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Journal ArticleDOI

War and Change in World Politics

Ken Booth1
01 Jul 1982-International Affairs (Oxford Academic)-Vol. 58, Iss: 3, pp 507-507
About: This article is published in International Affairs.The article was published on 1982-07-01. It has received 520 citations till now. The article focuses on the topics: Asymmetric warfare & Interwar period.
Citations
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Book
04 Nov 2002
TL;DR: In this paper, personal, political and intellectual influences are discussed in the context of social and international theory, ontology, and the critique of political economy in the emerging world order.
Abstract: Preface to the first edition Preface to the second edition Personal, Political and Intellectual Influences PART I: SOCIAL AND INTERNATIONAL THEORY Epistemology, Ontology and the Critique of Political Economy Transnational Historical Materialism and World Order Hegemony, Culture and Imperialism PART II: THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF WORLD ORDER US Hegemony in the 1980s: Limits and Prospects The Power of Capital: Direct and Structural Globalization, Market Civilization and Disciplinary Neo-Liberalism The Geopolitics of the Asian Crisis Law, Justice and New Constitutionalism PART III: GLOBAL TRANSFORMATION AND POLITICAL AGENCY Globalizing Elites in the Emerging World Order Surveillance Power in Global Capitalism The Post-modern Prince Alternatives, Real and Imagined

562 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Realism, the oldest and most prominent theoretical paradigm in international relations, is in trouble as discussed by the authors, and the problem is not lack of interest, but the lack of empirical support for simple realist predictions, such as recurrent balancing; or the absence of plausible realist explanations of certain salient phenomena.
Abstract: Realism, the oldest and most prominent theoretical paradigm in international relations, is in trouble. The problem is not lack of interest. Realism remains the primary or alternative theory in virtually every major book and article addressing general theories of world politics, particularly in security affairs. Controversies between neorealism and its critics continue to dominate international relations theory debates. Nor is the problem realism’s purported inability to make point predictions. Many speciac realist theories are testable, and there remains much global conoict about which realism offers powerful insights. Nor is the problem the lack of empirical support for simple realist predictions, such as recurrent balancing; or the absence of plausible realist explanations of certain salient phenomena, such as the Cold War, the “end of history,”1or systemic change in general. Research programs advance, after all, by the reanement and improvement of previous theories to account for anomalies. There can be little doubt that realist theories rightfully retain a salient position in international relations theory.

537 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors explain how consensus decision making has operated in practice in the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade/World Trade Organization (GATT/WTO), showing that consensus outcomes are Pareto-improving and roughly symmetrical.
Abstract: This article explains how consensus decision making has operated in practice in the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade/World Trade Organization (GATT/WTO). When GATT/WTO bargaining is law-based, consensus outcomes are Pareto-improving and roughly symmetrical. When bargaining is power-based, states bring to bear instruments of power that are extrinsic to rules, invisibly weighting the process and generating consensus outcomes that are asymmetrical and may not be Pareto-improving. Empirical analysis shows that although trade rounds have been launched through law-based bargaining, hard law is generated when a round is closed, and rounds have been closed through power-based bargaining. Agenda setting has taken place in the shadow of that power and has been dominated by the European Community and the United States. The decision making rules have been maintained because they help generate information used by powerful states in the agenda-setting process. Consensus decision making at the GATT/WTO is organized hypocrisy, allowing adherence to the instrumental reality of asymmetrical power and the sovereign equality principle upon which consensus decision making is purportedly based.

516 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors define a world environmental regime as a partially integrated collection of world-level organizations, understandings, and assumptions that specify the relationship of human society to nature.
Abstract: In recent decades a great expansion has occurred in world environmental organization, both governmental and nongovernmental, along with an explosion of worldwide discourse and communication about environmental problems. All of this constitutes a world environmental regime. Using the term regime a little more broadly than usual, we define world environmental regime as a partially integrated collection of world-level organizations, understandings, and assumptions that specify the relationship of human society to nature. The rise of an environmental regime has accompanied greatly expanded organization and activity in many sectors of global society. Explaining the growth of the environmental regime, however, poses some problems. The interests and powers of the dominant actors in world society—nation-states and economic interests—came late to the environmental scene. Thus these forces cannot easily be used to explain the rise of world mobilization around the environment, in contrast with other sectors of global society (for example, the international economic and national security regimes).

504 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, a simple game-theoretic model is proposed to link changes in states' behavior, the feasibility of cooperation, and especially the states' concern for relative versus absolute gains explicitly to changes in the constraints facing the states.
Abstract: The problem of absolute and relative gains divides neoliberal institutionalism and structural realism. The former assumes states focus primarily on their absolute gains and emphasizes the prospects for cooperation. The latter supposes states are largely concerned with relative gains and emphasizes the prospects for conflict. Existing work in international relations theory generally traces the differences between these two theories to different assumptions about states' preferences. Using a simple game-theoretic model, this essay offers a reformulation of the problem of absolute and relative gains that links changes in the states' behavior, the feasibility of cooperation, and especially the states' concern for relative versus absolute gains explicitly to changes in the constraints facing the states. Many of the differences between neoliberal institutionalism and structural realism appear as special cases of the model.

479 citations

References
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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors focus on two basic microprocesses in socialization theory (persuasion and social influence) and develop propositions about the social conditions under which one might expect to observe cooperation in institutions.
Abstract: Socialization theory is a neglected source of explanations for cooperation in international relations. Neorealism treats socialization (or selection, more properly) as a process by which autistic non-balancers are weeded out of the anarchical international system. Contractual institutionalists ignore or downplay the possibilities of socialization in international institutions in part because of the difficulties in observing changes in interests and preferences. For constructivists socialization is a central concept. But to date it has been undertheorized, or more precisely, the microprocesses of socialization have been generally left unexamined. This article focuses on two basic microprocesses in socialization theory—persuasion and social influence—and develops propositions about the social conditions under which one might expect to observe cooperation in institutions. Socialization theories pose questions for both the structural-functional foundations of contractual institutionalist hypotheses about institutional design and cooperation, and notions of optimal group size for collective action.

862 citations

Book
04 Nov 2002
TL;DR: In this paper, personal, political and intellectual influences are discussed in the context of social and international theory, ontology, and the critique of political economy in the emerging world order.
Abstract: Preface to the first edition Preface to the second edition Personal, Political and Intellectual Influences PART I: SOCIAL AND INTERNATIONAL THEORY Epistemology, Ontology and the Critique of Political Economy Transnational Historical Materialism and World Order Hegemony, Culture and Imperialism PART II: THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF WORLD ORDER US Hegemony in the 1980s: Limits and Prospects The Power of Capital: Direct and Structural Globalization, Market Civilization and Disciplinary Neo-Liberalism The Geopolitics of the Asian Crisis Law, Justice and New Constitutionalism PART III: GLOBAL TRANSFORMATION AND POLITICAL AGENCY Globalizing Elites in the Emerging World Order Surveillance Power in Global Capitalism The Post-modern Prince Alternatives, Real and Imagined

562 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Realism, the oldest and most prominent theoretical paradigm in international relations, is in trouble as discussed by the authors, and the problem is not lack of interest, but the lack of empirical support for simple realist predictions, such as recurrent balancing; or the absence of plausible realist explanations of certain salient phenomena.
Abstract: Realism, the oldest and most prominent theoretical paradigm in international relations, is in trouble. The problem is not lack of interest. Realism remains the primary or alternative theory in virtually every major book and article addressing general theories of world politics, particularly in security affairs. Controversies between neorealism and its critics continue to dominate international relations theory debates. Nor is the problem realism’s purported inability to make point predictions. Many speciac realist theories are testable, and there remains much global conoict about which realism offers powerful insights. Nor is the problem the lack of empirical support for simple realist predictions, such as recurrent balancing; or the absence of plausible realist explanations of certain salient phenomena, such as the Cold War, the “end of history,”1or systemic change in general. Research programs advance, after all, by the reanement and improvement of previous theories to account for anomalies. There can be little doubt that realist theories rightfully retain a salient position in international relations theory.

537 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors explain how consensus decision making has operated in practice in the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade/World Trade Organization (GATT/WTO), showing that consensus outcomes are Pareto-improving and roughly symmetrical.
Abstract: This article explains how consensus decision making has operated in practice in the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade/World Trade Organization (GATT/WTO). When GATT/WTO bargaining is law-based, consensus outcomes are Pareto-improving and roughly symmetrical. When bargaining is power-based, states bring to bear instruments of power that are extrinsic to rules, invisibly weighting the process and generating consensus outcomes that are asymmetrical and may not be Pareto-improving. Empirical analysis shows that although trade rounds have been launched through law-based bargaining, hard law is generated when a round is closed, and rounds have been closed through power-based bargaining. Agenda setting has taken place in the shadow of that power and has been dominated by the European Community and the United States. The decision making rules have been maintained because they help generate information used by powerful states in the agenda-setting process. Consensus decision making at the GATT/WTO is organized hypocrisy, allowing adherence to the instrumental reality of asymmetrical power and the sovereign equality principle upon which consensus decision making is purportedly based.

516 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors define a world environmental regime as a partially integrated collection of world-level organizations, understandings, and assumptions that specify the relationship of human society to nature.
Abstract: In recent decades a great expansion has occurred in world environmental organization, both governmental and nongovernmental, along with an explosion of worldwide discourse and communication about environmental problems. All of this constitutes a world environmental regime. Using the term regime a little more broadly than usual, we define world environmental regime as a partially integrated collection of world-level organizations, understandings, and assumptions that specify the relationship of human society to nature. The rise of an environmental regime has accompanied greatly expanded organization and activity in many sectors of global society. Explaining the growth of the environmental regime, however, poses some problems. The interests and powers of the dominant actors in world society—nation-states and economic interests—came late to the environmental scene. Thus these forces cannot easily be used to explain the rise of world mobilization around the environment, in contrast with other sectors of global society (for example, the international economic and national security regimes).

504 citations