Theory of International Politics

Scholars of security affairs can stop their dreary quarrels over military doctrine and balance assessments, and turn their attention to finding ways to prevent global warming and preserve the ozone layer. European leaders can contemplate how to spend peace dividends. This chapter assesses this optimistic view by exploring in detail the consequences for Europe of an end to the Cold War. It examines the effects of a scenario under which the Cold War comes to a complete end. The chapter argues that bipolarity, an equal military balance, and nuclear weapons have fostered peace in Europe. It offers an explanation for the peacefulness of the post-World War II order. The chapter examines the theories underlying claims that a multipolar Europe is likely to be as peaceful, if not more peaceful, than Cold War Europe. The peace-loving democracies theory holds that domestic political factors, not calculations about military power or the international economic system, are the principal determinant of peace.

/pdf/back-to-the-future-instability-in-europe-after-the-cold-war-442uyvdvvh.pdf

Back to the Future: Instability in Europe After the Cold War

What drives politics in dictatorships? Milan W. Svolik argues authoritarian regimes must resolve two fundamental conflicts. Dictators face threats from the masses over which they rule - the problem of authoritarian control. Secondly from the elites with whom dictators rule - the problem of authoritarian power-sharing. Using the tools of game theory, Svolik explains why some dictators establish personal autocracy and stay in power for decades; why elsewhere leadership changes are regular and institutionalized, as in contemporary China; why some dictatorships are ruled by soldiers, as Uganda was under Idi Amin; why many authoritarian regimes, such as PRI-era Mexico, maintain regime-sanctioned political parties; and why a country's authoritarian past casts a long shadow over its prospects for democracy, as the unfolding events of the Arab Spring reveal. Svolik complements these and other historical case studies with the statistical analysis on institutions, leaders and ruling coalitions across dictatorships from 1946 to 2008.

/pdf/the-politics-of-authoritarian-rule-2lgqt7kpsr.pdf

The Politics of Authoritarian Rule

Therefore, the seeker after the truth is not one who studies the writings of the ancients and, following his natural disposition, puts his trust in them, but rather the one who suspects his faith in them and questions what he gathers from them, the one who submits to argument and demonstration, and not to the sayings of a human being whose nature is fraught with all kinds of imperfection and de‹ciency. Thus the duty of the man who investigates the writings of scientists, if learning the truth is his goal, is to make himself the enemy of all that he reads, and, applying his mind to the core and margins of its content, attack it from every side. He should also suspect himself as he performs his critical examination of it, so that he may avoid falling into either prejudice or leniency. (Ibn al-Haytham)1

국제정치이론 = Theory of international politics

The aim of this study is to build a theoretical framework to understand how gendered networking practices produce or counter inequalities in organizations. We introduce a practice approach combined with a feminist perspective in organization network studies. The notions of gender and networking as social practices allow better insights into what people say and do in networks, and the ways that networking produces or counters gender inequalities. We draw on empirical material about professorial appointments in Dutch academia and analyse the accounts of gatekeepers illuminating their networking practices. The accounts show which networking practices gatekeepers routinely use in recruitment and how these networking practices are intertwined with gender practices. We use the notion of mobilizing masculinities to understand the self-evident identification of men gatekeepers with men in their networks, and to understand how both men and women gatekeepers prefer the male candidates that resemble the proven masculine success model. Furthermore, this study provides the first empirical insights in mobilizing femininities in which women search for and support women candidates. We show how the gender practice of mobilizing femininities is a more precarious and marked practice than mobilizing masculinities. Mobilizing femininities in networking is intended to counter gender inequalities, but is only partially successful. Through constructions of �who you can trust� or �who is a risk�, gatekeepers exercise the power of inclusion and exclusion and contribute to the persistence of structural gender inequalities.

Robert H. McNeal

Papers

Conversations with Stalin

A History of Russia

Sergei Witte and the Industrialization of Russia

The Great Terror: Stalin's Purge of the Thirties

Stalin's Foreign Policy Reappraised