John A. Hall

G. John Ikenberry

T. V. Paul

Has globalization forever undermined the state as the mighty guarantor of public welfare and security? In the 1990s, the prevailing and even hopeful view was that it had. The euphoria did not last long. Today the "return of the state" is increasingly being discussed as a desirable reality. This book is the first to bring together a group of prominent scholars from comparative politics, international relations, and sociology to systematically reassess--through a historical lens that moves beyond the standard focus on the West--state-society relations and state power at the dawn of the twenty-first century. The contributors examine the sources and forms of state power in light of a range of welfare and security needs in order to tell us what states can do today. They assess the extent to which international social forces affect states, and the capacity of states to adapt in specific issue areas. Their striking conclusion is that states have continued to be pivotal in diverse areas such as nationalism, national security, multiculturalism, taxation, and industrial relations. Offering rich insights on the changing contours of state power, The Nation-State in Question will be of interest to social scientists, students, and policymakers alike. John Hall's introduction is followed by chapters by Peter Baldwin, John Campbell, Francesco Duina, Grzegorz Ekiert, Jeffrey Herbst, Christopher Hood, Anatoly Khazanov, Brendan O'Leary, T. V. Paul, Bernard Yack, Rudra Sil, and Minxin Pei. The conclusion is by John Ikenberry.

The Nation-State in Question

Outlines revisionist approaches to understanding instability in Pakistan and the unintended consequences of foreign aid, evaluating the troubled country's nuclear arsenal and terrorist occupancy while profiling unexpected sources of its poor economy and corrupt political system.

Pakistan in the Contemporary World

The Warrior State

Teleglobe Raoul-Dandurand Chair of Strategic and Diplomatic Studies

Université du Québec à Montréal. Centre d'études des politiques étrangères et de sécurité

Thazha Varkey Paul

Universite du Quebec A Montreal Staff

With the end of the Cold War, nuclear non-proliferation has emerged as a central issue in international security relations. While most existing works on nuclear proliferation deal with the question of nuclear acquisition, T.V. Paul explains why some states – over 185 at present – have decided to forswear nuclear weapons even when they have the technological capability or potential capability to develop them, and why some states already in possession of nuclear arms choose to dismantle them. In Power versus Prudence Paul develops a prudential-realist model, arguing that a nation's national nuclear choices depend on specific regional security contexts: the non-great power states most likely to forgo nuclear weapons are those in zones of low and moderate conflict, while nations likely to acquire such capability tend to be in zones of high conflict and engaged in protracted conflicts and enduring rivalries. He demonstrates that the choice to forbear acquiring nuclear weapons is also a function of the extent of security interdependence that states experience with other states, both allies and adversaries. He applies the comparative case study method to pairs of states with similar characteristics – Germany/Japan, Canada/Australia, Sweden/Switzerland, Argentina/Brazil – in addition to analysing the nuclear choices of South Africa, Ukraine, South Korea, India, Pakistan, and Israel. Paul concludes by questioning some of the prevailing supply side approaches to non-proliferation, offering an explication of the security variable and its linking of nuclear proliferation with protracted conflicts and enduring rivalries. Power versus Prudence will be of interest to students of international relations, policy-makers, policy analysts, and the informed public concerned with the questions of nuclear weapons, non-proliferation, and disarmament. T.V. Paul is an associate professor in the Department of Political Science, McGill University. He has published several books and numerous articles on international security and the politics of nuclear weapons, including Asymmetric Conflicts: War Initiation by Weaker Powers, The Absolute Weapon Revisited: Nuclear Arms and the Emerging International Order, and International Order and the Future of World Politics.

Why Nations Forgo Nuclear Weapons

Power Versus Prudence

Harold A. Trinkunas

Deborah Welch Larson

"Abstract: With the rapid rise of China and the relative decline of the United States, the topic of power transition conflicts is back in popular and scholarly attention. The discipline of International Relations offers much on why violent power transition conflicts occur, yet very few substantive treatments exist on why and how peaceful changes happen in world politics. This Handbook is the first comprehensive treatment of the subject of peaceful change in International Relations. It contains some 41 chapters, all written by scholars from different theoretical and conceptual backgrounds examining the multi-faceted dimensions of this subject. In the first part, key conceptual and definitional clarifications are offered and in the second part, papers address the historical origins of peaceful change as an International Relations subject matter during the Inter-War, Cold War, and Post-Cold War eras. In the third part, each of the IR theoretical traditions and paradigms in particular Realism, liberalism, constructivism and critical perspectives and their distinct views on peaceful change are analyzed. In the fourth part papers tackle the key material, ideational and social sources of change. In the fifth part, the papers explore selected great and middle powers and their foreign policy contributions to peaceful change, realizing that many of these states have violent past or tend not to pursue peaceful policies consistently. In part six, the contributors evaluate the peaceful change that occurred in the world's key regions. In the final part, the editors address prospective research agenda and trajectories on this important subject matter. Keywords: Peaceful Change; War; Security; International Relations Theory; Sources of Change; Systemic Theory; Realism; Liberalism; Constructivism; Critical Theories"--

The Oxford Handbook of Peaceful Change in International Relations

William C. Wohlforth

A systematic study of why rising powers seek greater status in world politics and when dominant powers recognize their claims.

Status in World Politics

South Asia, which consists of eight states of different sizes and capabilities, is characterized by high levels of insecurity at the inter-state, intra-state, and human level: insecurity that is manifest in both traditional and non-traditional security problems—especially transnational terrorism fuelled by militant religious ideologies. To explain what has caused and contributed to the perpetual insecurity and human suffering in the region, this book engages scholars of international relations, comparative politics, historical sociology, and economic development, among others, to reveal and analyze the key underlying and proximate drivers. It argues that the problems are driven largely by two critical variables: the presence of weak states and weak cooperative interstate norms. Based on this analysis and the conclusions drawn, the book recommends specific policies for making the region secure and for developing the long lasting inter- and intra-state cooperative mechanisms necessary for the perpetuation of that security.

Understanding the Regional Insecurity Predicament

South Asia's Weak States

Addresses how to accommodate and integrate rising powers peacefully into the international order in the nuclear and globalized age.

Accommodating Rising Powers

A comprehensive treatment of regional transformation, offering insights from different theoretical perspectives and generating a range of policy-relevant ideas.

International Relations Theory and Regional Transformation

The key argument of deterrence theory is that the military superiority of a relatively strong power, coupled with a credible retaliatory threat, will prevent attack. This text's challenge of the assumption has wide implications for the study of war, deterrence, diplomacy and strategy.

War Initiation by Weaker Powers

Asymmetric Conflicts

This volume, first published in 2005, analyses the persistence of the India-Pakistan rivalry since 1947.

An Enduring Rivalry

The India-Pakistan Conflict

James J. Wirtz

Michel Fortmann

Since the sudden disappearance of the Soviet Union, many scholars have argued that the balance of power theory is losing its relevance. This text examines this viewpoint, as well as looking at systematic factors that may hinder or favour the return of balance of power politics.

T. V. Paul

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