Description
This textbook presents security studies as a branch of international relations theory, providing readers with the critical conceptual tools to develop their expertise. The author evaluates the claims of rival theories - realism, neorealism, liberal institutionalism, classical economic liberalism, and Marxism - to explain why international actors choose or eschew force and coercive threats in order to elicit favorable outcomes in their interdependent exchanges. Also discussed are behaviorism and constructivism, contesting approaches to validate prevailing security paradigms. The author argues that only an interdisciplinary approach to security, drawing on the insights of each perspective, can meet the rigorous requirements of testable theory and the practical needs of actors in an increasingly globalizing world. The book will provide students and scholars of international relations and security studies with a valuable survey of the subject, and includes essay questions and guides to further reading.
Chapter
The centrality of the state to contemporary security studies
Discrete levels of security: the state and other actors
The system of state relations
The state and transnational civil society
The state and domestic order
Suggestions for further reading
Overviews of security studies
2 The foundations of security studies: Hobbes, Clausewitz, and Thucydides
Building a foundation under security and international security
Hobbes: the security dilemma and the individual
Clausewitz: the security dilemma and the state
Thucydides: the security dilemma and how to relax if not resolve it
Choosing whether to use force: Thucydides’ relevance to contemporary war
Suggestions for further reading
3 Testing security theories: explaining the rise and demise of the Cold War
Devising a test of security theories: the Cold War
Organization of the discussion
I. The rise and demise of the Cold War: struggle for hegemony
II. Explaining the rise and demise of the Cold War
What explains the implosion of the Soviet Union, the end of the Cold War, and the rise of the Western coalition?
Guidelines for testing security theories and approaches
Suggestions for further reading
Part II Contending security theories
4 Realism, neorealism, and liberal institutionalism
THE MANY FACES OF REALISM: PESSIMISTIC AND OPTIMISTIC VIEWPOINTS
Ad hoc amendments to realism and neorealism
Liberal institutionalists
Evaluation of realism, neorealism, and liberal institutionalism and the Cold War
Suggestions for further reading
5 Economic liberalism and Marxism
METHODOLOGICAL CONTRIBUTIONS OF LIBERAL ECONOMIC THEORY TO STRATEGIC STUDIES
Economic man as rational actor
More from the economist’s tool chest
Substantive contributions of liberal theory to security studies
Contrasting implications of strategic and economic rational actors
CLASSICAL ECONOMIC MODEL AS A SECURITY PARADIGM
Freedom of choice, theory of markets, and peace
The Marxist and Leninist challenge to the liberal ideal
Marx and the violent overthrow of capitalism
The role of the state in the revolutionary process: Lenin’s extension of Marxist theory of conflict and revolution
Evaluation of liberal economic and Marxist paradigms
Suggestions for further reading
Part III Validating security theories
The behavioral approach: the scientific study of war and peace
Power transition research program
Critique of power transition: as science and as an explanation for the end of the Cold War
Power transition and the end of the Cold War
Suggestions for further reading
Constructivism and its critics
Shared constructivists tenets
The constructivist critique of prevailing paradigms
Bridging the gap: Wendt’s world
Constructivism and the cold war: Wendt and his uneasy allies
Light constructivists and the Cold War
Heavy constructivism and the Cold War
Whither constructivism?: a critique
Constructivists vs. constructivists
A critique of constructivism from conventional wisdom
Suggestions for further reading
8 Whither international security and security studies?
Where should security studies be heading?
Security and International Relations
( Themes in International Relations )
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