Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles 2006

Political Science, International Relations Top

With the 2003 invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq, the most controversial question in world politics fast became whether the United States stands within the order of international law or outside it. Does America still play by the rules it helped create? American Exceptionalism and Human Rights addresses this question as it applies to U.S. behavior in relation to international human rights. With essays by eleven leading experts in such fields as international relations and international law, it seeks to show and explain how America's approach to human rights differs from that of most other Western nations.In his introduction, Michael Ignatieff identifies three main types of exceptionalism: exemptionalism (supporting treaties as long as Americans are exempt from them); double standards (criticizing "others for not heeding the findings of international human rights bodies, but ignoring what these bodies say of the United States); and legal isolationism (the tendency of American judges to ignore other jurisdictions). The contributors use Ignatieff's essay as a jumping-off point to discuss specific types of exceptionalism--America's approach to capital punishment and to free speech, for example--or to explore the social, cultural, and institutional roots of exceptionalism.These essays--most of which appear in print here for the first time, and all of which have been revised or updated since being presented in a year-long lecture series on American exceptionalism at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government--are by Stanley Hoffmann, Paul Kahn, Harold Koh, Frank Michelman, Andrew Moravcsik, John Ruggie, Frederick Schauer, Anne-Marie Slaughter, Carol Steiker, and Cass Sunstein.

Francis Fukuyama’s criticism of the Iraq war put him at odds with neoconservative friends both within and outside the Bush administration. Here he explains how, in its decision to invade Iraq, the Bush administration failed in its stewardship of American foreign policy. First, the administration wrongly made preventive war the central tenet of its foreign policy. In addition, it badly misjudged the global reaction to its exercise of “benevolent hegemony.” And finally, it failed to appreciate the difficulties involved in large-scale social engineering, grossly underestimating the difficulties involved in establishing a successful democratic government in Iraq. nbsp; Fukuyama explores the contention by the Bush administration’s critics that it had a neoconservative agenda that dictated its foreign policy during the president’s first term.nbsp; Providing a fascinating history of the varied strands of neoconservative thought since the 1930s, Fukuyama argues that the movement’s legacy is a complex one that can benbsp; interpreted quite differently than it was after the end of the Cold War. Analyzing the Bush administration’s miscalculations in responding to the post–September 11 challenge, Fukuyama proposes a new approach to American foreign policy through which such mistakes might be turned around—one in which the positive.phpects of the neoconservative legacy are joined with a more realistic view of the way American power can be used around the world.nbsp;nbsp;nbsp; nbsp;

Unlike other books about the war in Iraq, this study covers both Operations Desert Storm and Iraqi Freedom and all the smaller operations in between. The result is a detailed military narrative of America's fifteen-year struggle against Iraq's Baathists between 1990 and 2005. This unique perspective sets the scene for a new and constructive critique of U.S. military power and the asymmetric resistance capabilities of U.S. adversaries at the dawn of the twenty-first century. Threading together the political-military and military-technical.phpects of the struggle, Michael Knights traces the evolution of the threat posed by Saddam Hussein's regime and identifies the strengths and weaknesses of the military approaches used by the United States to contain and finally roll back the threat. A recognized authority on U.S. military operations in the Gulf, the author was given insider access to American military and political decision-makers with hands-on experience of operations in Iraq. Drawing on twenty-seven months of interviews and research, he provides information that has never before been released, including the first unclassified accounts of such operations as Desert Strike, Desert Fox, Northern Watch and Southern Watch, and Southern Focus. He argues that Iraq operations can only be effectively analyzed if considered as a continuum. Knights assesses how political objectives become military objectives and how military objectives guide military-technical operations. This thoughtful work is essential reading for anyone wishing to understand the factors and actions that limit U.S. military power in practice rather than in theory.

Does the spread of democracy really contribute to international peace? Successive U. S. administrations have justified various policies intended to promote democracy not only by arguing that democracy is intrinsically good but by pointing to a wide range of research concluding that democracies rarely, if ever, go to war with one another. To promote democracy, the United States has provided economic assistance, political support, and technical advice to emerging democracies in Eastern and Central Europe, and it has attempted to remove undemocratic regimes through political pressure, economic sanctions, and military force. In Electing to Fight, Edward Mansfield and Jack Snyder challenge the widely accepted basis of these policies by arguing that states in the early phases of transitions to democracy are more likely than other states to become involved in war. Drawing on both qualitative and quantitative analysis, Mansfield and Snyder show that emerging democracies with weak political institutions are especially likely to go to war. Leaders of these countries attempt to rally support by invoking external threats and resorting to belligerent, nationalist rhetoric. Mansfield and Snyder point to this pattern in cases ranging from revolutionary France to contemporary Russia. Because the risk of a state's being involved in violent conflict is high until democracy is fully consolidated, Mansfield and Snyder argue, the best way to promote democracy is to begin by building the institutions that democracy requires -- such as the rule of law -- and only then encouraging mass political participation and elections. Readers will find this argument particularly relevant to prevailing concerns about the transitional government in Iraq. Electing to Fight also calls into question the wisdom of urging early elections elsewhere in the Islamic world and in China.

This powerful work makes a compelling case that U.S. forces secretly condoned and assisted the implementation of Operation Condor, a covert Latin American military network created during the Cold War to facilitate the seizure and murder of political opponents across state borders. Drawing on a wealth of primary sources, J. Patrice McSherry provides a hidden history of the Cold War through her analysis of the intelligence networks, security structures, coordinated operations, and international connections of Condor. Revealing new details of Condor operations and fresh evidence of links to the U.S. security establishment, this controversial work offers an original analysis of the use of secret, parallel armies in Western counterinsurgency strategies. It will be a clarion call to all readers to consider the long-term consequences of clandestine operations in the name of democracy.

Placing the second US-Iraq conflict in the context of emerging trends in international relations, this exceptional, timely volume examines the broad framework of US policy toward Iraq under the administration of George W. Bush.

Calculating Credibility examines-and ultimately rejects-a fundamental belief held by the makers of American foreign policy and laypeople alike: the notion that backing down during a crisis reduces a country's future credibility. Fear of diminished credibility motivated America's costly participation in the Korean and Vietnam wars, and, since the end of the Cold War, this concern has continued to guide American policy decisions. Daryl G. Press uses historical evidence, including declassified documents, to answer two crucial questions: When a country backs down in a crisis, does its credibility suffer? How do leaders assess their adversaries' credibility? Press illuminates the decision-making processes behind events such as the crises in Europe that preceded World War II, the superpower showdowns over Berlin in the 1950s and 60s, and the Cuban Missile Crisis. When leaders face the prospect of high-stakes military conflicts, Press shows, they do not assess their adversaries' credibility by peering into their opponents' past and evaluating their history of keeping or breaking commitments. Power and interests in the current crisis-not past actions-determine the credibility of a threat. Press demonstrates that threats are credible only if backed by sufficient power and only if pursuing important interests. Press believes that Washington's obsession with the dangers of backing down has made U.S. foreign policy unnecessarily rigid. In every competitive environment-sports, gambling, warfare-competitors use feints and bluffs to tremendous advantage. Understanding the real sources of credibility, Press asserts, would permit a more flexible, and more effective, foreign policy.

How does the United Nations actually work? How does it reconcile the diverse interests of 191 sovereign member states—plus those of the multinational corporations that lobby it, the numerous NGOs with which it interacts, and the enormous international secretariat that services it—in the search for effective solutions to the myriad problems it confronts daily? Politics and Process at the United Nations answers these questions, providing a vivid picture of the dynamic interaction between actors and institutional structures. Drawing readers into the “global dance” that takes place at UN headquarters, Courtney Smith introduces the various members of the troupe and explains the procedures and processes that make up the movements of the dance. He also addresses an often neglected core issue: do UN decisions really matter? The result is an unusual book, valuable both for scholars and for students in UN and IO courses. Courtney Smith is assistant professor in the School of Diplomacy and International Relations at Seton Hall University. Contents: Introduction to the Global Dance: The Nature of Parliamentary Diplomacy. The Members of the Troupe: Actors at the UN. Member States and Delegates. Groups and Blocs. The Secretariat and the Secretary-General. Civil Society and the Private Sector. The Movements of the Dance: Procedures and Processes. Arenas of Decisionmaking: Formal and Informal. Decision Rules and Parliamentary Procedures. Informal Networking: The Personal Side. Strategies of Influence: Positional, Personal, and Procedural. Conclusion: Implications of the Dance. The UN and State Compliance.

At a time when security and political relations between the United States and Japan are exhibiting renewed confidence and strength, this study provides a timely analysis and reassessment of the early Cold War's trans-Pacific bilateral alliance. Taking issue with studies that have characterized the United States as largely dismissive of Japanese national interests, the book reveals an engaged and pragmatic leadership working to develop an active partnership with America's former adversary. Drawing on the latest scholarship in both Japan and the United States, exhaustively reassessing the diplomatic record, and relying on a wealth of newly released archival material, the author offers a reinterpretation of key issues in the early Cold War relationship. The work also casts dramatic new light on Japan's importance as a target of covert diplomacy and Soviet espionage--and the significance, in this context, of Japan's internal conflict between progressive and conservative values and the wider debate over national identity and political legitimacy.

Author Ken Dorter, in a passage-by-passage analysis traces Plato's depiction of how the most basic forms of human functioning and social justice contain the seed of their evolution into increasingly complex structures, as well as the seed of their degeneration. Dorter also traces Plato's tendency to begin an investigation with models based on rigid distinctions for the sake of clarity, which are subsequently transformed into more fluid conceptions that no longer sacrifice complexity and subtlety for clarity.

Libertarianism For and Against offers dueling perspectives on the scope of legitimate government. Tibor Machan, a well-known libertarian philosopher, argues for a minimal government devoted solely to protecting individual rights to life, liberty, and property. Against this view, philosopher Craig Duncan defends democratic liberalism, which aims to ensure that all citizens have fair access to a life of dignity. In a dynamic exchange of arguments, the two philosophers cut to the heart of this important debate.

The existence and grounding of human or natural rights is a heavily contested issue today, not only in the West but in the debates raging between `fundamentalists' and `liberals' or `modernists' in the Islamic world. So, too, are the revised versions of natural law espoused by thinkers such as John Finnis and Robert George. This book focuses on three bodies of theory that developed between the thirteenth and seventeenth centuries: (1) the foundational belief in the existence of a moral/juridical natural law, embodying universal norms of right and wrong and accessible to natural human reason; (2) the understanding of (scientific) uniformities of nature as divinely imposed laws, which rose to prominence in the seventeenth century; and (3), finally, the notion that individuals are bearers of inalienable natural or human rights. While seen today as distinct bodies of theory often locked in mutual conflict, they grew up inextricably intertwined. The book argues that they cannot be properly understood if taken each in isolation from the others.

Notes on Contributors Preface List of Abbreviations Part I: Background and Structure:1. Introduction: Rex Martin (University of Kansas) and David Reidy (University of Tennessee). 2. Uniting What Interest Prescribes with What Right Permits: Rawls 's Law of Peoples in Context: David Boucher (Cardiff). 3. Rawls 's Peoples: Philip Pettit (Princeton). Part II: Cosmopolitanism, Nationalism and Universalism: Questions of Priority and Coherence:4. Cultural Imperialism and "Democratic Peace. ": Catherine Audard (LSE, UK). 5. The Problem of Decent Peoples: Kok-Chor Tan (Univ. of Pennsylvania). 6. Why Rawls is Not a Cosmopolitan Egalitarian: Leif Wenar (Sheffield, UK). Part III: On Human Rights 7. Human Rights as Moral Claim-Rights: Wilfried Hinsch and Markus Stepanians (Univ. of Saarland, Germany). 8. Rawls 's Narrow Doctrine of Human Rights: Alistair Macleod (Queen 's Univ., Canada). 9. Taking the Human Out of Human Rights: Allen Buchanan (Duke Univ., USA). 10. Political Authority and Human Rights: David Reidy(University of Tennessee). Part IV: On Global Economic Justice 11. Collective Responsibility and International Inequality in The Law of Peoples: David Miller (Oxford). 12. Do Rawls 's Two Theories of Justice Fit Together?: Thomas Pogge (Columbia, USA). 13. Rawls on International Distributive Economic Justice: Taking a Closer Look: Rex Martin (University of Kansas, Lawrence). 14. Distributive Justice and The Law of Peoples: Samuel Freeman (Univ. of Pennsylvania). Part V: On Liberal Democratic Foreign Policy 15. Rawls 's Theory of Human Rights in Light of Contemporary Human Rights Law and Practice: Jim Nickel (Arizona State University College of Law). 16. A Human Right to Democracy? Rawls 's Law of Peoples on Governmental Legitimacy and Humanitarian Intervention: Alyssa Bernstein (Ohio Univ). 17. Justice, Stability and Toleration in a Federation of Well-Ordered Peoples: Andreas Follesdal (Univ. of Oslo, Norway). Index