International relations theory today

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.

Originally published in 1995.

Title from resource description page (Recorded Books, viewed October 10, 2016).

Preface and acknowledgements -- Introduction : the argumentative discipline / Ken Booth and Toni Erskine -- Five generations of IR theory / Nicholas Onuf -- Theory and practice in international relations / Chris Brown -- IR theory as identity discourses / Richard Ned Lebow -- IR theory and the question of science / Inanna Hamati-Ataya -- IR theory as an ethical pursuit / Molly Cochran -- Do IR scholars engage with the same world? / Pinar Bilgin -- 'It's the economy, stupid ... ' / Craig N. Murphy -- The future of war as the ultima ratio / William C. Wohlforth -- The nuclear revolution as theory / Campbell Craig -- Carmen Miranda returns / Cynthia Enloe -- Global capitalism, inequality, and poverty / David I. Blaney and Naeem Inayatullah -- 'Civilised' restraint and international society / Andrew Linklater -- Democracy in a globalised world / Heikke Patomäki -- Protest and international politics in the Information Age / Colin Wight -- Global governance, beyond IR? / Thomas G. Weiss and Rorden Wilkinson -- International relations in the Anthropocene / Oran R. Young -- The future from inside the liberal world order / Jennifer Sterling-Folker -- Must IR remain abstract in the future? …