Networked Politics: Agency, Power, and Governance

The concept of network has emerged as an intellectual centerpiece for our era. Network analysis also occupies a growing place in many of the social sciences. In international relations, however, network has too often remained a metaphor rather than a powerful theoretical perspective. In Networked Politics, a team of political scientists investigates networks in important sectors of international relations, including human rights, security agreements, terrorist and criminal groups, international inequality, and governance of the Internet. They treat networks as either structures that shape behavior or important collective actors. In their hands, familiar concepts, such as structure, power, and governance, are awarded new meaning.

Miles Kahler is Rohr Professor of Pacific International Relations and Professor of Political Science at the School of International Relations and Pacific Studies, University of California, San Diego. He is the author of Leadership Selection and the Major Multilaterals and International Institutions and the Political Economy of Integration and coeditor of Governance in a Global Economy.