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First published in the 1980s, The Political Psychology of Appeasement contains some of the most influential political journalism of the 1970s. The author, a leading contemporary historian and commentator on international affairs, provides an incisive critique of the weaknesses and inconsistencies of U.S. foreign policy in the 1970s as well as a diagnosis of the malaise of Western Europe.Laqueur's essays range from the subject of Finlandization to the problems of peace in the Middle East and the origins of political terrorism. To each of these areas he brings a deep and compassionate sensibility, the knowledge of a professional historian, and the sharp eye of an experienced journalist. Not only is Laqueur a global thinker, but his thought is undergirded by the experiences of world travel and an intimate knowledge of world leaders.Most of this book's essays are pessimistic because the author addresses his topics bluntly and pragmatically. Many of Laqueur's predictions have been borne out by subsequent events. As he ruefully says in his original preface, there is nothing so conducive to lack of popularity than to be right prematurely. Made timeless by their insightful honesty, his essays teach us about the art of political appeasement and prediction in the modern geopolitical landscape.
This volume takes its title from one of the most prescient essays of our times: an analysis of Eurocommunism as a consequence of military stalemate and the atrophy of will in the West. These essays highlight Laqueur's exceedingly sober assessment of the current status in world power, not primarily in military terms but in geopolitical and ideological terms.
Appeasement is a controversial strategy of conflict management and resolution in world politics. Its reputation is sullied by foreign policy failures ending in war or defeat in which the appeasing state suffers diplomatic and military losses by making costly concessions to other states. Britain’s appeasement policies toward Germany, Italy, and Japan in the 1930s are perhaps the most notorious examples of the patterns of failure associated with this strategy. Is appeasement’s reputation deserved or is this strategy simply misunderstood and perhaps improperly applied? Role theory offers a general theoretical solution to the appeasement puzzle that addresses these questions, and the answers should be interesting to political scientists, historians, students, and practitioners of cooperation and conflict strategies in world politics. As a social-psychological theory of human behavior, role theory has the capacity to unite the insights of various existing theories of agency and structure in the domain of world politics. Demonstrating this claim is the methodological aim in this book and its main contribution to breaking new ground in international relations theory.
"Since September 11, 2001, the attitudes of Europeans toward the United States have grown increasingly more negative. For many in Europe, the terrorist attack on New York City was seen as evidence of how American behavior elicits hostility - and how it would be up to Americans to repent and change their ways. In this revealing look at the deep divide that has emerged, Russell A. Berman explores the various dimensions of contemporary European anti-Americanism."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved
Based on more than three decades of observation, Robert Jervis concludes in this provocative book that the very foundations of many social science theories--especially those in political science--are faulty. Taking insights from complexity theory as his point of departure, the author observes that we live in a world where things are interconnected, where unintended consequences of our actions are unavoidable and unpredictable, and where the total effect of behavior is not equal to the sum of individual actions. Jervis draws on a wide range of human endeavors to illustrate the nature of these system effects. He shows how increasing airport security might actually cost lives, not save them, and how removing dead trees (ostensibly to give living trees more room) may damage the health of an entire forest. Similarly, he highlights the interconnectedness of the political world as he describes how the Cold War played out and as he narrates the series of events--with their unintended consequences--that escalated into World War I. The ramifications of developing a rigorous understanding of politics are immense, as Jervis demonstrates in his critique of current systemic theories of international politics--especially the influential work done by Kenneth Waltz. Jervis goes on to examine various types of negative and positive feedback, bargaining in different types of relationships, and the polarizing effects of alignments to begin building a foundation for a more realistic, more nuanced, theory of international politics. System Effects concludes by examining what it means to act in a system. It shows how political actors might modify their behavior in anticipation of system effects, and it explores how systemic theories of political behavior might account for the role of anticipation and strategy in political action. This work introduces powerful new concepts that will reward not only international relations theorists, but also all social scientists with interests in comparative politics and political theory.
First published in the 1980s, The Political Psychology of Appeasement contains some of the most influential political journalism of the 1970s. The author, a leading contemporary historian and commentator on international affairs, provides an incisive critique of the weaknesses and inconsistencies of U.S. foreign policy in the 1970s as well as a diagnosis of the malaise of Western Europe.Laqueur's essays range from the subject of Finlandization to the problems of peace in the Middle East and the origins of political terrorism. To each of these areas he brings a deep and compassionate sensibility, the knowledge of a professional historian, and the sharp eye of an experienced journalist. Not only is Laqueur a global thinker, but his thought is undergirded by the experiences of world travel and an intimate knowledge of world leaders.Most of this book's essays are pessimistic because the author addresses his topics bluntly and pragmatically. Many of Laqueur's predictions have been borne out by subsequent events. As he ruefully says in his original preface, there is nothing so conducive to lack of popularity than to be right prematurely. Made timeless by their insightful honesty, his essays teach us about the art of political appeasement and prediction in the modern geopolitical landscape.
In Appeasing Bankers, Jonathan Kirshner shows that bankers dread war--an aversion rooted in pragmatism, not idealism. "Sound money, not war" is hardly a pacifist rallying cry. The financial world values economic stability above all else, and crises and war threaten that stability. States that pursue appeasement when assertiveness--or even conflict--is warranted, Kirshner demonstrates, are often appeasing their own bankers. And these realities are increasingly shaping state strategy in a world of global financial markets. Yet the role of these financial preferences in world politics has been widely misunderstood and underappreciated. Liberal scholars have tended to lump finance together with other commercial groups; theorists of imperialism (including, most famously, Lenin) have misunderstood the preferences of finance; and realist scholars have failed to appreciate how the national interest, and proposals to advance it, are debated and contested by actors within societies. Finance's interest in peace is both pronounced and predictable, regardless of time or place. Bankers, Kirshner shows, have even opposed assertive foreign policies when caution seems to go against their nation's interest (as in interwar France) or their own long-term political interest (as during the Falklands crisis, when British bankers failed to support their ally Margaret Thatcher). Examining these and other cases, including the Spanish-American War, interwar Japan, and the United States during the Cold War, Appeasing Bankers shows that, when faced with the prospect of war or international political crisis, national financial communities favor caution and demonstrate a marked aversion to war.
The first comprehensive textbook on political psychology, this user-friendly volume explores the psychological origins of political behavior. Using psychological concepts to explain types of political behavior, the authors introduce a broad range of theories and cases of political activity to illustrate the behavior. The book examines many patterns of political behaviors including leadership, group behavior, voting, race, ethnicity, nationalism, political extremism, terrorism, war, and genocide. Text boxes highlight current and historical events to help students see the connection between the world around them and the concepts they are learning. Examples highlight a variety of research methodologies used in the discipline such as experimentation and content analysis. The "Political Being" is used throughout to remind the reader of the psychological theories and concepts to be explored in each chapter. Introduction to Political Psychology explores some of the most horrific things people do to one another for political purposes, as well as how to prevent and resolve conflict, and how to recover from it. The goal is to help the reader understand the enormous complexity of human behavior and the significant role political psychology can play in improving the human condition. Designed for upper division courses on political psychology or political behavior, this volume also contains material of interest to those in the policymaking community.
What shapes political behavior more: the situations in which individuals find themselves, or the internal psychological makeup—beliefs, values, and so on—of those individuals? This is perhaps the leading division within the psychological study of politics today. This text provides a concise, readable, and conceptually-organized introduction to the topic of political psychology by examining this very question. Using this situationism-dispositionism framework—which roughly parallels the concerns of social and cognitive psychology—this book focuses on such key explanatory mechanisms as behaviorism, obedience, personality, groupthink, cognition, affect, emotion, and neuroscience to explore topics ranging from voting behavior and racism to terrorism and international relations. Houghton's clear and engaging examples directly challenge students to place themselves in both real and hypothetical situations which involve intense moral and political dilemmas. This highly readable text will provide students with the conceptual foundation they need to make sense of the rapidly changing and increasingly important field of political psychology.
The question of how to deal with adverse feedback to high-stakes foreign policy speaks to a number of important, current scenarios in international relations. The esteemed contributors to this book offer explanations and illustrative case studies of critical choice points in foreign and national security policy. Competing theories from several of disciplines, primarily psychology, political science, and management, offer insights into a subject that has been very little studied in foreign policy, yet is as current as today’s headlines.