Critiquing the Canon: International Relations Theory considers canonical ideas and thinkers within International Relations and locates them within their historical and geopolitical contexts. Each chapter is dedicated to a particular thinker, and encourages students to explore the limitations of the canon, supporting the decolonizing of our understanding. Pedagogical features include author tutorial videos and end-of-chapter questions to prompt students to develop their own voice and perspective on international relations.
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Chapter
1. Critiquing the Canon in International Relations
Meera Sabaratnam
Critiquing the Canon: International Relations Theory considers canonical ideas and thinkers within International Relations and locates them within their historical and geopolitical contexts. Each chapter is dedicated to a particular thinker, and encourages students to explore the limitations of the canon, supporting the decolonizing of our understanding. Pedagogical features include author tutorial videos and end-of-chapter questions to prompt students to develop their own voice and perspective on international relations.
Chapter
2. Hedley Bull
Andrew Hurrell
Critiquing the Canon: International Relations Theory considers canonical ideas and thinkers within International Relations and locates them within their historical and geopolitical contexts. Each chapter is dedicated to a particular thinker, and encourages students to explore the limitations of the canon, supporting the decolonizing of our understanding. Pedagogical features include author tutorial videos and end-of-chapter questions to prompt students to develop their own voice and perspective on international relations.
Chapter
3. Kenneth N. Waltz
Joseph MacKay
Critiquing the Canon: International Relations Theory considers canonical ideas and thinkers within International Relations and locates them within their historical and geopolitical contexts. Each chapter is dedicated to a particular thinker, and encourages students to explore the limitations of the canon, supporting the decolonizing of our understanding. Pedagogical features include author tutorial videos and end-of-chapter questions to prompt students to develop their own voice and perspective on international relations.
Chapter
4. Robert Keohane and Joseph Nye
David L. Blaney
Critiquing the Canon: International Relations Theory considers canonical ideas and thinkers within International Relations and locates them within their historical and geopolitical contexts. Each chapter is dedicated to a particular thinker, and encourages students to explore the limitations of the canon, supporting the decolonizing of our understanding. Pedagogical features include author tutorial videos and end-of-chapter questions to prompt students to develop their own voice and perspective on international relations.
Chapter
5. Martha Finnemore
Arjun Chowdhury
Critiquing the Canon: International Relations Theory considers canonical ideas and thinkers within International Relations and locates them within their historical and geopolitical contexts. Each chapter is dedicated to a particular thinker, and encourages students to explore the limitations of the canon, supporting the decolonizing of our understanding. Pedagogical features include author tutorial videos and end-of-chapter questions to prompt students to develop their own voice and perspective on international relations.
Chapter
6. Alexander Wendt
Charlotte Epstein
Critiquing the Canon: International Relations Theory considers canonical ideas and thinkers within International Relations and locates them within their historical and geopolitical contexts. Each chapter is dedicated to a particular thinker, and encourages students to explore the limitations of the canon, supporting the decolonizing of our understanding. Pedagogical features include author tutorial videos and end-of-chapter questions to prompt students to develop their own voice and perspective on international relations.
Chapter
1. Introduction
Simon Choat and Manjeet Ramgotra
This introductory chapter provides an overview of the study of political thought. It examines political thought as a specific way of understanding and analysing politics, highlighting some recent debates and developments, including the development of comparative political thought. In doing so, it also reflects on the meaning of ‘politics’ itself. The chapter then looks at why and how one might study the history of political thought, exploring different approaches and discussing a range of methodological and interpretative issues. It considers who should be studied and, in particular, explores calls to decolonize political thought. Ultimately, the chapter demonstrates that political thought can be understood and studied in a variety of ways and shows why it is important to include voices that have been excluded or silenced.
Book
Edited by Gemma Bird
Critiquing the Canon: Political Theory draws upon critical scholarship to bring together diverse ways of thinking about and critiquing key thinkers from the canon of political theory. Each chapter is dedicated to a particular thinker and their work, and encourages students to explore the limitations of the canon and ask important questions about whose views might be marginalized, ignored, or sidelined in the construction of ‘canonical’ thought. Pedagogical features include author tutorial videos and end-of-chapter questions to prompt students to develop their own voice and challenge dominant ideas.
Chapter
1. Introduction
Gemma Bird
Critiquing the Canon: Political Theory draws upon critical scholarship to bring together diverse ways of thinking about and critiquing key thinkers from the canon of political theory. Each chapter is dedicated to a particular thinker and their work, and encourages students to explore the limitations of the canon and ask important questions about whose views might be marginalized, ignored, or sidelined in the construction of ‘canonical’ thought. Pedagogical features include author tutorial videos and end-of-chapter questions to prompt students to develop their own voice and challenge dominant ideas.
Chapter
2. Niccolò Machiavelli
Christine Unrau
Critiquing the Canon: Political Theory draws upon critical scholarship to bring together diverse ways of thinking about and critiquing key thinkers from the canon of political theory. Each chapter is dedicated to a particular thinker and their work, and encourages students to explore the limitations of the canon and ask important questions about whose views might be marginalized, ignored, or sidelined in the construction of ‘canonical’ thought. Pedagogical features include author tutorial videos and end-of-chapter questions to prompt students to develop their own voice and challenge dominant ideas.
Chapter
3. Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Jimmy Casas Klausen
Critiquing the Canon: Political Theory draws upon critical scholarship to bring together diverse ways of thinking about and critiquing key thinkers from the canon of political theory. Each chapter is dedicated to a particular thinker and their work, and encourages students to explore the limitations of the canon and ask important questions about whose views might be marginalized, ignored, or sidelined in the construction of ‘canonical’ thought. Pedagogical features include author tutorial videos and end-of-chapter questions to prompt students to develop their own voice and challenge dominant ideas.
Chapter
4. Mary Wollstonecraft
Emma Spruce
Critiquing the Canon: Political Theory draws upon critical scholarship to bring together diverse ways of thinking about and critiquing key thinkers from the canon of political theory. Each chapter is dedicated to a particular thinker and their work, and encourages students to explore the limitations of the canon and ask important questions about whose views might be marginalized, ignored, or sidelined in the construction of ‘canonical’ thought. Pedagogical features include author tutorial videos and end-of-chapter questions to prompt students to develop their own voice and challenge dominant ideas.
Chapter
5. Karl Marx
Sergio Bedoya Cortés
Critiquing the Canon: Political Theory draws upon critical scholarship to bring together diverse ways of thinking about and critiquing key thinkers from the canon of political theory. Each chapter is dedicated to a particular thinker and their work, and encourages students to explore the limitations of the canon and ask important questions about whose views might be marginalized, ignored, or sidelined in the construction of ‘canonical’ thought. Pedagogical features include author tutorial videos and end-of-chapter questions to prompt students to develop their own voice and challenge dominant ideas.
Chapter
6. Hannah Arendt
Sadiya Akram
Critiquing the Canon: Political Theory draws upon critical scholarship to bring together diverse ways of thinking about and critiquing key thinkers from the canon of political theory. Each chapter is dedicated to a particular thinker and their work, and encourages students to explore the limitations of the canon and ask important questions about whose views might be marginalized, ignored, or sidelined in the construction of ‘canonical’ thought. Pedagogical features include author tutorial videos and end-of-chapter questions to prompt students to develop their own voice and challenge dominant ideas.
Chapter
3. Empire, Cold War, and Decolonization, 1945–53
This chapter examines decolonization and the changes that took place within the European empires during the early years of the Cold War. Decolonization constituted a crucial element of the new international order after the Second World War and formed part of the broader shift in the global balance of power. The war marked the end of the European-dominated system of nation states and was followed by the decline of the major European powers, with international dominance lying for a quarter of a century with the United States, challenged only by the Soviet Union. The chapter considers the challenges to colonial rule that were evident in both Africa and Asia during the inter-war years. It also discusses the imperialism and the struggles against it that have formed part of a post-war landscape in the Middle East.
Chapter
24. Globalization and the nation state
Sørensen Georg
This chapter examines the implications of globalization for sovereign statehood. It begins with a discussion of the debate over the consequence of globalization for nation states, followed by an analysis of the modalities of statehood as they have developed over the past several decades. In particular, it explores how advanced capitalist states are transforming from modern into post-modern states. It also considers the emergence of weak post-colonial states out of special circumstances—the globalization of the institution of sovereignty in the context of decolonization. Furthermore, it looks at modernizing states such as China, India, Russia, and Brazil, which combine features of the modern, post-modern, and weak post-colonial states. The chapter concludes with an overview of changes in statehood that place the discipline of comparative politics in a new setting.
Chapter
4. International history of the twentieth century
Len Scott
This chapter focuses on some of the principal developments in world politics from 1900 to 1999: the development of total war, the advent of nuclear weapons, the onset of cold war, and the end of European imperialism. It shows how the confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union became the key dynamic in world affairs, replacing the dominance of—and conflict among—European states in the first half of the twentieth century. It also examines the ways that the cold war promoted or prevented global conflict, how decolonization became entangled with East–West conflicts, and how dangerous the nuclear confrontation between East and West was. Finally, the chapter considers the role of nuclear weapons in specific phases of the cold war, notably in détente, and then with the deterioration of Soviet–American relations in the 1980s.
Chapter
13. Violent Conflict and Intervention
Astri Suhrke, Torunn Wimpelmann, and Ingrid Samset
This chapter analyses patterns of violent conflict in the developing world since the onset of decolonization. It examines shifts in how scholars and policymakers have understood such conflicts, and how these understandings have informed dynamics of foreign interventions and the international peace-building regime that developed in the 1990s. After providing an overview of decolonization and its aftermath, the chapter considers conflicts over social order during the Cold War as well as the nature of conflicts in the post-Cold-War period. It also discusses new forces that shaped conflict during the first decades of the twenty-first century, focusing on militant Islam and the ‘war on terror’, ‘people power’ and its aftermath, and the link between peace-building and military intervention in a multipolar world.
Chapter
2. Colonialism and Post-Colonial Development
James Chiriyankandath
This chapter examines the impact of colonialism on post-colonial political development. It first provides an overview of the post-colonial world, noting how politics in developing countries are influenced by their pre-colonial heritage as well as colonial and post-colonial experiences. In particular, it considers post-colonial theory, which addresses the continuing impact that colonialism has on post-colonial development. The chapter proceeds by describing pre-colonial states and societies such as Africa, Asia, the Americas, and Australasia, where varying patterns of state formation influenced both the kind of colonization that they experienced and their post-colonial development. It also considers colonial patterns in the post-colonial world and the occurrence of decolonization before concluding with an assessment of the legacy of colonialism to post-colonial states.
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