International Relations Theory Today - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0745671217 ISBN 13: 9780745671215

Publisher: Polity, 2016

Synopsis

International Relations (IR) theorists speak with conviction, and often passion, to the global condition of human society. The result is an important, dynamic and often deeply divided field. This long-awaited new edition of International Relations Theory Today offers undergraduate and postgraduate students an essential guide to the complex terrain of IR theory and the key questions on its agenda.

With chapters by 25 prominent and provocative IR theorists, the book reveals the intellectual excitement - and turmoil - of theorizing world politics. It reflects the conflicts and tensions around the profound challenges facing the contemporary world, such as climate change, globalization, nuclear proliferation, and economic and political injustice and conflict, while also expressing hope that we can better understand, and respond to, these challenges.

Above all, this book demonstrates the significance of thinking theoretically about international relations and developing the tools not merely to describe but also to explain, analyse, prescribe and possibly re-imagine the global political landscape. As the world comes face-to-face with historic challenges over the coming decades, International Relations Theory Today will help its readers to participate more effectively in debates about the most important global political dilemmas of our time.

About this title

From the Back Cover:

International Relations Theory Today starts from the premise that international theory is going through major changes. Gone is the old sense of a self-contained discipline, united around the problems of war and peace, and dominated by a realist view of the world. Since the mid-1970s, international theory has been marked by major debates which question the very existence of a separate and contained world of international relations; this implies that the discipline of international theory has to reconsider its assumptions and its theories.

This book deals both with the impact of a changing world on our thinking and also reflects the wider intellectual turmoil that is currently facing the social sciences and the humanities. Each of the chapters has been written by a prominent international relations theorist. There is no orthodoxy amongst the contributors, and the reader will find a range of theories and positions in this book. What all contributors have in common, however, is a concern with the current state of international theory and an interest in exploring some of the major questions on its agenda.

This book will be essential reading for second-year students and above in the fields of international relations, global politics and political sociology.

About the Author:

Ken Booth is Senior Research Associate and President of the David Davies Memorial Institute of International Studies
Toni Erskine is Professor of International Politics at the University of New South Wales, Australia.

About this edition

• Publisher: Polity
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 0745671217
• ISBN 13: 9780745671215
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 2
• Number of pages: 408
• Editor: Booth Ken