Critical Imaginations In International Relations

This exciting new text brings together in one volume an overview of the many reflections on how we might address the problems and limitations of a state-centred approach in the discipline of International Relations (IR). The book is structured into chapters on key concepts, with each providing an introduction to the concept for those new to the field of critical politics – including undergraduate and postgraduate students – as well as drawing connections between concepts and thinkers that will be provocative and illuminating for more established researchers in the field. They give an overview of core ideas associated with the concept; the critical potential of the concept; and key thinkers linked to the concept, seeking to address the following questions: How has the concept traditionally been understood? How has the concept come to be understood in critical thinking? How is the concept used in interrogating the limits of state centrism? What different possibilities for engaging with international relations have been envisioned through the concept? Why are such possibilities for alternative thinking about international relations important? What are some key articles and volumes related to the concept which readers can go for further research? Drawing together some of the key thinkers in the field of critical International Relations and including both established and emerging academics located in Asia, Europe, Latin America and North America, this book is a key resource for students and scholars alike.

This exciting new text brings together in one volume an overview of the many reflections on how we might address the problems and limitations of a state-centred approach in the discipline of International Relations (IR). The book is structured into chapters on key concepts, with each providing an introduction to the concept for those new to the field of critical politics – including undergraduate and postgraduate students – as well as drawing connections between concepts and thinkers that will be provocative and illuminating for more established researchers in the field. They give an overview of core ideas associated with the concept; the critical potential of the concept; and key thinkers linked to the concept, seeking to address the following questions: How has the concept traditionally been understood? How has the concept come to be understood in critical thinking? How is the concept used in interrogating the limits of state centrism? What different possibilities for engaging with international relations have been envisioned through the concept? Why are such possibilities for alternative thinking about international relations important? What are some key articles and volumes related to the concept which readers can go for further research? Drawing together some of the key thinkers in the field of critical International Relations and including both established and emerging academics located in Asia, Europe, Latin America and North America, this book is a key resource for students and scholars alike.

Using a three-part framework of Ideas, Arguments, and Contexts and Applications, International Relations, Second Edition, shows students how to think critically about issues and current events in world politics. Each chapter first describes key concepts and developments in the field (Ideas), then presents the main theoretical and analytical approaches (Arguments), and finally applies the main theories and approaches within the individual, state, and globalcontexts (Contexts and Applications). Historical information is woven throughout the text, and every chapter ends with an extended case study ("The Uses of History") that demonstrates how what we have learnedfrom the past can influence our future actions. Three full chapters on key approaches--realism (chapter 2), liberalism (chapter 3), and constructivism and other alternative views (chapter 4)--introduce students to a broad spectrum of approaches, and each chapter integrates discussions of relevant theories and levels of analysis. Visual Reviews at the end of each chapter not only recap key points but include Critical Thinking questions that reflect the chapter learning objectives.

This innovative textbook introduces students to the main theories in international relations. The 2nd edition includes new chapters on the 'clash of civilizations' and Empire.

This book explores narratives produced in the Maghreb in order to illustrate shortcomings of imagination in the discipline of international relations (IR). It focuses on the politics of narrating postcolonial Maghreb through a number of writers, including Abdelkebir Khatibi, Fatema Mernissi, Kateb Yacine and Jacques Derrida, who explicitly embraced the task of (re)imagining their respective societies after colonial independence and subsequent nation-building processes. Narratives are thus considered political acts speaking to the turbulent context in which postcolonial Maghrebian Francophone literature emerges as sites of resistance and contestation. Throughout the chapters, the author promotes an encounter between narratives from the Maghreb and IR and makes a case for the kinds of thinking and writing strategies that could be used to better approach international and global studies.

This book systematically explores how different theoretical concepts of myth can be utilised to interpretively explore contemporary international politics. From the international community to warlords, from participation to effectiveness – international politics is replete with powerful narratives and commonly held beliefs that qualify as myths. Rebutting the understanding of myth-as-lie, this collection of essays unearths the ideological, naturalising, and depoliticising effect of myths. Myth and Narrative in International Politics: Interpretive Approaches to the Study of IR offers conceptual and methodological guidance on how to make sense of different myth theories and how to employ them in order to explore the powerful collective imaginations and ambiguities that underpin international politics today. Further, it assembles case studies of specific myths in different fields of International Relations, including warfare, global governance, interventionism, development aid, and statebuilding. The findings challenge conventional assumptions in International Relations, encouraging academics in IR and across a range of different fields and disciplines, including development studies, global governance studies, strategic and military studies, intervention and statebuilding studies, and peace and conflict studies, to rethink ideas that are widely unquestioned by policy and academic communities.

This exciting new textbook challenges the implicit notions inherent in most existing International Relations (IR) scholarship and instead presents the subject as seen from different vantage points in the global South. Divided into four sections, (1) the IR discipline, (2) key concepts and categories, (3) global issues and (4) IR futures, it examines the ways in which world politics have been addressed by traditional core approaches and explores the limitations of these treatments for understanding both Southern and Northern experiences of the "international." The book encourages readers to consider how key ideas have been developed in the discipline, and through systematic interventions by contributors from around the globe, aims at both transforming and enriching the dominant terms of scholarly debate. This empowering, critical and reflexive tool for thinking about the diversity of experiences of international relations and for placing them front and center in the classroom will help professors and students in both the global North and the global South envision the world differently. In addition to general, introductory IR courses at both the undergraduate and graduate levels it will appeal to courses on sociology and historiography of knowledge, globalization, neoliberalism, security, the state, imperialism and international political economy.