The Realist Case For Global Reform

Download or read book The Realist Case for Global Reform written by William E. Scheuerman and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2013-04-23 with total page 253 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Does a hard-headed Realist approach to international politics necessarily involve skepticism towards progressive foreign policy initiatives and global reform? Should proponents of Realism always be seen as morally complacent and politically combative? In this major reconsideration of the main figures of international political theory, Bill Scheuerman challenges conventional wisdom to reveal a neglected tradition of Progressive Realism with much to contribute to contemporary debates about international policy-making and world government. Far from seeing international reform as well-meaning but potentially irresponsible , Progressive Realists like E. H. Carr, John Herz, Hans J. Morgenthau, and Reinhold Niebuhr developed forward-looking ideas which offer an indispensable corrective to many presently influential views about global politics. Progressive Realism, Scheuerman argues, offers a compelling and provocative vision of radical global change which -- when properly interpreted, can help buttress current efforts to address the most pressing international issues. After recovering key subterranean strands in mid-twentieth century Realism, Scheuerman underscores their relevance to contemporary international theory. Criticizing more recent Realists for abandoning their tradition's best insights, he also demonstrates that reform-minded international theories --including versions of Cosmopolitanism, Constructivism, the English School, Liberalism, and Republicanism - could all benefit from taking Progressive Realism seriously. A major contribution both to the history of international relations and contemporary debates in international theory, The Realist Case for Global Reform concludes by considering how Progressive Realism informs the foreign policies of US President Barack Obama.

Download or read book Cosmopolitanism written by David Held and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2013-04-23 with total page 141 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book sets out the case for a cosmopolitan approach to contemporary global politics. It presents a systematic theory of cosmopolitanism, explicating its core principles and justifications, and examines the role many of these principles have played in the development of global politics, such as framing the human rights regime. The framework is then used to address some of the most pressing issues of our time: the crisis of financial markets, climate change and the fallout from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. In each case, Held argues that realistic politics is exhausted, and that cosmopolitanism is the new realism. See also Garrett Wallace Brown and David Held's The Cosmopolitanism Reader.

Download or read book Politics Recovered written by Matt Sleat and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2018-03-13 with total page 423 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Is political theory political enough? Or does a tendency toward abstraction, idealization, moralism, and utopianism leave contemporary political theory out of touch with real politics as it actually takes place, and hence unable to speak meaningfully to or about our world? Realist political thought, which has enjoyed a significant revival of interest in recent years, seeks to avoid such pitfalls by remaining attentive to the distinctiveness of politics and the ways its realities ought to shape how we think and act in the political realm. Politics Recovered brings together prominent scholars to develop what it might mean to theorize politics “realistically.” Intervening in philosophical debates such as the relationship between politics and morality and the role that facts and emotions should play in the theorization of political values, the volume addresses how a realist approach aids our understanding of pressing issues such as global justice, inequality, poverty, political corruption, the value of democracy, governmental secrecy, and demands for transparency. Contributors open up fruitful dialogues with a variety of other realist approaches, such as feminist theory, democratic theory, and international relations. By exploring the nature and prospects of realist thought, Politics Recovered shows how political theory can affirm reality in order to provide meaningful and compelling answers to the fundamental questions of political life.

Download or read book Realism and Democracy written by Elliott Abrams and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2017-09-12 with total page 315 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book makes a realpolitik argument for supporting democracy in the Arab world, drawing on four decades of policy experience.

Download or read book Realist Thought and the Nation-State written by Konstantinos Kostagiannis and published by Springer. This book was released on 2017-09-21 with total page 223 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book recovers the history of realist theorization on nationalism and the nation-state. Presented in a sequence of snapshots and illustrated by examples drawn from the foreign policy of great powers, this history is represented by four key realist thinkers. It uses the centrality of power in realism as a starting point to claim, contrary to conventional wisdom about realism, that for realists the state is better understood not as a political unit outside history but rather as a manifestation of power unfixed in time. It also claims that the process of gradual impoverishment of the concept of power from classical to structural realism had profound implications for realism, as what the latter gained in parsimony it lost in analytical purchase. As a result, elaborate understandings of nationalism and its relation to the state are replaced by one-dimensional approaches. In order to offer meaningful engagement with foreign policy, neorealists often have to resort to the recovery of some of the complexity of classical realist accounts.

Download or read book Realism written by Alexander Reichwein and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2020-12-26 with total page 154 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines how IR’s European realist tradition evolved in Europe and, due to emigration, in the United States in the 20th century. It includes an introduction and eight chapters, focusing on historical classical and contemporary structural branches of realist IR theorizing in historical and political contexts in which realist thinking did develop. It reminds us of realist key figures, such as Edward H. Carr, John H. Herz or Hans J. Morgenthau, but also of almost forgotten realists such as Raymond Aron, Stanley Hoffmann or Nicholas J. Spykman. Given IR mainstream textbooks introducing realism as a conservative American Cold War theory, this selection aims to reintroduce realism as a primarily and distinctively European, liberal, normative and critical tradition. A tradition that is almost always misunderstood as a guide for practitioners how to maximize or at least preserve power in the name of the national interest no matter the cost, but that is in fact an argument against reckless and crude power politics, ideology and totalitarianism. This book is an invaluable resource for scholars, practitioners and students interested in the realist tradition in IR.

Download or read book Religion and the Realist Tradition written by Jodok Troy and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-09-11 with total page 201 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume picks up a rather uninvested field of international relations theory: the influence of religion on Realism as well as the power of Realism to address religious issues in world politics. Although classical scholars of Realism rarely mention religion explicitly in their well-known work, this volume suggests that Realism offers serious ground for taking religion and faith into account as well as evaluating the impact of religion on its theoretical framework: how religion and religious worldviews influence and affect the theoretical framework of Realism, and how Realism approach religious issues in international relations as a relatively new field of international studies. Although international relations scholars now widely deal with issues of religion, large portions of the theoretical underpinning are missing. In addressing this lack, the volume illustrates the possibility of reform and change in Realism. Furthermore, the chapters reach out to normative statements. The contributors offer a theoretical view on religion in international relations in the context of Realism but always connect this with actual, real-world related political problems. The volume takes into account not only classical thinkers and approaches of Realism but also present-day authors dealing with ethical and normative questions of international relations in the aftermath of 9/11. Offering a fresh perspective on the influence of religion on international relations theory, this work will be of great interest to scholars of religion and international relations, international relations theory, and political philosophy