Virtuous War is the first book to map the emergence and judge the consequences of a new military-industrial-media-entertainment network. James Der Derian takes the reader from a family history of war and genocide to new virtual battlespaces in the Mojave Desert, Silicon Valley, Hollywood and American universities. He tracks the convergence of cyborg technologies, video games, media spectacles, war movies, and do-good ideologies that produced a chimera of high-tech, low-risk ‘virtuous wars’. In this newly updated edition, he reveals how a misguided faith in virtuous war to right the wrongs of the world instead paved the way for a flawed response to 9/11 and a disastrous war in Iraq. Blinded by virtue, emboldened by technological superiority, seized by a mimetic terror, the US blundered from one foreign fiasco to the next. Taking the long view as well as getting up close to the war machine, Virtuous War provides a compelling alternative to the partisan politics, instant analysis and technical fixes that currently bedevil US national security policy.
Critical Practices in International Theory brings together for the first time the essays of the leading IR theorist, James Der Derian. The essays cover a variety of issues central to Der Derian's work including diplomacy, alienation, terrorism, intelligence, national security, new forms of warfare, the role of information technology in international relations, poststructuralist theory, and the military-entertainment-media matrix. The book includes a framing introduction written for this volume in which Der Derian provides historical and theoretical context for a diverse body of work. Discussing his own influences and reflecting upon the development of international theory, he advocates a critical pluralist approach to the most pressing problems of world politics. Written in the eloquent style that marks out Der Derian as one of the most provocative and innovative thinkers in international relations, this collection is essential reading for scholars and students interested in the past, present and future of international relations. James Der Derian is a Watson Institute research professor of international studies at Brown University, where he directs the Global Security Program and the Global Media Project. He is the author of many articles and books, including the highly acclaimed Virtuous War (2001, 2009).
In Critical International Relations - An Introduction, the radical IR theorist James Der Derian provides an innovative text based on the critical encounters throughout history that have transformed international relations. Unlike other books on world politics which focus on the perspective of great leaders, empires, nation-states, "great powers," etc., Der Derian's text focuses on the perspective of the under-represented, the demonized, and the neglected 'other' who are also actors of world politics. Ten historic struggles for recognition and power in world politics - from the Greeks and Barbarians to Humans and Cyborgs - will be narrated from the point of view of emblematic historical figures. The focus will not be on who wins or loses but rather on how International Relations is changed by alien encounters. The goal is to represent the alien, and in the process, to construct a critical history and pluralist theory for understanding the heteropolar conflicts of world politics today.
This book plots a trajectory from the beginning of the Second Cold war to the end of the Gulf War, to show how new global forms and representatives of spying, speed, and terror have both fortified the national security state and generated an antidiplomacy. d Because the new technologies of power behind antidiplomacy are transparent and pervasive, through the exchange of signs not goods, they have proven to be resistant if not invisible to the traditional methods of International Relations.
Deliberately eschewing disciplinary and temporal boundaries, this volume makes a major contribution to the de-traditionalization of political thinking within the discourses of international relations. Collecting the works of twenty-five theorists, this Ashgate Research Companion engages some of the most pressing aspects of political thinking in world politics today. The authors explore theoretical constitutions, critiques, and affirmations of uniquely modern forms of power, past and present. Among the themes and dynamics examined are textual appropriation and representation, materiality and capital formation, geopolitical dimensions of ecological crises, connections between representations of violence and securitization, subjectivity and genderization, counter-globalization politics, constructivism, biopolitics, post-colonial politics and theory, as well as the political prospects of emerging civic and cosmopolitan orders in a time of national, religious, and secular polarization. Radically different in their approaches, the authors critically assess the discourses of IR as interpretive frames that are indebted to the historical formation of concepts, and to particular negotiations of power that inform the main methodological practices usually granted primacy in the field. Students as well as seasoned scholars seeking to challenge accepted theoretical frameworks will find in these chapters fresh insights into contemporary world-political problems and new resources for their critical interrogation.
Critical Practices in International Theory brings together for the first time the essays of the leading IR theorist, James Der Derian. The essays cover a variety of issues central to Der Derian's work including diplomacy, alienation, terrorism, intelligence, national security, new forms of warfare, the role of information technology in international relations, poststructuralist theory, and the military-entertainment-media matrix. The book includes a framing introduction written for this volume in which Der Derian provides historical and theoretical context for a diverse body of work. Discussing his own influences and reflecting upon the development of international theory, he advocates a critical pluralist approach to the most pressing problems of world politics. Written in the eloquent style that marks out Der Derian as one of the most provocative and innovative thinkers in international relations, this collection is essential reading for scholars and students interested in the past, present and future of international relations. James Der Derian is a Watson Institute research professor of international studies at Brown University, where he directs the Global Security Program and the Global Media Project. He is the author of many articles and books, including the highly acclaimed Virtuous War (2001, 2009).
Paul Virilio is a challenging and original thinker whose work on technology, state power and war is increasingly relevant today. Exploring Virilio's main texts from their political and historical contexts, and case studies from contemporary culture and media in order to explain his philosophical concepts, Ian James introduces the key themes in Virlio's work, including: speed virtualization war politics art. As technological and scientific innovations continue to set the agenda for the present and future development of culture, communications, international economy, military intervention and diverse forms of political organization, Virilio's unique theoretical and critical insights are of enormous value and importance for anyone wishing to understand the nature of modern culture and society.
This comprehensive survey of real estate law is known for its numerous learning aids and easy-to-understand writing style. Real Estate Law incorporates the latest legal trends, numerous case studies, and multiple features to stimulate classroom discussion and enhance material retention. Highlights: Student Study Guide CD-ROM with interactive case studies help students apply complex principles while giving adopters a platform for classroom assignments The Changing Landscape sections explore the future of real estate law Key terms with page references allow for quick review of important concepts
Combat drones are transforming attitudes about the use of military force. Military casualties and the costs of conflict sap public support for war and for political and military leaders. Combat drones offer an unprecedented ability to reduce these costs by increasing accuracy, reducing the risks to civilians, and protecting military personnel from harm. These advantages should make drone strikes more popular than operations involving ground troops. Yet many critics believe drone warfare will make political leaders too willing to authorize wars, weakening constraints on the use of force. Because combat drones are relatively new, these arguments have been based on anecdotes, a handful of public opinion polls, or theoretical speculation. Drones and Support for the Use of Force uses experimental research to analyze the effects of combat drones on Americans’ support for the use of force. The authors’ findings—that drones have had important but nuanced effects on support for the use of force—have implications for democratic control of military action and civil-military relations and provide insight into how the proliferation of military technologies influences foreign policy.
In only 90 seconds, a fire in the Station nightclub killed 100 people and injured hundreds more. It would take nearly 20 years to find out why—and who was really at fault. All it took for a hundred people to die during a show by the hair metal band Great White was a sudden burst from two giant sparklers that ignited the acoustical foam lining the Station nightclub. But who was at fault? And who would pay? This being Rhode Island, the two questions wouldn't necessarily have the same answer. Within 24 hours the governor of Rhode Island and the local police commissioner were calling for criminal charges, although the investigation had barely begun, no real evidence had been gathered, and many of the victims hadn't been identified. Though many parties could be held responsible, fingers pointed quickly at the two brothers who owned the club. But were they really to blame? Bestselling author and three-time Emmy Award-winning reporter Scott James investigates all the central figures, including the band's manager and lead singer, the fire inspector, the maker of the acoustical foam, as well as the brothers. Drawing on firsthand accounts, interviews with many involved, and court documents, James explores the rush to judgment about what happened that left the victims and their families, whose stories he also tells, desperate for justice. Trial By Fire is the heart-wrenching story of the fire's aftermath because while the fire, one of America's deadliest, lasted fewer than two minutes, the search for the truth would take twenty years.
In this innovative study of performance in international relations, James R. Ball III asks why states and their representatives come to the United Nations to perform for a global audience and how those audiences may intervene in the spectacle of global politics. Theater of State looks at key spaces in which global politics play out: in debating forums of the UN, at the International Criminal Court in The Hague, and in peacekeeping operations in Africa and the Middle East, as well as in a variety of related media productions. Ball argues that culture and politics form a unified field organized by the theatricality of its actors and the engaged spectatorship of its audiences. He provides a theory of global political spectatorship: of how the world watches itself in institutions and beyond, and of what citizens and diplomats do by watching. This study of the lived experience of spectacular politics on the world stage draws on theories of theater, performance, and politics to offer new ways of approaching issues of war, cosmopolitanism, international justice, governance, and activism. Situated at the nexus of two disciplines, performance studies and political science, this volume encourages conversations between the two so that each might offer lessons to the other.
Globalization is usually said to be about markets, power, and culture. This innovative book goes further, arguing that globalization may also be understood as a way of knowing and representing the world. Mittelman debunks several prevalent myths about globalization and 'anti-globalization', presenting alternatives to this force and indicating the prospects for a new common sense about future world order. Drawing on considerable original research, this book shows how globalization itself and globalization studies have changed since 9/11. Compact and accessible, Whither Globalization? is a major contribution to the study of globalization by one of the leading scholars in the field and is essential reading for students of international relations and international political economy.
Imagined Regional Communities provides an original approach to thinking about the processes of regional integration. Focusing mostly on communities in Africa, Asia and Latin America, it develops detailed case studies based on archives, interviews and critical readings of existing texts. These case-studies are related to each other and the overall themes of the book, so that a set of narratives and theoretical elaborations emerge, that critically reformulate understandings of regional communities, statehold and sovereignty.
An analysis of the game engine Unreal through feminist, race, and queer theories of technology and media, as well as a critique of the platform studies framework itself. In this first scholarly book on the Unreal game engine, James Malazita explores one of the major contemporary game development platforms through feminist, race, and queer theories of technology and media, revealing how Unreal produces, and is produced by, broader intersections of power. Enacting Platforms takes a novel critical platform studies approach, raising deeper questions: what are the material and cultural limits of platforms themselves? What is the relationship between the analyst and the platform of study, and how does that relationship in part determine what “counts” as the platform itself? Malazita also offers a forward-looking critique of the platform studies framework itself. The Unreal platform serves as a kind of technical and political archive of the games industry, highlighting how the techniques and concerns of games have shifted and accreted over the past 30 years. Today, Unreal is also used in contexts far beyond games, including in public communication, biomedical research, civil engineering, and military simulation and training. The author’s depth of technical analysis, combined with new archival findings, contributes to discussions of topics rarely covered in games studies (such as the politics of graphical rendering algorithms), as well as new readings of previously “closed” case studies (such as the engine’s entanglement with the US military and American masculinity in America’s Army). Culture, Malazita writes, is not “built into” software but emerges through human practices with code.
In The Interface Envelope, James Ash develops a series of concepts to understand how digital interfaces work to shape the spatial and temporal perception of players. Drawing upon examples from videogame design and work from post-phenomenology, speculative realism, new materialism and media theory, Ash argues that interfaces create envelopes, or localised foldings of space time, around which bodily and perceptual capacities are organised for the explicit production of economic profit. Modifying and developing Bernard Stiegler's account of psychopower and Warren Neidich's account of neuropower, Ash argues the aim of interface designers and publishers is the production of envelope power. Envelope power refers to the ways that interfaces in games are designed to increase users perceptual and habitual capacities to sense difference. Examining a range of examples from specific videogames, Ash identities a series of logics that are key to producing envelope power and shows how these logics have intensified over the last thirty years. In turn, Ash suggests that the logics of interface envelopes in videogames are spreading to other types of interface. In doing so life becomes enveloped as the environments people inhabit becoming increasingly loaded with digital interfaces. Rather than simply negative, Ash develops a series of responses to the potential problematics of interface envelopes and envelope power and emphasizes their pharmacological nature.
In this ambitious work a leading scholar undertakes a full-scale reconceptualization of international relations. Turbulence in World Politics is an entirely new formulation that accounts for the persistent turmoil of today's world, even as it also probes the impact of the microelectronic revolution, the postindustrial order, and the many other fundamental political, economic, and social changes under way since World War II. To develop this formulation, James N. Rosenau digs deep into the workings of communities and the orientations of individuals that culminate in collective action on the world stage. His concern is less with questions of epistemology and methodology and more with the development of a comprehensive theoryone that is different from other paradigms in the field by virtue of its focus on the tumult in contemporary international relations. The book depicts a bifurcation of global politics in which an autonomous multi-centric world has emerged as a competitor of the long established state-centric world. A central theme is that the analytic skills of people everywhere are expanding and thereby altering the context in which international processes unfold. Rosenau shows how the macro structures of global politics have undergone transformations linked to those at the micro level: long-standing structures of authority weaken, collectivities fragment, subgroups become more powerful at the expense of states and governments, national loyalties are redirected, and new issues crowd onto the global agenda. These turbulent dynamics foster the simultaneous centralizing and decentralizing tendencies that are now bifurcating global structures. "Rosenau's new work is an imaginative leap into world politics in the twenty-first century. There is much here to challenge traditional thought of every persuasion." --Michael Brecher, McGill University
Introduction -- Of concepts and conceptualization -- Scientific concepts and the study of politics -- If-- maybe -- Social behavior and the indeterminacy of norms -- Methods for the production of practical knowledge.
James Rosenau’s work is known for its originality and clarity and the sixteen articles in this new volume are no exception. Tackling the specific challenges posed by globalization and governance, this book covers four key areas: the challenge – tensions, contradictions, outcomes and global affairs the profession – community, globalized space and international relations globalization – complexities, contradictions and theory governance – understanding and future The Study of World Politics presents the thinking of one of the most innovative scholars in the last half century. The subjects addressed provide the big picture, whilst also being meticulous in detail. This new book gives the reader an unparalleled understanding of globalization and governance and is an invaluable tool to students and scholars of politics and world affairs alike.
International Relations and Scientific Progress contends that a theory focusing on the structure of the international system explains a wider and more interesting range of events in world politics than other theories. Such theorizing appears to be out of favor as the result of the apparent failure by structural realism, the most prominent system-level theory over the last two decades, on any number of fronts--most notably an inability to anticipate the ending of the Cold War and its aftermath. This new book is put forward as the most comprehensive and innovative theoretical work on paradigms in international relations since the publication of Theory of International Politics, which created structural realism, more than two decades ago. With appropriate revisions, however, structural realist theory can compete effectively and reclaim its primacy. The first part of International Relations and Scientific Progress assesses the meaning of progress in the discipline of international relations, a process that culminates in the creation of a new concept, the scientific research enterprise. The second part reviews structural realism within that context and identifies a lack of connection between theory and research that links power-based indicators to international conflict, crisis, and war. This part of the book makes the case for an elaboration of structural realism by showing that a system-level theory based on structure has great unrealized explanatory potential. By comparison, the current overwhelmingly research oriented agenda on state dyads imposes severe limitations on understanding that are not currently appreciated. Part Three sums up the work and explores new directions, most notablyas related to empirical testing of an elaborated version of structural realism that focuses on both continuity and change in the international system.
Few authors have sought to explain the links among development, global governance, and globalization, Contesting Global Order traces dominant values and patterns on a world level over the last half century. Including a framing introduction written for the volume, this book brings together for the first time James H. Mittelman’s most influential works, offering cross-regional analysis, and including fieldwork in nine countries in Africa and Asia.
This timely new book focuses on the various dynamics of contemporary multilateralism as it relates to global issues, global governance, and global institutions. Invited authorities, including academics, business people, and members of international groups, contribute original essays on how multilateralism as an institution has been affected by globalization, the rise of civil society and global business, emerging economic and political conditions, and new threats to peace and security in the world. Emphasizing practical applications over theoretical foundations, The New Dynamics of Multilateralism helps students understand how the practice of multilateral diplomacy has been influenced by the changes in the processes and procedures of international organizations and the role of multilateralism in the transformation of the international system of governance and the transition to an emerging new global order.
The Virtual JFK DVD is now available For more information on the film companion to the book, visit http: //www.virtualjfk.com/ It Matters Who Is President--Then and Now At the heart of this provocative book lies the fundamental question: Does it matter who is president on issues of war and peace? The Vietnam War was one of the most catastrophic and bloody in living memory, and its lessons take on resonance in light of America's current devastating involvement in Iraq. Tackling head-on the most controversial and debated "what if" in U.S. foreign policy, this unique work explores what President John F. Kennedy would have done in Vietnam if he had not been assassinated in 1963. Drawing on a wealth of recently declassified documents, frank oral testimony of White House officials from both the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, and the analysis of top historians, this book presents compelling evidence that JFK was ready to end U.S. involvement well before the conflict escalated. With vivid immediacy, readers will feel they are in the president's war room as the debates raged that forever changed the course of American history--and continue to affect us profoundly today as the shadows of Vietnam stretch into Iraq.
This book addresses two questions that are crucial to the human condition in the twenty-first century: does globalization promote security or fuel insecurity? And what are the implications for world order? Coming to grips with these matters requires building a bridge between the geoeconomics and geopolitics of globalization, one that extends to the geostrategic realm. Yet few analysts have sought to span this gulf. Filling the void, Mittelman identifies systemic drivers of global security and insecurity and demonstrates how the intense interaction between them heightens insecurity at a world level. The emergent confluence he labels hyperconflict—a structure characterized by a reorganization of political violence, a growing climate of fear, and increasing instability at a world level. Ultimately, his assessment offers an "early warning" to enable prevention of a gathering storm of hyperconflict, and the establishment of enduring peace.
The Virtual JFK DVD is now available! For more information on the film companion to the book, visit http://www.virtualjfk.com/ It Matters Who Is President—Then and Now At the heart of this provocative book lies the fundamental question: Does it matter who is president on issues of war and peace? The Vietnam War was one of the most catastrophic and bloody in living memory, and its lessons take on resonance in light of America's current devastating involvement in Iraq. Tackling head-on the most controversial and debated "what if" in U.S. foreign policy, this unique work explores what President John F. Kennedy would have done in Vietnam if he had not been assassinated in 1963. Drawing on a wealth of recently declassified documents, frank oral testimony of White House officials from both the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, and the analysis of top historians, this book presents compelling evidence that JFK was ready to end U.S. involvement well before the conflict escalated. With vivid immediacy, readers will feel they are in the president's war room as the debates raged that forever changed the course of American history—and continue to affect us profoundly today as the shadows of Vietnam stretch into Iraq.
Robert S. McNamara is one of modern America's most controversial figures. His opinions, policies, and actions have led to a firestorm of debate, ignited most recently by Errol Morris's Academy Award-winning film, The Fog of War. In the companion book, editors James G. Blight and janet M. Lang use lessons from McNamara's life to examine issues of war and peace in the 20th century. McNamara's career spans some of America's defining events—from the end of World War I, through the course of World War II, and the unfolding of the Cold War in Cuba, Vietnam, and around the world. The Fog of War brings together film transcripts, documents, dialogues, and essays to explore what the horrors and triumphs of the 20th century can teach us about the future.
A searching meditation on our all-too-human capacity for inhumanity, Evil Men confronts atrocity head-on—how it looks and feels, what motivates it, how it can be stopped. James Dawes’s unflinchingly honest account, drawing on firsthand interviews, is not just about the things Japanese war criminals did, but about what it means to befriend them.
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