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Theory of International Politics
01 Jan 1979-
About: The article was published on 1979-01-01 and is currently open access. It has received 7932 citations till now. The article focuses on the topics: Global politics & International relations.
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TL;DR: In this article, the authors present a portrait of the new international order offered by these reports, which is a liberal international order, and the UN is considered the site for the legitimation of a particular order.
Abstract: The end of the cold war and the attendant security vacuum unleashed aflurryof intellectual activity and international commissions that reflected on the world that was being left behind and the world that should be created in its place. The reports under review are among the best and most influential of the lot. This article focuses on three issues raised by these reports. First, the portrait of the new international order offered by these reports is a liberal international order. Second, the concept of legitimacy appears in various guises, and the UN is considered the site for the legitimation of a particular order. Few international orders are ever founded or sustained by force alone, something well understood by the policymakers who drafted these reports and wisely heeded by international relations theorists who attempt to understand their actions and the international orders that they construct and sustain. Third, these reports envision the UN as an agent of normative integration. As such, it contributes to the development and maintenance of a liberal international order by increasing the number of actors who identify with and uphold its values.
173 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the ontology of political community, specifically the nation-state, as a bounded entity in time and space, has been considered in the context of a biographical narrative, which gives meaning to its collective spatio-temporal situatedness.
Abstract: This article is concerned with the ontology of political community, specifically the nation-state, as a bounded entity in time and space. Juxtaposed against the reading of it as an autonomous (realism) or permeated (liberalism) unit, or as constituted through Othering (social constructivism), the article conceptualizes the nation-state as a bounded community constituted by a biographical narrative which gives meaning to its collective spatio-temporal situatedness. Taking a phenomenological approach, the article offers a systematic discussion of the parameters of such a narrative. It highlights the relevance of an experienced space, giving meaning to the past, and an envisioned space, giving meaning to the future, delineated through horizons of experience and of possibility, respectively. In this reading, politics is found in the creative and contested attempts to link these dimensions to a coherent narrative on both the domestic and international level.
172 citations
Cites background from "Theory of International Politics"
...This atomistic ontology rests on the notion of the individual as an autonomous and independent being central to Western philosophy since Hobbes, which is projected onto the Westphalian state as a sovereign entity (Morgenthau, 1960: 312ff.; Waltz, 1979)....
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...And even structural realists suggest that ‘the centripetal force of nationalism may itself explain why states can be thought of as units’ (Waltz, 1979: 174ff.; see also Gilpin, 1981: 14f.) and regard nationalism as a ‘second order force in international politics’ (Mearsheimer, 1990: 18ff.)....
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TL;DR: In this article, results drawn from several permutations of the Correlates of War Militarized Interstate Dispute data set are compared using three statistical models, and the relationship between the dependent and independent variables is relatively impervious to research design and estimator choices.
Abstract: Researchers face three basic questions when testing theoretically driven hypotheses. First is research design: for example, what population should be analyzed, what sample should be drawn from that population, and what cases should be excluded from the sample? What statistical estimator should one use? What set of control variables should one employ? Results drawn from several permutations of the Correlates of War Militarized Interstate Dispute data set are compared using three statistical models. For some theories and variables (international institutionalism—intergovernmental organization and alliance membership; realism—balance of power; expected utility theory—international interaction game equilibria), research design and estimator choices substantially influence the findings. For others (trade and democratic peace theory), the relationship between the dependent and independent variables is relatively impervious to research design and estimator choices.
172 citations
TL;DR: The authors found that threat and dehumanization are distinct constructs, each having unique contributions to explaining support for aggressive retaliatory policies, and that the association of hawkishness and socioeconomic status (SES) with support for aggression is largely mediated by threat perception.
Abstract: Public opinion can permit or encourage retaliatory aggressive state policies against vulnerable but threatening out-groups. The authors present a model in which public support for such policies is determined by perceived threat from and dehumanization of the target group. This two-factor model predicts Israeli Jews' support for two retaliatory aggressive policies: the more hypothetical notion of Palestinian population transfer and concrete, coercive actions toward Palestinians. The authors find (1) that threat and dehumanization are distinct constructs, each having unique contributions to explaining support for aggressive retaliatory policies, (2) that threat and dehumanization significantly explain support for aggressive retaliatory policies when respondents' hawkishness, socioeconomic status (SES), and education level are taken into account, and (3) that the association of hawkishness and SES with support for aggressive retaliatory policies is largely mediated by threat perception. Results are highly co...
172 citations
TL;DR: This article explored the interrelations among cognitive style, theoretical outlook, and reactions to close-call counterfactuals and found that experts (especially high scorers on a composite measure of need for closure and simplicity) rejected close-calls that redirected history when they undermined a preferred framework for understanding the past (the "I-was-not-almost-wrong" defense).
Abstract: Drawing on samples of professional observers of world politics, this article explores the interrelations among cognitive style, theoretical outlook, and reactions to close-call counterfactuals. Study 1 demonstrated that experts (especially high scorers on a composite measure of need for closure and simplicity) rejected close-call counterfactuals that redirected history when these counterfactuals undermined a preferred framework for understanding the past (the "I-was-not-almost-wrong" defense). Study 2 demonstrated that experts (especially high scorers on need for closure and simplicity) embraced close-call counterfactuals that redirected history when these counterfactuals protected conditional forecasts from refutation (the predicted outcome nearly occurred—so "I was almost right"). The article concludes by considering the radically different normative value spins that can be placed on
171 citations
Cites background from "Theory of International Politics"
...For example, one influential, although by no means universally accepted, explanatory schema in world politics is neorealist balancing: When one state threatens to become too powerful and capable of dominating the entire international system, other states—rational, self-preserving actors as they are posited to be—coalesce against it, thereby preserving the balance of power (cf. Layne, 1993; Vasquez* 1997; Waltz, 1979)....
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References
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5,295 citations
01 Jan 1976
TL;DR: For centuries knowledge meant proven knowledge, proven either by the power of the intellect or by the evidence of the senses as discussed by the authors. But the notion of proven knowledge was questioned by the sceptics more than two thousand years ago; but they were browbeaten into confusion by the glory of Newtonian physics.
Abstract: For centuries knowledge meant proven knowledge — proven either by the power of the intellect or by the evidence of the senses. Wisdom and intellectual integrity demanded that one must desist from unproven utterances and minimize, even in thought, the gap between speculation and established knowledge. The proving power of the intellect or the senses was questioned by the sceptics more than two thousand years ago; but they were browbeaten into confusion by the glory of Newtonian physics. Einstein’s results again turned the tables and now very few philosophers or scientists still think that scientific knowledge is, or can be, proven knowledge. But few realize that with this the whole classical structure of intellectual values falls in ruins and has to be replaced: one cannot simply water down the ideal of proven truth - as some logical empiricists do — to the ideal of’probable truth’1 or — as some sociologists of knowledge do — to ‘truth by [changing] consensus’.2
4,969 citations
4,163 citations
17 Feb 1966
TL;DR: This book contains the collected and unified material necessary for the presentation of such branches of modern cybernetics as the theory of electronic digital computers, Theory of discrete automata, theory of discrete self-organizing systems, automation of thought processes, theoryof image recognition, etc.
Abstract: : This book contains the collected and unified material necessary for the presentation of such branches of modern cybernetics as the theory of electronic digital computers, theory of discrete automata, theory of discrete self-organizing systems, automation of thought processes, theory of image recognition, etc. Discussions are given of the fundamentals of the theory of boolean functions, algorithm theory, principles of the design of electronic digital computers and universal algorithmical languages, fundamentals of perceptron theory, some theoretical questions of the theory of self-organizing systems. Many fundamental results in mathematical logic and algorithm theory are presented in summary form, without detailed proofs, and in some cases without any proof. The book is intended for a broad audience of mathematicians and scientists of many specialties who wish to acquaint themselves with the problems of modern cybernetics.
2,922 citations