Ethics and Statecraft: The Moral Dimension of International Affairs (Humanistic Perspectives on International Relations) - Softcover

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9780275983055: Ethics and Statecraft: The Moral Dimension of International Affairs (Humanistic Perspectives on International Relations)

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0275983056 ISBN 13: 9780275983055

Publisher: Praeger, 2004

This revised edition of Ethics and Statecraft has been reorganized to better situate chapters that play to one another thematically, on peacemaking, the ethics and statecraft of war, and the statecraft of major international reform, and two new chapters, on Theodore Roosevelt and the Vietnam War, respectively, have been added to this classic work. The contributions remain centrally concerned with moral reasoning about important decisions taken by key statesmen in times of war, peace, and transformation, arguing that national leaders―including realists―have always concerned themselves with normative constraints on power, both their own and that of others.

This book posits that the problems of ethics in international relations are always conditioned by uncertainty, actors' inexact knowledge of real-world conditions, and morally ambiguous outcomes. Contrary to the course assumptions of much IR theory, individual leaders remain the major conduit by which ethical concerns are deployed or ignored in the foreign policy of states. To ignore moral norms, which already govern international relations, is to ignore a key dimension of the subject; such an oversight will necessarily lead to a shallow analysis and a basic misunderstanding of how and why states behave as they do.

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Book Description:

Demonstrates that ethics is, in fact, at the core of statecraft and diplomacy, rather than a peripheral concern, and explains how exemplary statecraft seeks to balance ethical and pragmatic interests.

About the Author:

CATHAL J. NOLAN is Associate Professor of History and Executive Director of the International History Institute at Boston University. His numberous books include the award-winning, four-volume Greenwood Encyclopedia of International Relations (Greenwood, 2002), Power and Responsibility in World Affairs (Praeger, 2004), Ethics and Statecraft (Praeger, 2004), Principled Diplomacy: Security and Rights in U.S. Foreign Policy (Greenwood, 1993), Shepherd of Democracy? America and Germany in the 20th Century (Greenwood, 1992), and the award-winning Notable U.S. Ambassadors Since 1775 (Greenwood, 1997). He also edits the Praeger series Humanistic Perspectives on International Relations, and co-edits the Praeger series International History.

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