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2. A Roundtable on Daniel Bessner and Fredrik Logevall, “Recentering the United States in the Historiography of American Foreign Relations”
- Author:
- Chester Pach, Cindy Ewing, Kevin Y. Kim, Daniel Bessner, and Fredrik Logevall
- Publication Date:
- 09-2020
- Content Type:
- Commentary and Analysis
- Institution:
- The Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations (SHAFR)
- Abstract:
- A Roundtable on Daniel Bessner and Fredrik Logevall, “Recentering the United States in the Historiography of American Foreign Relations”
- Topic:
- International Relations, Foreign Policy, International Relations Theory, and Diplomatic History
- Political Geography:
- United States and Global Focus
3. What Psychology Might Learn from Traditional Christianity
- Author:
- Kari Konkola
- Publication Date:
- 12-2019
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Humanitas
- Institution:
- The Center for the Study of Statesmanship, Catholic University
- Abstract:
- Sin used to be among Christianity’s most important concepts. This is understandable. The New Testament says God sent His only son, Christ, to liberate fallen humans from the suffering caused by Adam’s original sin. The importance of overcoming sins is emphasized by the Bible’s oft-repeated warnings about God’s sometimes ferociously punishing sinners. In spite of the central role of sin in the Bible, worry about the cardinal sins—pride, envy, anger, greed, and lechery—has largely disappeared among modern Christians.1 The reaction of most of today’s Christians can be summarized by the expression “good riddance.” The “let’s talk about something else” attitude toward sin has become the prevailing paradigm even among theologians.
- Topic:
- Religion, International Relations Theory, and Psychology
- Political Geography:
- Britain and United States
4. Bound to Fail: The Rise and Fall of the Liberal International Order
- Author:
- John J. Mearsheimer
- Publication Date:
- 04-2019
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- International Security
- Institution:
- Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University
- Abstract:
- The liberal international order, erected after the Cold War, was crumbling by 2019. It was flawed from the start and thus destined to fail. The spread of liberal democracy around the globe—essential for building that order—faced strong resistance because of nationalism, which emphasizes self-determination. Some targeted states also resisted U.S. efforts to promote liberal democracy for security-related reasons. Additionally, problems arose because a liberal order calls for states to delegate substantial decisionmaking authority to international institutions and to allow refugees and immigrants to move easily across borders. Modern nation-states privilege sovereignty and national identity, however, which guarantees trouble when institutions become powerful and borders porous. Furthermore, the hyperglobalization that is integral to the liberal order creates economic problems among the lower and middle classes within the liberal democracies, fueling a backlash against that order. Finally, the liberal order accelerated China's rise, which helped transform the system from unipolar to multipolar. A liberal international order is possible only in unipolarity. The new multipolar world will feature three realist orders: a thin international order that facilitates cooperation, and two bounded orders—one dominated by China, the other by the United States—poised for waging security competition between them.
- Topic:
- International Relations, International Relations Theory, and Liberal Order
- Political Geography:
- United States, China, and Europe
5. A Flawed Framework: Why the Liberal International Order Concept Is Misguided
- Author:
- Charles L. Glaser
- Publication Date:
- 04-2019
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- International Security
- Institution:
- Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University
- Abstract:
- Well before President Donald Trump began rhetorically attacking U.S. allies and the open international trading system, policy analysts worried about challenges to the liberal international order (LIO). A more fundamental issue, however, has received little attention: the analytic value of framing U.S. security in terms of the LIO. Systematic examination shows that this framing creates far more confusion than insight. Even worse, the LIO framing could lead the United States to adopt overly competitive policies and unnecessarily resist change in the face of China's growing power. The “LIO concept”—the logics that proponents identify as underpinning the LIO—is focused inward, leaving it ill equipped to address interactions between members of the LIO and states that lie outside the LIO. In addition, the LIO concept suffers theoretical flaws that further undermine its explanatory value. The behavior that the LIO concept claims to explain—including cooperation under anarchy, effective Western balancing against the Soviet Union, the Cold War peace, and the lack of balancing against the United States following the Cold War—is better explained by other theories, most importantly, defensive realism. Analysis of U.S. international policy would be improved by dropping the LIO terminology entirely and reframing analysis in terms of grand strategy.
- Topic:
- International Relations, Grand Strategy, International Relations Theory, Liberal Order, and Trump
- Political Geography:
- United States and China
6. Proliferation and the Logic of the Nuclear Market
- Author:
- Eliza Gheorghe
- Publication Date:
- 04-2019
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- International Security
- Institution:
- Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University
- Abstract:
- The evolution of the nuclear market explains why there are only nine members of the nuclear club, not twenty-five or more, as some analysts predicted. In the absence of a supplier cartel that can regulate nuclear transfers, the more suppliers there are, the more intense their competition will be, as they vie for market share. This commercial rivalry makes it easier for nuclear technology to spread, because buyers can play suppliers off against each other. The ensuing transfers help countries either acquire nuclear weapons or become hedgers. The great powers (China, Russia, and the United States) seek to thwart proliferation by limiting transfers and putting safeguards on potentially dangerous nuclear technologies. Their success depends on two structural factors: the global distribution of power and the intensity of the security rivalry among them. Thwarters are most likely to stem proliferation when the system is unipolar and least likely when it is multipolar. In bipolarity, their prospects fall somewhere in between. In addition, the more intense the rivalry among the great powers in bipolarity and multipolarity, the less effective they will be at curbing proliferation. Given the potential for intense security rivalry among today's great powers, the shift from unipolarity to multipolarity does not portend well for checking proliferation.
- Topic:
- International Relations, Arms Control and Proliferation, Nuclear Weapons, Nuclear Power, Nonproliferation, and International Relations Theory
- Political Geography:
- Russia, United States, and China
7. The Demographic Transition Theory of War: Why Young Societies Are Conflict Prone and Old Societies Are the Most Peaceful
- Author:
- Deborah Jordan Brooks, Stephen G. Brooks, Brian D. Greenhill, and Mark L. Haas
- Publication Date:
- 02-2019
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- International Security
- Institution:
- Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University
- Abstract:
- The world is experiencing a period of unprecedented demographic change. For the first time in human history, marked disparities in age structures exist across the globe. Around 40 percent of the world's population lives in countries with significant numbers of elderly citizens. In contrast, the majority of the world's people live in developing countries with very large numbers of young people as a proportion of the total population. Yet, demographically, most of the world's states with young populations are aging, and many are doing so quickly. This first-of-its kind systematic theoretical and empirical examination of how these demographic transitions influence the likelihood of interstate conflict shows that countries with a large number of young people as a proportion of the total population are the most prone to international conflict, whereas states with the oldest populations are the most peaceful. Although societal aging is likely to serve as a force for enhanced stability in most, and perhaps all, regions of the world over the long term, the road to a “demographic peace” is likely to be bumpy in many parts of the world in the short to medium term.
- Topic:
- Demographics, War, International Security, Democracy, and International Relations Theory
- Political Geography:
- Russia, United States, Japan, China, Germany, and Global Focus
8. Balancing in Neorealism
- Author:
- Joseph M. Parent and Sebastian Rosato
- Publication Date:
- 11-2015
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- International Security
- Institution:
- Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University
- Abstract:
- Does neorealism offer a convincing account of great power balancing behavior? Many scholars argue that it does not. This conclusion rests on a misunderstanding of neorealist theory and an erroneous reading of the evidence. Properly specified, neorealism holds that great powers place an overriding emphasis on the need for self-help. This means that they rely relentlessly both on arming and on imitating the successful military practices of their peers to ensure their security. At the same time, they rarely resort to alliances and treat them with skepticism. There is abundant historical evidence to support these claims. Since 1816, great powers have routinely achieved an effective balance in military capabilities with their relevant competitors and promptly copied the major military innovations of the period. Case studies show that these outcomes are the product of states' efforts to ensure security against increasingly capable rivals. Meanwhile, the diplomatic record yields almost no examples of firm peacetime balancing coalitions over the past 200 years. When alliances have formed, great powers have generally doubted the reliability of their allies and of their opponents' allies. Thus neorealism provides a solid foundation for explaining great power balancing behavior.
- Topic:
- International Relations, Geopolitics, Grand Strategy, and International Relations Theory
- Political Geography:
- United States, Prussia, and Global Focus
9. How Realism Waltzed Off: Liberalism and Decisionmaking in Kenneth Waltz's Neorealism
- Author:
- Daniel Bessner and Nicolas Guilhot
- Publication Date:
- 11-2015
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- International Security
- Institution:
- Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University
- Abstract:
- Neorealism is one of the most influential theories of international relations, and its first theorist, Kenneth Waltz, a giant of the discipline. But why did Waltz move from a rather traditional form of classical realist political theory in the 1950s to neorealism in the 1970s? A possible answer is that Waltz's Theory of International Politics was his attempt to reconceive classical realism in a liberal form. Classical realism paid a great deal of attention to decisionmaking and statesmanship, and concomitantly asserted a nostalgic, anti-liberal political ideology. Neorealism, by contrast, dismissed the issue of foreign policymaking and decisionmaking. This shift reflected Waltz's desire to reconcile his acceptance of classical realism's tenets with his political commitment to liberalism. To do so, Waltz incorporated cybernetics and systems theory into Theory of International Politics, which allowed him to develop a theory of international relations no longer burdened with the problem of decisionmaking.
- Topic:
- International Relations, Diplomacy, War, Grand Strategy, and International Relations Theory
- Political Geography:
- United States and Global Focus