Since the end of the Cold War, analysts of international politics have been focusing far greater attention on issues of change. In the course of these analyses, it has become increasingly clear to specialists - from many contrasting viewpoints - that any understanding of large-scale political change must encompass far longer timescales than has been usual in the study of world politics, and has to incorporate a multi-disciplinary perspective. This is the first book offering an overview of the whole range of long term analyses in international relations, it evaluates and draws on relevant theoretical approaches both in other humanities and social sciences - such as sociology, history, anthropology and archaeology - and recent progress in evolutionary theory and the mathematical study of complexity. Introducing new approaches and a new spistemological framework, a new theory of long-term world political change is set out, building on the strengths of previous studies. This is then applied to the latest available historical, archaeological and anthropological data for changing forms of political organizations, ranging from the earliest human societies to the fast-changing world of the late twentieth century. The resulting analysis is a reinterpretation of the process of global political change in the past and in the present, which both support and challenges perspectives based on other forms of analysis and opens new areas of enquiry for international relations.

In 1981, the French Left came to power with a project to transform society. By 1983, French economic policy underwent a dramatic reversal as the government moved from its reform agenda to an economic orthodoxy that won the accolades of the business press throughout Europe. What brought on this seachange in orientation and political philosophy? Bringing together some of the most renowned scholars of French politics and society, The Mitterrand Era explores the political effects of policy change. It examines the transformation in the composition, organization, and orientation of the French Left under the presidency of Franois Mitterrand. The essays probe the breakdown of traditional party and union strategies, the constraints of party politics, the challenges of economic policy, the attempts to forge new political discourses, and the new challenges (focused around issues of race, gender, and ecology) for the respectable Left.

The very existence of diversionary wars is hotly contested in the press and among political scientists. Yet no book has so far tackled the key questions of whether leaders deliberately provoke conflicts abroad to distract the public from problems at home, or whether such gambles offer a more effective response to domestic discontent than appeasing opposition groups with political or economic concessions.Diversionary War addresses these questions by reinterpreting key historical examples of diversionary war—such as Argentina's 1982 Falklands Islands invasion and U.S. President James Buchanan's decision to send troops to Mormon Utah in 1857. It breaks new ground by demonstrating that the use of diversionary tactics is, at best, an ineffectual strategy for managing civil unrest, and draws important conclusions for policymakers—identifying several new, and sometimes counterintuitive, avenues by which embattled states can be pushed toward adopting alternative political, social, or economic strategies for managing domestic unrest.

Product Description: This book addresses the issue of grand strategic stability in the 21st century, and examines the role of the key centres of global power - US, EU, Russia, China and India - in managing contemporary strategic threats. This edited volume examines the cooperative and conflictual capacity of Great Powers to manage increasingly interconnected strategic threats (not least, terrorism and political extremism, WMD proliferation, fragile states, regional crises and conflict and the energy-climate nexus) in the 21st century...read more

Product Description: There might appear to be little that binds the study of order and the study of violence and conflict. Bloodshed in its multiple forms is often seen as something separate from and unrelated to the domains of 'normal' politics that constitute what we think of as order...read more

Product Description: This book examines the problems of prospects of achieving sustainable democracy through power sharing political institutions in societies that have been torn by ethnic conflict. It combines theoretical and comparative essays with a wide range of case studies.

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Product Description: In this book, Ronald Francisco traces political transformation from its roots to its results in countries ranging from Argentina to Haiti, Iran, South Korea, and Ukraine. He analyzes how regimes fail, how new ones arise, and what it takes to forge stability and democratic government...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

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