What kinds of knowledge do international relations theories seek? How do they search for it and claim to have found it? Lebow uses his answers to these questions to say something important about the theory project in IR, and in the social sciences more generally.
When is war is the result of a nation's deliberate decision to advance its vital interests by force of arms? When is it brought about by miscalculation? What causes policy-makers to misjudge the consequences of their actions? This book takes up these and other questions in a comparative study of the origins, politics, and outcomes of international crisis based on data from 27 historical cases.
The updated edition features three substantial new chapters, including a prologue and an epilogue, alongside fresh insights on World War I. It retains the influential typology of international crises and critiques of deterrence, while emphasizing agency and incorporating political psychology to analyze irrational policy-making. The new content reevaluates previous arguments, offering a critical assessment in light of developments following the Cold War, making it a vital resource for understanding contemporary international relations.
"Competition between America and China has intensified since 2009, creating even greater risks of conflict. Why is this so and what can be done about it? Feng Zhang and Ned Lebow identify the mistakes China and America made in their mutual relations and explain their causes and consequences. Drawing on international relations theory and historical lessons they develop a holistic approach to conflict management and resolution. It is based on a sophisticated staging of deterrence, reassurance, and diplomacy. Minimal deterrence combined with multiple forms of reassurance and sustained diplomatic efforts to reduce or finesse key areas of conflict offer the promising pathway for America and China to enhance their security and buttress their self-esteem"--
Foreign policies consistent with generally accepted ethical norms are more likely to succeed, and those at odds with them to fail. Constructing original data sets and analysing multiple case studies, Lebow makes an empirical case for ethics in international relations.
Inspector Khan of the Cambridgeshire Constabulary investigates the murder of a serpent-tongued Cambridge professor whilst fending off the romantic overtures of an interfering local reporter. An escalating cat-and-mouse game develops between the police and a murderer who cannot control his impulses. It leads to a dramatic and humourous denouement in Berlin. This is a classic English murder mystery with the twist that the chief detective is a first-generation, well-educated, South Asian Muslim, who effectively exploits the often-stereotypic response of others to him to benefit his policing.
Introduction -- Part 1. Principles of Justice in the West -- Justice in Confucianism -- Justice in Mohism, Legalism, Daoism -- Comparing East and West -- Part 2. International "Order" -- Justice and Order Between America and China -- Reimagining World Order -- Conclusion -- Smart Power and Great Learning.
This volume focuses on the assessments political actors make of the relative fragility and robustness of political orders. The core argument developed and explored throughout its different chapters is that such assessments are subjective and informed by contextually specific historical experiences that have important implications for how leaders respond. Their responses, in turn, feed into processes by which political orders change. The volume's contributions span analyses of political orders at the state, regional and global levels. They demonstrate that assessments of fragility and robustness have important policy implications but that the accuracy of assessments can only be known with certainty ex post facto. The volume will appeal to scholars and advanced students of international relations and comparative politics working on national and international orders.
Drawing on recently declassified documents and extensive interviews with Soviet and American policy-makers, among them several important figures speaking for public record for the first time, Ned Lebow and Janice Stein cast new light on the effect of nuclear threats in two of the tensest moments of the Cold War: the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 and the confrontations arising out of the Arab-Israeli war of 1973. They conclude that the strategy of deterrence prolonged rather than ended the conflict between the superpowers.
