Rethinking The World

Stunning shifts in the worldviews of states mark the modern history of international affairs: how do societies think about—and rethink—international order and security? Japan's "opening," German conquest, American internationalism, Maoist independence, and Gorbachev's "new thinking" molded international conflict and cooperation in their eras. How do we explain such momentous changes in foreign policy—and in other cases their equally surprising absence?The nature of strategic ideas, Jeffrey W. Legro argues, played a critical and overlooked role in these transformations. Big changes in foreign policies are rare because it is difficult for individuals to overcome the inertia of entrenched national mentalities. Doing so depends on a particular nexus of policy expectations, national experience, and ready replacement ideas. In a sweeping comparative history, Legro explores the sources of strategy in the United States and Germany before and after the world wars, in Tokugawa Japan, and in the Soviet Union. He charts the likely future of American primacy and a rising China in the coming century. Rethinking the World tells us when and why we can expect changes in the way states think about the world, why some ideas win out over others, and why some leaders succeed while others fail in redirecting grand strategy.

The post-Marxian, new historical materialism described in this book breathes new life into our comprehension of the world. A 200-year perspective on modernity tells us that an all-embracing physical phenomenon holds humankind in its grip. History has recorded two distinct global systems thus far: "laissez faire/metal money," which spanned most of the 19th century and lasted until the outbreak of World War I, and "mixed economy/weak multilateralism," which began after 1945 and exists today. The period between the two systems, 1914-1945, was a chaotic transition. This evolutionary pulsation is well known to students of thermodynamics. It corresponds to the behavior of expanding and complexifying material systems. The exhaustion of oil and other natural resources is pushing the world toward a third global system that may be called "two-level economy/strong multilateralism." It will be impossible to get there without a new chaotic transition. No repeated warnings, academic advice, moral advocacy, inspired reforms, or political leadership can provide a shortcut around it. But if it took "1914-1945" to make a relatively minor adjustment in the global order, what will it take to make a major one?

Outlining the major figures and proponents of numerous and varied philosophies—including empiricism, existentialism, phenomenology, hermeneutics, systems theory, postmodernism, and feminism—this guidebook places a critical and creative eye towards many of society’s traditionally held beliefs. Providing readers with the tools to analyze life and to answer existential questions, this aide contextualizes each philosophy in modern terms to ensure accessibility and understanding. A tabulation of each philosophy’s merits and weaknesses is also included to help maximize learning.

The world currently faces a number of challenges that no single country can solve. Whether it is managing a crisis-prone global economy, maintaining peace and stability, or trying to do something about climate change, there are some problems that necessitate collective action on the part of states and other actors. Global governance would seem functionally necessary and normatively desirable, but it is proving increasingly difficult to provide. This accessible introduction to, and analysis of, contemporary global governance explains what it is and the obstacles to its realization. Paying particular attention to the possible decline of American influence and the rise of China and a number of other actors, Mark Beeson explains why cooperation is proving difficult, despite its obvious need and desirability. This is an essential text for undergraduate and postgraduate students studying global governance or international organizations, and is also important reading for those working on political economy, international development and globalization.

First James Lovelock, and recently Prince William and David Attenborough believe that we have reached a tipping point in the process of climate change. Whether they are right or not, it is certainly true that the impact of humankind upon the ecology of the earth has reached a point where real changes in human behaviour are required. If managers are to be enablers of planetary survival then we need to develop a new approach to risk, which explicitly includes ecological limits upon economic behaviour. This implies a fundamental reorientation of their role in allocating resources to minimise risk and maximise reward. This book brings together some of the brightest contemporary thinkers on leadership, complexity and sustainability to consider the big ideas that we will need to make the changes required, and to outline the major themes that can inform a new approach to constructing a green world. It looks at how to ensure that local models of sustainability are able to flourish in the context of global networks and presents specific case studies of markets and organisations that offer insights into the development integrated solutions and the leadership lessons we can learn. Combining both theory and practice, this book serves to guide business managers and provides deeper insight and critical perspectives on some of the key issues facing leaders moving towards the green economy. It also provides useful supplementary reading for students in business and environmental studies.

The use of world-systems theory to explain the spread of social complexity has become accepted practice by both historians and archaeologists. Gil Stein now offers the first rigorous test of world systems as a model in archaeology, arguing that the application of world-systems theory to noncapitalist, pre-fifteenth-century societies distorts our understanding of developmental change by overemphasizing the role of external over internal dynamics. In this new study, Stein proposes two complementary theoretical frameworks for the study of interregional interaction: a "distance-parity" model, which views world-systems as simply one factor in a broader range of intersocietal relations, and a "trade-diaspora" model, which explains variation in exchange systems from the perspective of participant groups. He tests his models against the archaeological record of Mesopotamian expansion into the Anatolian highlands during the fourth millennium B.C. Whereas some scholars have considered this "Uruk expansion" to be one of the earliest documented world-systems, Stein uses data from the site of Hacinebi in southeastern Turkey to support his alternate perspective. Comparing economic data from pre- and postcontact phases, Stein shows that the Mesopotamians did not dominate the people of this distant periphery. Such evidence, argues Stein, shows that we must look more closely at the local cultures of peripheries to develop realistic cross-cultural models of variation in colonialism, exchange, and secondary state formation in ancient societies. By demonstrating that a multitude of factors affect the nature and consequences of intersocietal contacts, his book advocates a much-needed balance between recognizing that no society can be understood in complete isolation from its neighbors and assuming the primacy of outside contact in a society's development.

Rethinking Global Political Economy contains incisive analysis of history, linguistics, class, culture, empirical data and normative concerns. This important volume presents innovative approaches to fundamental issues in global political economy. Together they provide multiple arguments and avenues for rethinking global political economy in a time of turmoil and system transformation. It will appeal to those interested in seeing new perspectives and healthy heterodoxy in the study of political economy.

Presents lessons and activities covering the topics of social justice and globalization.