foundation and the State Archive of the Russian Federation in Moscow, and from the personal donation of Anatoly Chernyaev, these previously Top Secret verbatim transcripts combine with key declassified preparatory and after-action documents from both sides to create a unique interactive documentary record of these historic highest-level talks – the conversations that ended the Cold War. The summits fueled a process of learning on both sides, as the authors argue in contextual essays on each summit and detailed headnotes on each document. Geneva 1985 and Reykjavik 1986 reduced Moscow's sense of threat and unleashed Reagan's inner abolitionist. Malta 1989 and Washington 1990 helped dampen any superpower sparks that might have flown in a time of revolutionary change in Eastern Europe, set off by Gorbachev and by Eastern Europeans (Solidarity, dissidents, reform Communists). The high level and scope of the dialogue between these world leaders was unprecedented, and is likely never to be repeated.
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cover of The Life Cycles of Global Governance: How Institutions Emerge, Evolve, and Endure

The Life Cycles of Global Governance

How Institutions Emerge, Evolve, and Endure

Julia Gray

University of Michigan Press, 2027

International organizations influence nearly every aspect of global life—from aid and finance to law, security, and development. At a moment when the liberal international order is widely described as being in decline, this volume offers a corrective. International organizations do not simply rise and fall; they are always in motion—adapting, fragmenting, or being repurposed in response to shifting conditions. A life-cycle perspective reveals that what appears as decline may instead reflect transformation. Although they are often treated as fixed landmarks of global politics, institutions rarely follow a linear path from creation to maturity. This interdisciplinary edited volume brings together scholars from law, political science, sociology, and international relations to reveal the life cycles of these institutions: their false starts, early challenges, periods of drift, moments of revitalization, and even their afterlives.

Spanning cases from the 19th century to the present and covering diverse issue areas, the book offers a fresh perspective on why some organizations adapt while others stagnate or disappear. The volume shows how shifting political pressures, bureaucratic agency, and global shocks shape the fortunes of organizations from the UN, WTO, and World Bank to regional bodies and informal networks. By tracing these trajectories across disciplines and domains, The Life Cycles of Global Governance provides an accessible, richly textured account of how global cooperation actually unfolds—and why understanding institutional change is essential in today’s shifting international order.

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cover of The Long 1989: Decades of Global Revolution

The Long 1989

Decades of Global Revolution

Kyrill Kunakhovich

Central European University Press, 2019

The fall of communism in Europe is now the frame of reference for any mass mobilization, from the Arab Spring to the Occupy movement to Brexit. Even thirty years on, 1989 still figures as a guide and motivation for political change. It is now a platitude to call 1989 a "world event," but the chapters in this volume show how it actually became one. 
The authors of these nine essays consider how revolutionary events in Europe resonated years later and thousands of miles away: in China and South Africa, Chile and Afghanistan, Turkey and the USA. They trace the circulation of people, practices, and concepts that linked these countries, turning local developments into a global phenomenon. At the same time, they examine the many shifts that revolution underwent in transit. All nine chapters detail the process of mutation, adaptation, and appropriation through which foreign affairs found new meanings on the ground. They interrogate the uses and understandings of 1989 in particular national contexts, often many years after the fact. Taken together, this volume asks how the fall of communism in Europe became the basis for revolutionary action around the world, proposing a paradigm shift in global thinking about revolution and protest.
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cover of The Long Détente: Changing Concepts of Security and Cooperation in Europe, 1950s–1980s

The Long Détente

Changing Concepts of Security and Cooperation in Europe, 1950s–1980s

Poul Villaume

Central European University Press, 2017

This book presents pieces of evidence, which – taken together – lead to an argument that goes against the grain of the established Cold War narrative. The argument is that a “long détente” existed between East and West from the 1950s to the 1980s, that it existed and lasted for good (economic, national security, societal) reasons, and that it had a profound impact on the outcome of the conflict between East and West and the quintessentially peaceful framework in which this “endgame” was played. New, Euro-centered narratives are offered, including both West and East European perspectives. These contributions point to critical inconsistencies and inherent problems in the traditional U.S. dominated narrative of the “Victory in the Cold War.” The argument of a “long détente” does not need to replace the ruling American narrative. Rather, it can and needs to be augmented with European experiences and perceptions. After all, it was Europe – its peoples, societies, and states – that stood both at the ideological and military frontline of the conflict between East and West, and it was here that the struggle between liberalism and communism was eventually decided.
[more]
cover of The Lost Art of Declaring War

The Lost Art of Declaring War

Brien Hallett

University of Illinois Press, 1998

Historically, it has been assumed that war is violence and declarations of war are simply public announcements that serve to initiate combat. Brien Hallett denies both assumptions and claims that war is policy, not violence.

The Lost Art of Declaring War analyzes the crucial differences between combat and war and convincingly argues that the power to "declare" war is in actuality the power to compose a text, draft a document, write a denunciation. Once written, the declaration then serves three functions: to articulate the political purposes of the war, to guide and direct military operations, and to establish the boundary between justified combat and unjustified devastation.

Hallett sounds a clarion call urging the people and their representatives to take up the challenge and write fully reasoned declarations of war. Then, and only then, can a civilized nation like the United States lay claim to being fully democratic, not only in peacetime, but in wartime as well.

[more]
cover of The Lost Chance in China and the Rise of Cold War Populism

The Lost Chance in China and the Rise of Cold War Populism

Stephen J. Hartnett

Michigan State University Press, 2025

The Lost Chance in China and the Rise of Cold War Populism offers a rollicking retelling of the fate of America’s diplomats stationed in China during World War II and the start of the Chinese Civil War, documenting how their efforts to find peace in China clashed with the anti-Communist network of right-wing advocates known as the China Lobby. Fueled by America’s end-of-the-war fury over the loss of China to Mao and the Communists, the on-the-ground experts in Asia lost the public relations battle to Cold War populists, who pushed a toxic version of public anger that built the rhetorical foundation of McCarthyism. Hartnett diagnoses the moment’s political battles by mapping a series of interlocking dispositions, emotion-based reactions that short-circuited critical thinking and empathy, instead feeding strident anti-Communism, xenophobia, and class-based resentments. Hartnett’s masterwork offers a haunting prehistory to our contemporary moment, when populism again stokes outrage and fear at the cost of nuanced international understanding.
[more]
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The Making of Terrorism

Michel Wieviorka

University of Chicago Press, 1993

In this innovative study, Michel Wieviorka applies interventionist sociology to a comparative analysis of Italian, Peruvian, Basque, and Middle Eastern terrorist groups. Through staged confrontations between terrorists and their targets, and extensive interviews with both parties, he throws new light on the terrorists and their relationships both to the movements they represent and the social institutions they attempt to destroy.

Wieviorka demonstrates that the truly terrorist actor has become alienated both from the collective movement and society. The actor turns to the blind violence when he finds himself cut off from the very ideology which legitimates his actions. Pure terrorism, Wieviorka concludes, is more than simply a break between those who use it and those it targets; it is also a relationship—between the individual and the collective he represents—which has been rendered unrealistic or artificial. Thus, terrorist violence should be understood not as the desperate act of a faltering movement but as a substitute for a movement which has fallen away from the ideology in which it was forged.

For the revelations it offers on the roots and motivations of terrorism, for its innovative methods, and for its useful comparative analysis of terrorist groups in recent history, The Making of Terrorism will be an important resource across many disciplines for anyone interested in terrorism or political violence.
[more]
cover of The Making of Terrorism

The Making of Terrorism

Michel Wieviorka

University of Chicago Press, 2004

Revised and reissued in light of recent events, this classic and now increasingly important book is an exception in the literature on terrorism. Based on complex observations of actual movement participants, Wieviorka's book addresses a broad spectrum of terrorist activity—from Italian left-wing terrorists to Basque nationalist groups to the international terrorism of Palestine and the Middle East. The result is an incisive analysis of what terrorists believe and what they hope to achieve through their actions. For this new edition, Wieviorka adds new material that remaps the state of terrorism after the events of 2001.
[more]
cover of The Many Faces of Political Islam, Second Edition: Religion and Politics in Muslim Societies

The Many Faces of Political Islam, Second Edition

Religion and Politics in Muslim Societies

Mohammed Ayoob and Danielle N. Lussier

University of Michigan Press, 2020

Analysts and pundits from across the American political spectrum describe Islamic fundamentalism as one of the greatest threats to modern, Western-style democracy. Yet very few non-Muslims would be able to venture an accurate definition of political Islam. Fully revised and updated, The Many Faces of Political Islam thoroughly analyzes the many facets of this political ideology and shows its impact on global relations.

 

[more]
cover of The Many Faces of Political Islam: Religion and Politics in the Muslim World

The Many Faces of Political Islam

Religion and Politics in the Muslim World

Mohammed Ayoob

University of Michigan Press, 2009

Analysts and pundits from across the American political spectrum describe Islamic fundamentalism as one of the greatest threats to modern, Western-style democracy. Yet very few non-Muslims would be able to venture an accurate definition of political Islam. Mohammed Ayoob's The Many Faces of Political Islam thoroughly describes the myriad manifestations of this rising ideology and analyzes its impact on global relations.
 
"In this beautifully crafted and utterly compelling book, Mohammed Ayoob accomplishes admirably the difficult task of offering a readily accessible yet nuanced and comprehensive analysis of an issue of enormous political importance. Both students and specialists will learn a great deal from this absolutely first-rate book."
---Peter J. Katzenstein, Walter S. Carpenter, Jr. Professor of International Studies and Stephen H. Weiss Presidential Teaching Fellow, Cornell University
 
"Dr. Ayoob addresses the nuances and complexities of political Islam---be it mainstream, radical, or militant---and offers a road map of the pivotal players and issues that define the movement. There is no one as qualified as Mohammed Ayoob to write a synthesis of various manifestations of political Islam. His complex narrative highlights the changes and shifts that have taken place within the Islamist universe and their implications for internal Muslim politics and relations between the world of Islam and the Christian world."
---Fawaz A. Gerges, Carnegie Scholar, and holds the Christian A. Johnson Chair in International Affairs and Middle Eastern Studies, Sarah Lawrence College
 
"Let's hope that many readers---not only academics but policymakers as well---will use this invaluable book."
---François Burgat, Director, French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) and the Institute for Research and Study on the Arab and Muslim World (IREMAM), Aix-en-Provence, France
 
"This is a wonderful, concise book by an accomplished and sophisticated political scientist who nonetheless manages to convey his interpretation of complex issues and movements to even those who have little background on the subject. It is impressive in its clarity, providing a badly needed text on political Islam that's accessible to college students and the general public alike."
---Shibley Telhami, Anwar Sadat Professor for Peace and Development, University of Maryland, and Senior Fellow, Brookings Institution
 
Mohammed Ayoob is University Distinguished Professor of International Relations with a joint appointment in James Madison College and the Department of Political Science at Michigan State University. He is also Coordinator of the Muslim Studies Program at Michigan State University.
[more]
cover of The Microbial State: Global Thriving and the Body Politic

The Microbial State

Global Thriving and the Body Politic

Stefanie R. Fishel

University of Minnesota Press, 2017

For three centuries, concepts of the state have been animated by one of the most powerful metaphors in politics: the body politic, a claustrophobic and bounded image of sovereignty. Climate change, neoliberalism, mass migration, and other aspects of the late Anthropocene have increasingly revealed the limitations of this metaphor. Just as the human body is not whole and separate from other bodies—comprising microbes, bacteria, water, and radioactive isotopes—Stefanie R. Fishel argues that the body politic of the state exists in dense entanglement with other communities and forms of life. 

Drawing on insights from continental philosophy, science and technology studies, and international relations theory, this path-breaking book critiques the concept of the body politic on the grounds of its very materiality. Fishel both redefines and extends the metaphor of the body politic and its role in understanding an increasingly posthuman, globalized world politics. By conceiving of bodies and states as lively vessels, living harmoniously with multiplicity and the biosphere, she argues that a radical shift in metaphors can challenge a politics based on fear to open new forms of global political practice and community. 

Reframing the concept of the body politic to accommodate greater levels of complexity, Fishel suggests, will result in new configurations for the political and social organization necessary to build a world in which the planet’s inhabitants do not merely live but actively thrive.

[more]
cover of The Military Intervenes: Case Studies in Political Development

The Military Intervenes

Case Studies in Political Development

Henry Bienen

Russell Sage Foundation, 1968

Explores the mechanisms of military intervention and its consequences. The contributors examine a succession of coups, attempted coups, and established military regimes, with a view to evaluate the role of the military as a ruling group and an organization fostering political development. These studies cast strong doubt on the abilities of the military as a modernizing and stabilizing agent, raising important questions about our policies on military assistance and arms sales. Bienen makes an especially strong plea for a reassessment of our military and economic-political policies in order to determine whether both are working toward the same goals.
[more]
cover of The Narrow Path of Freedom and Other Essays

The Narrow Path of Freedom and Other Essays

Eugene Davidson

University of Missouri Press, 2002

Eugene Davidson’s final book, The Narrow Path of Freedom and Other Essays, examines historical instances of man’s inhumanity to man, providing poignant insight that we can profit from as we contemplate an ongoing battle against terrorism. A superb essayist, Davidson here displays an extraordinary range. Long a student of international relations, he writes of the Nuremberg trials after World War II and, as the book’s title indicates, of the narrow path of freedom that the democracies have had to travel during the last half century. The path allowed little stumbling, lest they would fall into the errors that disgraced the dictatorships. Davidson wears his wisdom lightly, delighting a reader with touches of humor and with wry, startlingly appropriate comparisons.
A second set of essays examines the idea of history as it has survived into our present time, including what Davidson describes as the “thin coat of higher learning” in a commencement address in which he advises young men and women to listen to dissent and make up their own minds. As Davidson says, “The war of ideas is far from over, and every coming generation will have to bear its own share of the burden in the endless struggle for the survival of freedom.”
Last is a group of reminiscent essays. One recounts a friendship with the historian Charles A. Beard, who proposed to the young Davidson that he call him Uncle Charlie. In another Davidson plumbs the personality of a major figure of the Nazi era, Albert Speer. He also discusses the pathetic and perhaps demented Ezra Pound, whose genius as a poet may have been questionable but whose ability to survive was remarkable.
The Narrow Path of Freedom and Other Essays is a valuable guide for all who try to keep the idea of freedom alive. The pieces in it are nothing less than a triumph—historical, literary, philosophical. By confronting the idea of history—what the past should mean—Davidson gives us a book that will last well into our already turbulent new century.
[more]
cover of The Neocolonialism of the Global Village

The Neocolonialism of the Global Village

Ginger Nolan

University of Minnesota Press, 2018

Uncovering a vast maze of realities in the media theories of Marshall McLuhan

The term “global village”—coined in the 1960s by Marshall McLuhan—has persisted into the twenty-first century as a key trope of techno-humanitarian discourse, casting economic and technical transformations in a utopian light. Against that tendency, this book excavates the violent history, originating with techniques of colonial rule in Africa, that gave rise to the concept of the global village. To some extent, we are all global villagers, but given the imbalances of semiotic power, some belong more thoroughly than others. Reassessing McLuhan’s media theories in light of their entanglement with colonial and neocolonial techniques, Nolan implicates various arch-paradigms of power (including “terra-power”) in the larger prerogative of managing human populations.

Forerunners: Ideas First is a thought-in-process series of breakthrough digital publications. Written between fresh ideas and finished books, Forerunners draws on scholarly work initiated in notable blogs, social media, conference plenaries, journal articles, and the synergy of academic exchange. This is gray literature publishing: where intense thinking, change, and speculation take place in scholarship.

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cover of The One and Only Law: Walter Benjamin and the Second Commandment

The One and Only Law

Walter Benjamin and the Second Commandment

James R. Martel

University of Michigan Press, 2014

Walter Benjamin’s “Critique of Violence,” widely considered his final word on law, proposes that all manifestations of law are false stand-ins for divine principles of truth and justice that are no longer available to human beings. However, he also suggests that we must have law—we are held under a divine sanction that does not allow us to escape our responsibilities. James R. Martel argues that this paradox is resolved by considering that, for Benjamin, there is only one law that we must obey absolutely—the Second Commandment against idolatry. What remains of law when its false bases of authority are undermined would be a form of legal and political anarchism, quite unlike the current system of law based on consistency and precedent.

Martel engages with the ideas of key authors including Alain Badiou, Immanuel Kant, and H.L.A. Hart in order to revisit common contemporary assumptions about law. He reveals how, when treated in constellation with these authors, Benjamin offers a way for human beings to become responsible for their own law, thereby avoiding the false appearance of a secular legal practice that remains bound by occult theologies and fetishisms.
[more]
cover of The One-State Solution: A Breakthrough for Peace in the Israeli-Palestinian Deadlock

The One-State Solution

A Breakthrough for Peace in the Israeli-Palestinian Deadlock

Virginia Tilley

University of Michigan Press, 2010

“A clear, trenchant book on a topic of enormous importance... Overall this is a courageous plunge
into boiling waters. If it helps propel forward a debate that has hardly begun in this country it will
have performed a signal scholarly and political function.”
—Tony Judt, New York University

“. . . a pioneering text. . . . [A]s such it will take pride of place in a brewing debate.”
—Gary Sussman, Tel Aviv University

The One-State Solution demonstrates that Israeli settlements have already encroached on the occupied territory of the West Bank and Gaza Strip to the extent that any Palestinian state in those areas is unviable. It reveals the irreversible impact of Israel’s settlement grid by summarizing its physical, demographic, financial, and political dimensions. Virginia Tilley explains why we should assume that this grid will not be withdrawn—or its expansion reversed—by reviewing the
role of the key political actors: the Israeli government, the United States, the Arab states, and the European Union. Finally, the book addresses the daunting obstacles to a one-state solution—including major revision of the Zionist dream but also Palestinian and other regional resistance—and offers some ideas about how those obstacles might be addressed.

 
Virginia Tilley is Chief Research Specialist in the Democracy and Governance Division of the Human Research Council in Cape Town, South Africa.
[more]
cover of The Origins of Israel, 1882–1948: A Documentary History

The Origins of Israel, 1882–1948

A Documentary History

Eran Kaplan

University of Wisconsin Press, 2011

In 1880 the Jewish community in Palestine encompassed some 20,000 Orthodox Jews; within sixty-five years it was transformed into a secular proto-state with well-developed political, military, and economic institutions, a vigorous Hebrew-language culture, and some 600,000 inhabitants. The Origins of Israel, 1882–1948: A Documentary History chronicles the making of modern Israel before statehood, providing in English the texts of original sources (many translated from Hebrew and other languages) accompanied by extensive introductions and commentaries from the volume editors.

This sourcebook assembles a diverse array of 62 documents, many of them unabridged, to convey the ferment, dissent, energy, and anxiety that permeated the Zionist project from its inception to the creation of the modern nation of Israel. Focusing primarily on social, economic, and cultural history rather than Zionist thought and diplomacy, the texts are organized in themed chapters. They present the views of Zionists from many political and religious camps, factory workers, farm women, militants, intellectuals promoting the Hebrew language and arts—as well as views of ultra-Orthodox anti-Zionists. The volume includes important unabridged documents from the origins of the Arab-Israeli conflict that are often cited but are rarely read in full. The editors, Eran Kaplan and Derek J. Penslar, provide both primary texts and informative notes and commentary, giving readers the opportunity to encounter voices from history and make judgments for themselves about matters of world-historical significance.


Best Special Interest Books, selected by the Public Library Reviewers

Best Books for General Audiences, selected by the American Association of School Librarians
[more]
cover of The Other Arab-Israeli Conflict: Making America's Middle East Policy, from Truman to Reagan

The Other Arab-Israeli Conflict

Making America's Middle East Policy, from Truman to Reagan

Steven L. Spiegel

University of Chicago Press, 1985

The Other Arab-Israeli Conflict illuminates the controversial course of America's Middle East relations from the birth of Israel to the Reagan administration. Skillfully separating actual policymaking from the myths that have come to surround it, Spiegel challenges the belief that American policy in the Middle East is primarily a relation to events in that region or is motivated by bureaucratic constraints or the pressures of domestic politics. On the contrary, he finds that the ideas and skills of the president and his advisors are critical to the determination of American policy. This volume received the 1986 National Jewish Book Award.
[more]
cover of The Passion of International Leadership: How Emotions Shape Transatlantic Cooperation

The Passion of International Leadership

How Emotions Shape Transatlantic Cooperation

Philippe Beauregard

University of Michigan Press, 2022

How do international leaders emerge and why are they successful in bringing followers to converge on their positions? The Passion of International Leadership draws on recent advances in political psychology and state-of-the-art research in International Relations to go beyond current knowledge and simplistic accounts of international leadership. It tells surprising and intense stories of policymakers at the head of great powers attempting to cooperate during crisis moments, and uses these stories to challenge commonly held beliefs and intuitions about international leadership.

Beauregard explores international leadership in four cases of transatlantic cooperation when Western policymakers were confronted with foreign conflicts, like civil or secessionist wars. He provides a fascinating study of the recognition of Slovenia, Croatia, and Bosnia during the wars in Yugoslavia; the peace mediation during the Russia-Georgia war in 2008; the adoption of economic sanctions against Russia over the conflict in Ukraine; and finally, cooperation on striking against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. The book argues that leaders are driven by their convictions, and that they must strike a balance between the intense emotions associated with their beliefs and their need to represent a broader community. At the same time as they seek to bring followers on board by persuading them, they need to pay attention to emotionally contagious and resonant events that can alter the course of international cooperation.

[more]
cover of The Perils of Global Legalism

The Perils of Global Legalism

Eric A. Posner

University of Chicago Press, 2009

The first months of the Obama administration have led to expectations, both in the United States and abroad, that in the coming years America will increasingly promote the international rule of law—a position that many believe is both ethically necessary and in the nation’s best interests.

With The Perils of Global Legalism, Eric A. Posner explains that such views demonstrate a dangerously naive tendency toward legalism—an idealistic belief that law can be effective even in the absence of legitimate institutions of governance. After tracing the historical roots of the concept, Posner carefully lays out the many illusions—such as universalism, sovereign equality, and the possibility of disinterested judgment by politically unaccountable officials—on which the legalistic view is founded. Drawing on such examples as NATO’s invasion of Serbia, attempts to ban the use of land mines, and the free-trade provisions of the WTO, Posner demonstrates throughout that the weaknesses of international law confound legalist ambitions—and that whatever their professed commitments, all nations stand ready to dispense with international agreements when it suits their short- or long-term interests.

Provocative and sure to be controversial, The Perils of Global Legalism will serve as a wake-up call for those who view global legalism as a panacea—and a reminder that international relations in a brutal world allow no room for illusions.

[more]
cover of The Philosophy of Parochialism

The Philosophy of Parochialism

Radomir Konstantinovic, Edited and with an Introduction by Branislav Jakovljevic, Translation by Ljiljana Nikolic and Branislav Jakovljevic

University of Michigan Press, 2021

The Philosophy of Parochialism is Radomir Konstantinović’s (1928–2011) most celebrated and reviled book. First published in Belgrade as Filosofija palanke in 1969, it attracted keen attention and controversy through its unsparing critique of Serbian and any other nationalism in Yugoslavia and beyond. The book was prophetic, seeming to anticipate not only the bloody disintegration of Yugoslavia in the 1990s, but also the totalitarian turn in politics across the globe in the first decades of the new century. With this translation, English-speaking audiences can at last discover one of the most original writers of eastern European late modernism, and gain an important and original perspective into contemporary politics and culture in the West and beyond. This is a book that seems to age in reverse, as its meanings become deeper and more universal with the passage of time.

Konstantinović’sbookresists easy classification, mixing classical, Montaigne-like essay, prose poetry, novel, and literary history. The word “philosophy” in the book’s title refers to the solitary activity of reflection and critical thinking, and is also paradoxical: according to the author, a defining characteristic of parochialism is precisely its intolerance toward this kind of self-reflexivity. In Konstantinović’s analysis, parochialism is not a simply a characteristic of a geographical region or a cultural, political, and historical formation—these are all just manifestations of the parochial spirit as the spirit of insularity. His book illuminates the current moment, in which insularity undergirds not only ethnic and national divisions, but also dictates the very structure of everyday life, and where individuals can easily find themselves locked in an echo chamber of social media. The Philosophy of Parochialism can help us understand better not only the dead ends of ethnic nationalism and other atavistic ideologies, but also of those cultural forces such as digital technologies that have been built on the promise of overcoming those ideologies.

[more]
cover of The Pinochet Case

The Pinochet Case

Madeleine Davis

University of London Press, 2000

The arrest in 1998 and subsequent detention in London of General Augusto Pinochet on the orders of Spanish Judge Baltasar Garzon occasioned worldwide debate and raised numerous issues of critical significance for politics, human rights and international law. This paper traces the progress of the case against Pinochet since its inception in Spain, through his 17-month detention in London, and up to its continuation in Chile. The work provides a survey of events and developments so far, and offers an initial review of some of the issues raised. It includes a detailed chronology of events from the time of Pinochet's arrest up to October 2000.
[more]
cover of The Pinochet Case: Origins, Progress and Implications

The Pinochet Case

Origins, Progress and Implications

Edited by Madeleine Davis

University of London Press, 2003

The 1998 arrest of Senator Augusto Pinochet in London, on the orders of a Spanish judge seeking his extradition for human rights crimes, made headlines all over the world. Part of a wider, ongoing attempt by human rights activists and lawyers to prosecute the crimes of Latin American military regimes, the case has important implications for national and international law and for politics, diplomacy, and democracy. This book brings together political scientists and lawyers from Latin America, the United States, Spain, and the UK to analyze the political and historical context of the case, its progress through the courts in the UK and Chile, its handling by national governments, and its political and legal implications, both national and international. Contributors include Alan Angell (St Antony's College, Oxford, UK), Alexandra Barahona de Brito (Instituto de Estudos Estrategicos e Internacionais and Universidade Moderna, Lisbon, Portugal), Francisco Bravo Lopez (Chilean Interior Ministry), Juan E.
Garces (1999 recipient of the Right Livelihood Award for his work in preparing the Pinochet case), Carlos Huneeus (CERC, Chile and Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile), Brian Loveman (San Diego State University, USA), Carlos Malamud (Real Instituto Elcano de Estudios Internacionales y Estrategicos, Madrid, Spain), Antonio Remiro Brotons (Universidad Autonoma de Madrid, Spain), Naomi Roht-Arriaza (University of California, Hastings College of Law, USA), and Diana Woodhouse (Oxford Brookes University, UK).
[more]
cover of The Political Economy of Regional Peacemaking

The Political Economy of Regional Peacemaking

Edited by Steven E. Lobell and Norrin M. Ripsman

University of Michigan Press, 2016

In The Political Economy of Regional Peacemaking, scholars examine the efficacy of trade agreements, economic sanctions, and other strategies of economic statecraft for the promotion of peace both between rival states and across conflict-ridden regions more generally. In the introduction, Steven E. Lobell and Norrin M. Ripsman pose five central questions: (1) What types of economic statecraft, including incentives and sanctions, can interested parties employ? (2) Who are the appropriate targets in the rival states—state leaders, economic and social elites, or society as whole? (3) When should specific economic instruments be used to promote peace—prior to negotiations, during negotiations, after signature of the treaty, or during implementation of the treaty? (4) What are the limits and risks of economic statecraft and economic interdependence? (5) How can economic statecraft be used to move from a bilateral peace agreement to regional peace?

The chapters that follow are grouped in three sections, corresponding to the three stages of peacemaking: reduction or management of regional conflict; peacemaking or progress toward a peace treaty; and maintenance of bilateral peace and the regionalization of the peace settlement. In each chapter, the contributors consider the five key questions from a variety of methodological, historical, cultural, and empirical perspectives, drawing data from the Pacific, the Middle East, Europe, Asia, and Latin America. The conclusion expands on several themes found in the chapters and proposes an agenda for future research.

[more]
cover of The Politics of Expertise: Competing for Authority in Global Governance

The Politics of Expertise

Competing for Authority in Global Governance

Ole Jacob Sending

University of Michigan Press, 2015

Experts dominate all facets of global governance, from accounting practices and antitrust regulations to human rights law and environmental conservation. In this study, Ole Jacob Sending encourages a critical interrogation of the role and power of experts by unveiling the politics of the ongoing competition for authority in global governance.

Drawing on insights from sociology, political science, and institutional theory, Sending challenges theories centered on particular actors’ authority, whether it is the authority of so-called epistemic communities, the moral authority of advocacy groups, or the rational-legal authority of international organizations. Using in-depth and historically oriented case studies of population and peacebuilding, he demonstrates that authority is not given nor located in any set of particular actors. Rather, continuous competition for recognition as an authority to determine what is to be governed, by whom, and for what purpose shapes global governance in fundamental ways.

Advancing a field-based approach, Sending highlights the political stakes disguised by the technical language of professionals and thus opens a broader public debate over the key issues of our time.

[more]
cover of The Politics of Genocide: From the Genocide Convention to the Responsibility to Protect

The Politics of Genocide

From the Genocide Convention to the Responsibility to Protect

Jeffrey S. Bachman

Rutgers University Press, 2022

Beginning with the negotiations that concluded with the unanimous adoption of the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide on December 9, 1948, and extending to the present day, the United States, Soviet Union/Russia, China, United Kingdom, and France have put forth great effort to ensure that they will not be implicated in the crime of genocide. If this were to fail, they have also ensured that holding any of them accountable for genocide will be practically impossible. By situating genocide prevention in a system of territorial jurisdiction; by excluding protection for political groups and acts constituting cultural genocide from the Genocide Convention; by controlling when genocide is meaningfully named at the Security Council; and by pointing the responsibility to protect in directions away from any of the P-5, they have achieved what can only be described as practical impunity for genocide. The Politics of Genocide is the first book to explicitly demonstrate how the permanent member nations have exploited the Genocide Convention to isolate themselves from the reach of the law, marking them as "outlaw states."
[more]
cover of The Politics of Intimacy: Rethinking the End-of-Life Controversy

The Politics of Intimacy

Rethinking the End-of-Life Controversy

Anna Durnová

University of Michigan Press, 2018

Debates on the end-of-life controversy are complex because they seem to highjack national and cultural traditions. Where previous books have focused on ideological grounds, The Politics of Intimacy explores dying as the site where policies are negotiated and implemented. Intimacy comprises the emotional experience of the end of life and how we acknowledge it—or not—through institutions. This process shows that end-of-life controversy relies on the conflict between the individual and these institutions, a relationship that is the cornerstone of Western liberal democracies.

Through interviews with mourners, stakeholders, and medical professionals, examination of media debates in France and the Czech Republic, Durnová shows that liberal institutions, in their attempts to accommodate the emotional experience at the end of life, ultimately fail. She describes this deadlock as the “politics of intimacy,” revealing that political institutions deploy power through collective acknowledgment of individual emotions but fail to maintain this recognition because of this same experience.

[more]