World Politics

After International Relations articulates a systematic critical realist response to a quest for more emancipatory methodologies in International Relations. Heikki Patomäki here establishes a way out of the international relations problematic which has puzzled so many great thinkers and scholars for the last two hundred years. After International Relations shows how and why theories based on the international problematic have failed; articulates an alternative, critical realist research programme; and illustrates how this research programme can be put to work to enable better research and ethico-political practices.

This benchmark text explains concepts of global order from the Westphalian system to current issues in international relations.

As the twentieth century draws to a close and the rush to globalization gathers momentum, political and economic considerations are crowding out vital ethical questions about the shape of our future. Now, Hans Kung, one of the world's preeminent Christian theologians, explores these issues in a visionary and cautionary look at the coming global society. How can the new world order of the twenty first century avoid the horrors of the twentieth? Will nations form a real community or continue to aggressively pursue their own interests? Will the Machiavellian approaches of the past prevail over idealism and a more humanitarian politics? What role can religion play in a world increasingly dominated by transnational corporations? Kung tackles these and many other questions with the insight and moral authority that comes from a lifetime's devotion to the search for justice and human dignity. Arguing against both an amoral realpolitik and an immoral resurgence of laissez faire economics, Kung defines a comprehensive ethic founded on the bedrock of mutual respect and humane treatment of all beings that would encompass the ecological, legal, technological, and social patterns that are reshaping civilization. If we are going to have a global economy, a global technology, a global media, Kung argues, we must also have a global ethic to which all nations, and peoples of the most varied backgrounds and beliefs, can commit themselves. "The world," he says, "is not going to be held together by the Internet." For anyone concerned about the world we are creating, A Global Ethic for Global Politics and Economics offers equal measures of informed analysis, compassionate foresight, and wise counsel.

Inequality is becoming an urgent issue of world politics at the end of the twentieth century. Globalization is not only exacerbating the gap between rich and poor in the world but is also further dividing those states and peoples that have political power and influence from those without. While the powerful shape more `global' rules and norms about investment, military security, environmental and social policy and the like, the less powerful are becoming `rule-takers', often of rules or norms they cannot or will not enforce. The consequences for world politics are profound. The evidence presented in Inequality, Globalization, and World Politics suggests that globalization is creating sharper, more urgent problems for states and international institutions to deal with. Yet at the same time, investigations into eight core areas of world politics suggest that growing inequality is reducing the capacity of governments and existing international organizations to manage these problems effectively. The eight areas surveyed include: international order, international law, welfare and social policy, global justice, regionalism and multilateralism, environmental protection, gender equality, military power, and security.

Alpo Rusi suggests that the new world order will comprise four distinct blocs: European, East Asian, Japanese and pan-American. He sounds a warning that the traditional Euro-Atlantic relationship must be guarded to avoid a polarised bloc system.

The past half-century has seen many hopes raised and some dashed, a succession of fears and false alarms, and both triumphs and calamities that were almost entirely unexpected.

This book offers a short but sweeping history of world politics since 1945: America's postwar preeminence and the hopes that attended the creation of the United Nations; the Cold War and the emergence of a volatile Third World; economic transformations and the twin threat of nuclear and cal disaster; the crumbling of the Soviet system and the short-lived promise of a peaceful, prosperous, and democratic new world.

Charles L. Robertson describes these momentous changes concisely but evocatively, in an effort to show how we got here from there and what we might have learned along the way. His use of both documents and memoirs as well as scholarly sources and his avoidance of trendy theories gives this survey solid grounding. The inclusion of maps and annotated reading lists makes the book fully accessible to students andgeneral readers.

What roles do women play in world politics? Who are these women, and what impact do they have on international relations? D'Amico and Beckman have assembled a diverse array of contributors who provide a variety of answers. Some contributors consider women as national leaders and profile Chamorro, Gandhi, Thatcher, and Aquino as examples. Autobiographical essays and interviews describe the experiences of Margaret Anstee, Benazir Bhutto, Jeane Kirkpatrick, and Golda Meir. Other contributors analyze international women's movements, the roles of women in the Green Movement and in the revolutionary movements in Cuba and Nicaragua, and the work of Jane Addams in the peace movement. Some analyze the attitudes and beliefs of America's leading opinion makers on the subject of women and men in leadership roles. Written for beginning students in comparative politics and international relations, their work is both fundamental as an introductory text and pioneering in scope and conception.

The ongoing reconstruction of world politics following the collapse of Soviet and Eastern European variants of communism have seemingly unleashed the power of ethnicity with a vengeance. Stack, Hebron, and their contributors explore the concept of ethnicty in international relations, seeking to address this most destabilizing, yet ubiquitous dimension of the emerging new world order.

As each power vies for its national interests on the world stage, how do its own citizens' democratic interests fare at home? Alan Gilbert speaks to an issue at the heart of current international-relations debate. He contends that, in spite of neo-realists' assumptions, a vocal citizen democracy can and must have a role in global politics. Further, he shows that all the major versions of realism and neo-realism, if properly stated with a view of the national interest as a common good, surprisingly lead to democracy. His most striking example focuses on realist criticisms of the Vietnam War.

Democratic internationalism, as Gilbert terms it, is really the linking of citizens' interests across national boundaries to overcome the antidemocratic actions of their own governments. Realist misinterpretations have overlooked Thucydides' theme about how a democracy corrupts itself through imperial expansion as well as Karl Marx's observations about the positive effects of democratic movements in one country on events in others. Gilbert also explodes the democratic peace myth that democratic states do not wage war on one another. He suggests i

Global warming is established as the major environmental issue in the international political agenda. It is commonly understood to be the most difficult problem to solve politically. Whilst there are many arguments about what should be done about global warming, there have been few attempts to explain the politics surrounding it. Global Warming and Politics fills this gap by looking at the major theories within the discipline of international relations, and considering how these might be able to provide accounts of the emergence of global warming as a political issue. After discussing the dominant neo-realist and neo-liberal institutionalist models, the book concludes that both political economy approaches and these developing discursive approaches have much to offer in helping us understand the international politics of global warming. Global Politics and Global Warming will be extremely useful for all those trying to build an understanding of international relations in general and of international environmental problems in particular.