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In this revised edition of his 1979 classic Political Theory and International Relations, Charles Beitz rejects two highly influential conceptions of international theory as empirically inaccurate and theoretically misleading. In one, international relations is a Hobbesian state of nature in which moral judgments are entirely inappropriate, and in the other, states are analogous to persons in domestic society in having rights of autonomy that insulate them from external moral assessment and political interference. Beitz postulates that a theory of international politics should include a revised principle of state autonomy based on the justice of a state's domestic institutions, and a principle of international distributive justice to establish a fair division of resources and wealth among persons situated in diverse national societies. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Classic reference
The content is not easy to read, but it provides the comprehensive assessment on different views towards international relations.

good and bad
This book is now a bit out of date, but is still worth reading.It was something of a ground-breaking book when it was published (early 80's) but now seems somewhat simple compared to more sophisticated treatments of the same problems.These later books, however, largely build from Beitz, so this criticism should be taken in this light.The attack on "Realism" is the best part of the book.The attacks on nationalism and communitarianism are also worth-while though the positive theory offered in their place is clearly under-theorized and not, I think, satisfactory in the end.The worst part of the book is the attempt to "globalize" Rawls in a way that clearly doesn't work and shows a pretty serious (though very common) misunderstanding of what Rawls is up to.Finally, the almost total lack of discussion of problems relating to democracy, self-determination, and legitimacy is pretty surprising and a serious short-comming.It's worth reading the book (it's an enjoyable read) but the short-commings should be kept in mind.

Great!!!!!!
Actually Beitz isn't a communitarian (Walzer is); he's a cosmopolitan. He argues against communitarians (he calls them "morality of states" theorists). But anyway I agree with the first reviewer--this book is great!! Beitz presents an airtight argument, adressing counter arguments on all levels.Although I don't entirely agree with Beitz, his argument is compelling--read this book with Walzer to contrast the perspectives.

a real communitarian!
I hate Realism theory sometimes for the world seems so vulnerable to the current status. Beitz stands up to talk about what the world really should be and most importantly, he talks about the moral sense of "border and sovereign". If his opinions hold true, Nathan Hale's "i only regret that I have but one life for my country" should be revised for "for the world".I like his argument on the communitarain views. His critism on Realism is also fascinating. ... Read more

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A complete resource for writing an effective paper, Diane Schmidt’s latest edition of Writing in Political Science gives students a practical guide for writing and arguing about political events, ideas, passions and agendas.  A collection of actual student essays shows you how to write your way to a better grade.  After reading Writing in Political Science students will know how to:

• Choose and narrow a research topic
• Formulate a research agenda
• Quickly locate reputable information online
• Execute a study and write about your findings
• Use the vocabulary of political science discourse
• Follow the criteria used to evaluate student assignments when writing
• Apply your writing skills to an internship, civic engagement project, or work-study program
• Manage and preserve achievements for career development

Customer Reviews (1)

Essential for PoliSci students
Simple easy-to-read, easy to follow format. Wish this was the 1st book I ever read for Political Science. So helpful! ... Read more

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History of Liberia - Johns Hopkins University Studies in Historical and Political Science is presented here in a high quality paperback edition. This popular classic work by John Hanson Thomas McPherson is in the English language. If you enjoy the works of John Hanson Thomas McPherson then we highly recommend this publication for your book collection. ... Read more

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What shapes political behavior more: the situations in which individuals find themselves, or the internal psychological makeup—beliefs, values, and so on—of those individuals? This is perhaps the leading division within the psychological study of politics today. This text provides a concise, readable, and conceptually-organized introduction to the topic of political psychology by examining this very question.

Using this situationism-dispositionism framework—which roughly parallels the concerns of social and cognitive psychology—this book focuses on such key explanatory mechanisms as behaviorism, obedience, personality, groupthink, cognition, affect, emotion, and neuroscience to explore topics ranging from voting behavior and racism to terrorism and international relations.

Houghton's clear and engaging examples directly challenge students to place themselves in both real and hypothetical situations which involve intense moral and political dilemmas. This highly readable text will provide students with the conceptual foundation they need to make sense of the rapidly changing and increasingly important field of political psychology.

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The Best Introduction to Political Psychology
Houghton's work is easily the best introductory book dealing with political psychology. The book is intended for an advanced undergraduate level audience. Unlike the other major books on this subject, Houghton does not insult the readers intelligence with an overuse of graphs and pictures, but rather provides the student with a thorough and overarching understanding of the primary approaches to the field. ... Read more

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The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Politics offers a critical survey of the field of empirical political science through the collection of a set of chapters written by 48 top scholars in the discipline of comparative politics. Part I includes chapters surveying the key research methodologies employed in comparative politics (the comparative method; the use of history; the practice and status of case-study research; the contributions of field research) and assessing the possibility of constructing a science of comparative politics. Parts II to IV examine the foundations of political order: the origins of states and the extent to which they relate to war and to economic development; the sources of compliance or political obligation among citizens; democratic transitions, the role of civic culture; authoritarianism; revolutions; civil wars and contentious politics. Parts V and VI explore the mobilization, representation and coordination of political demands. Part V considers why parties emerge, the forms they take and the ways in which voters choose parties. It then includes chapters on collective action, social movements and political participation. Part VI opens up with essays on the mechanisms through which political demands are aggregated and coordinated. This sets the agenda to the systematic exploration of the workings and effects of particular institutions: electoral systems, federalism, legislative-executive relationships, the judiciary and bureaucracy. Finally, Part VII is organized around the burgeoning literature on macropolitical economy of the last two decades. ... Read more

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"A significant and thoughtful discussion of key issues in the philosophy of social science, one designed to encourage a richer variety of methodological work in political science."
—Kristen Renwick Monroe, editor of Perestroika! The Raucous Rebellion in Political Science

Making Political Science Matter brings together a number of prominent scholars to discuss the state of the field of Political Science. In particular, these scholars are interested in ways to reinvigorate the discipline by connecting it to present day political struggles. Uniformly well-written and steeped in a strong sense of history, the contributors consider such important topics as: the usefulness of rational choice theory; the ethical limits of pluralism; the use (and misuse) of empirical research in political science; the present-day divorce between political theory and empirical science; the connection between political science scholarship and political struggles, and the future of the discipline. This volume builds on the debate in the discipline over the significance of the work of Bent Flyvbjerg, whose book Making Social Science Matter has been characterized as a manifesto for the Perestroika Movement that has roiled the field in recent years.

Contributors include: Brian Caterino, Stewart Clegg, Bent Flyvbjerg, Mary Hawkesworth, Patrick Thaddeus Jackson, Gregory J. Kasza, David Kettler, David D. Laitin, Timothy W. Luke, Theodore R. Schatzki, Sanford F. Schram, Peregrine Schwartz-Shea, Corey S. Shdaimah, Roland W. Stahl, and Leslie Paul Thiele.

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Never HIGHLIGHT a Book Again!Virtually all testable terms, concepts, persons, places, and events are included. Cram101 Textbook Outlines gives all of the outlines, highlights, notes for your textbook with optional online practice tests. Only Cram101 Out ... Read more

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An important book whose author was denied tenure by Harvard
As the 1997-8 academic year starts, Bonnie Honig is no longer at Harvard. She is now a tenured professor of political theory at Northwestern University. This is the sad end of a story that made national headlines in the spring of 1997: Despite being recommended by both her department and an external review board, Harvard's President, Neil Rudenstine, decided not to extend Assosicate Profeesor Bonnie Honig a tenure offer. The reasons are still unclear and will probably remain so. The case is perplexing because of the quality and quantity of Honig's work, and because it is not clear why would President Rudenstine, who is known to be nice, and liberal, overturn the tenure commitees. Honig told the press that she guessed they thought of her as a "girl". Indeed, fifteen Harvard women profeesors, including Honig's colleague Seyla Benhabib, wrote Prof. Rudenstine and brought up the gender issue. It is probably not the case the Honig was denied tenure because she is (biologicaly) a woman. But how about the fact that she is considered a feminist? That her work is considered non-traditional. That according to some of Harvard's old guard, women cannot produce good political philosophy? (Believe me, I've heard it from some of them when I was there, in open classroom). Well, Honig is of to Northwestern, and Harvard students will have from now on to settle on reading her work. "Political Theory and the Displacments of Politics" is indeed where they, and others interested in her work, should start. When I read this book, in a rather late stage of working on my dissertation at Harvard, I was totally overwhelmed. So much of political theory recently was about critiquing Rawlsian liberalism. But so much of it was, in my opinion, leading into a cul-de-sac, esp. liberalism's big contender in the 1980's: communitarian political theory. But here was, finally, the best critique of Rawls I have ever read. Why, I wondered, is everyone discussing Sandel's communitarian critique, when Honig's work is so much more interesting. Moreover, Honig also offers an excellent critique of Sandel himself, and shows that liberalism and communitarian theory actually have much in common. In a nutshell, Honig's argument is against the versions of political theory which try to displace conflicts. She contrasts them to theories that see politics as a disruptive practice that resists the consolidations and closure of juridical setllement for the sake of the perpetuity of political contest. She advocates bringing back "politics" into political theory. Politics, she says, consists of settlement *and* unsettlement, of disruption *and* administration. "To accept and embrace the perpetuity of contests", she says, "is to reject the dream of displacement, the fantasy that the right laws or constitution might some day free us from the responsiblity for (and, indeed, the burden of ) politics". Although Honig's work is not yet as canonized as that of some other contemporary political theory, I think that any student or scholar of this area will be missing out a lot if s/he didn't read Honig's book. As for Harvard's decision: if I can pull my act together maybe I'll write an alumni letter of protest to the President. But I think that at this stage I can do Honig a more important service by encouraging you to read this important and even fascinating book. ... Read more

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Why do attempts by authoritarian regimes to legalize their political repression differ so dramatically? Why do some dispense with the law altogether, while others scrupulously modify constitutions, pass new laws, and organize political trials?Political (In)Justice answers these questions by comparing the legal aspects of political repression in three recent military regimes: Brazil (1964-1985); Chile (1973-1990); and Argentina (1976-1983).By focusing on political trials as a reflection of each regime's overall approach to the law, Anthony Pereira argues that the practice of each regime can be explained by examining the long-term relationship between the judiciary and the military.Brazil was marked by a high degree of judicial-military integration and cooperation; Chile's military essentially usurped judicial authority; and in Argentina, the military negated the judiciary altogether. Pereira extends the judicial-military framework to other authoritarian regimes--Salazar's Portugal, Hitler's Germany, and Franco's Spain--and a democracy (the United States), to illuminate historical and contemporary aspects of state coercion and the rule of law. ... Read more

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This volume explores the science fiction/world politics intertext. Through detailed analyses of such texts as Blade Runner, Stalker, Star Trek, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the chapters in this volume examine the complex and sometimes contradictory relations between world politics, both as discipline and as practice, and discourses of science fiction. Offering a novel combination of popular culture analysis with major theoretical and empirical issues concerning world politics, To Seek Out New Worlds provides insights into the discursive constitution of both science fiction and world politics while highlighting the occasional challenges that the science fiction/world politics intertext launches at our common sense.
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Customer Reviews (1)

great introduction to important ideas and opinion in America
I had to buy this book for an English class in college.I initially thought is was a total waste of money and overheard many students' similar sentimens.Now I am glad I bought the book because it is chock full ofinteresting essays from across the political spectrum. The seven chaptersrange from debate on multiculturalism to social values and contains essaysfrom a variety of viewpoints.Most essays are written by contemporayauthors who have great opinions and ideas.The huge arena of contemporypolitical thought is introduced here with triumph. ... Read more

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A practical guide on how to make the most of a Political Science degree and prepares students for a career in the political field.Overview of major career sectors of interest to Political Science majors expands their knowledge and broadens their search for a rewarding career. Two career profiles per chapter offer students an opportunity to learn how individual people achieved success with their Political Science degrees. Students are given anticipated employment and salary statistics for various career fields as a valuable resource in their pre-graduation career planning by way of opportunity and salary.A valuable resource for Intro to Political Science courses that have a mix of “undeclared” students and Political Science majors in need of guidance on what they can do with a Political Science major. ... Read more

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The Oxford Dictionary of American Political Slang illuminates a rich and colorful segment of our language. Readers will find informative entries on slang terms such as "Beltway bandit" and "boondoggle," "angry white male" and "leg treasurer," "juice bill" and "Joe Citizen," "banana superpower" and "the Big Fix." We find not only the meaning and history of familiar terms such as "gerrymander," but also of lesser-known terms such as "cracking" (splitting a bloc of like-minded voters by redistricting) and "fair-fight district" (which refers to areas redistricted to favor no political party).Each entry includes the definition of the word, its historical background, and illuminating citations, some going back more than 200 years.Selected entries will have extended encyclopedic notes. The book also features sidebar essays on topics such as political words in Blogistan; a short history of "big cheese"; all about chads and the 2000 election; the suffix "-gate" and all the related Watergate terms; and the naming of legislation. Political junkies, policy wonks, journalists, and word lovers will find this book addictive reading as well as a reliable guide to one of the more colorful corners of American English. ... Read more

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Over its long lifetime, "political economy" has had many different meanings: the science of managing the resources of a nation so as to provide wealth to its inhabitants for Adam Smith; the study of how the ownership of the means of production influenced historical processes for Marx; the study of the inter-relationship between economics and politics for some twentieth-century commentators; and for others, a methodology emphasizing individual rationality (the economic or "public choice" approach) or institutional adaptation (the sociological version). This Handbook views political economy as a grand (if imperfect) synthesis of these various strands, treating political economy as the methodology of economics applied to the analysis of political behavior and institutions.

This Handbooksurveys the field of political economy, with fifty-eight chapters ranging from micro to macro, national to international, institutional to behavioral, methodological to substantive. Chapters on social choice, constitutional theory, and public economics are set alongside ones on voters, parties and pressure groups, macroeconomics and politics, capitalism and democracy, and international political economy and international conflict. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Excellent, but of limited scope
This handbook is almost excellent - it is certainly one of the two best handbooks in OUP's series, alongside Boix and Stokes' one on Comparative Politics. It is by far better than the other titles in the series, such as the one on political institutions, that on public management, or that on public policy. The reason for this success is threefold (i.e. the book scores very well on three criteria):

(1) It covers almost anything you would wish to read about in this sub-discipline, from public choice to principal-agent, and from monetary or trade politics to constitutional issues;
(2) It really reaches up to the state-of-the-art in every single chapter (except perhaps the strange chapter on Arrow, which nevertheless makes for an interesting read); and
(3)Most of it is written clearly, with individual chapters presenting the historical evolution of knowledge in their areas, and hence enhancing one's understanding of the significance (or lack of) of newer scholarship.

Having said that, OUP was not going to publish another volume on different ways of doing political economy. For this reason, this volume should have dedicated a little space to non-mathematical traditions, such as the one usually exhibited by contributors in the Review of International Political Economy. (One may or may not agree with these informal and indeed quite "ideologically-loaded" traditions. Nevertheless, they are part of our world, and as such, they should be duly acknowledged, described, and if applicable criticised.)

The second reason why I don't give this volume a 5-star is that there is nothing to set the non-specialised reader ready for some generally technical chapters. More often than not, the mathematics and the rationale of the formal models is not fully explained -- at least for someone who is not already familiar with this body of work. This could have been dealt with rather easily, for example by providing a separate chapter on the way optimization theory was introduced into the analysis of political phenomena, or more simply by offering an appendix that would take you in 20 pages from the theory of functions to partial derivatives and the basic rules of integral calculus (for something like that, see Morrow's "Game Theory" of 1994).

All in all, this is excellent for specialists or really interested readers, but neither encompassing nor simple enough to make sense to everybody else. ... Read more

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The study of political institutions is among the founding pillars of political science. With the rise of the 'new institutionalism', the study of institutions has returned to its place in the sun. This volume provides a comprehensive survey of where we are in the study of political institutions, covering both the traditional concerns of political science with constitutions, federalism and bureaucracy and more recent interest in theory and the constructed nature of institutions. The Oxford Handbook of Political Institutions draws together a galaxy of distinguished contributors drawn from leading universities across the world. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A solid cognitive map
The new institutionalism is the dominant paradigm in American politics and every graduate student reads March and Olson's game changing article during their first semester. This book situates the new institutionalism in a broader and deeper context. What did the "old institutionalism" look like? Why did the new institutionalism emerge as a reaction against logical positivist behavioralism? This book is a primer of articles written by prominent scholars in the field that serves both as an introduction to institutionalism for newbies and a cognitive map with bibliography for seasoned scholars. If I were taking Ph.D. comprehensive exams or writing questions for one, I'd want this book on my shelf. ... Read more

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General readers, students of American history, and professional historians alike will profit from reading this engaging presentation of an aspect of American history conspicuously absent from the usual textbooks and popular presentations of the political thought of this crucial period.Thomas Jefferson was the only president who could read and understand Newton's Principia. Benjamin Franklin is credited with establishing the science of electricity. John Adams had the finest education in science that the new country could provide, including "Pnewmaticks, Hydrostaticks, Mechanicks, Staticks, Opticks." James Madison, chief architect of the Constitution, peppered his Federalist Papers with reference to physics, chemistry, and the life sciences.

For these men science was an integral part of life--including political life. This is the story of their scientific education and of how they employed that knowledge in shaping the political issues of the day, incorporating scientific reasoning into the Constitution.
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Customer Reviews (1)

The role of emotion in politics
"The Affect Effect" is a welcome volume.In political science--and in the study of political thinking and behavior--the rational choice perspective has become very powerful.While it yields some genuine insights, it is also one dimensional.People are not simply cost-benefit calculators, are not solely means-ends analysts.Emotion matters.And that is what this volume is about.The volume is intended as much for a more academic audience than not, so it will be something of a challenge for the non-cognoscenti.Nonetheless, a useful and welcome volume.

The editors begin by noting their "scope of work" (page 1):

"This book responds to a resurgent interest in the way emotion interacts with thinking about politics and, as a result, the way citizens engage in or withdraw from political activity.We have come to conclude that there is indeed an affect effect. . . .Our explicit goal in this work is to draw focused attention to what had been a relatively neglected area in the study of mass political behavior."

Their introduction places the issues addressed here in a broader context, and represents a nice starting point for the book.

The first part is important, in that two of the chapters emphasize the importance of considering the human brain and neurosciences in understanding emotion and its role in politics.Humans are a product of the evolutionary process and have brains that affect how people think and behave.Not to recognize this would have been a problem with the volume; acknowledging this is a plus.The second part focuses on "micro models," how emotion/affect influences individuals' political thinking and behavior.Part Three addresses "macro level" issues, how human affect influences system level politics.Finally, Part Four considers "Next Steps in Research and Outreach."

This is a good examination of the role of emotion and affect in politics.It points to future research directions.It will not necessarily be easy reading for a lay audience, but it is worth the struggle.For academic scholars, this is, indeed, a rich resource and should be required reading for those studying humans' political thinking and behavior.
... Read more

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This book launches a landmark four-volume collaborative work exploring the political thought of the Jewish people from biblical times to the present. The texts and commentaries in Volume I address the basic question of who ought to rule the community. The contributors-eminent philosophers, lawyers, political theorists, and other scholars working in different fields of Jewish studies-discuss the authority of God, the claims of kings, priests, prophets, rabbis, lay leaders, and gentile rulers during the years of the exile, and issues of authority in the modern state of Israel.Amazon.com Review
Jews were political outsiders from 63 B.C. (when the Romanstook control) to 1948 (when the state of Israel was founded). Though theylacked any state or territory of their own, Jews nevertheless created adistinctive political philosophy, one that receives systematic scholarlyattention in a landmark four-volume series titled The Jewish PoliticalTradition. Authority, the first volume in the series, is ananthology of writings for which the central questions are: Who should rule thecommunity? And how? Authority begins by exploring the biblical notionof covenant, then considers topics such as the right of kings to rule, thechallenge of both submitting to God's authority and interpreting His words,and the question of whether a Jewish state can be truly democratic. In all,the book contains 30 topical chapters, each reproducing a range ofdocuments (from the Bible to medieval rabbinic commentaries to modernpolitical pamphlets).Their organization mimics the conversational course bywhich Jewish political tradition has developed. Series editor Michael Walzer(author of the classic On Toleration) contributes a lucid introductionto Authority; he notes that "the Jews did not choose, and nevercelebrated, the decentered politics of the exile, but, within the limits set by their relative powerlessness, they made it work." Authority setsthis brilliant, pragmatic, and vigorous tradition on paper in an accessibleformat for the first time. The project will be salutary for the study andpractice of politics everywhere. --Michael Joseph Gross ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Jewish Political Tradition Volume 1 - Authority
This book asks a question in its Introduction setting the tone for the rest of the work: "What structure of human authority is required by divine and textual authority?" If that were the only sentence in thebook, it would be worth reading.

For any reader either Jewish, Christianor Moslem, this book is valuable because it teases from Scripture andhistory a sense of how humans choose to build governmental and judicialsystems in response to what they perceive as being mandated or implied asmandated by divine writ; and how opposing voices test those choices ofdirection.

One words repeatedly comes to mind as I seek to convey a senseof this book's contribution to thought: valuable. ... Read more

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What does democracy expect of its citizens, and how do the citizenry match these expectations? This Oxford Handbook examines the role of the citizen in contemporary politics, based on essays from the world's leading scholars of political behavior research. The recent expansion of democracy has both given new rights and created new responsibilities for the citizenry. These political changes are paralleled by tremendous advances in our empirical knowledge of citizens and their behaviors through the institutionalization of systematic, comparative study of contemporary publics--ranging from the advanced industrial democracies to the emerging democracies of Central and Eastern Europe, to new survey research on the developing world. These essays describe how citizens think about politics, how their values shape their behavior, the patterns of participation, the sources of vote choice, and how public opinion impacts on governing and public policy.

This is the most comprehensive review of the cross-national literature of citizen behavior and the relationship between citizens and their governments. It will become the first point of reference for scholars and students interested in these key issues. ... Read more