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Principles of International Politics
Click here to read the introduction.Click here to watch Bruce Bueno de Mesquita's TED Talk about the future of Iran's leadership and nuclear program!A little revolution now and again is a good thing. The scientific approach to international relations has transformed the field. And now, thanks to a revolutionary revision, Principles of International Politics offers a crisp and clear introduction to international relations from the strategic point of view.
Responding to user feedback and classroom testing, Principles has been completely recast so that the book is focused squarely on the central insights of the strategic perspective. Honing in on two key ideas--winning coalitions and selectorate size--the book delivers the fundamental lessons of the theory more easily than ever, giving students even better access to the most powerful way of thinking about IR today.
Not only will students find the text easier to follow, they'll also find the book shorter--almost half the length of the previous edition. Streamlining places the take-away points front and center, and the basic tools of the model are delivered in clear step-by-step language, allowing beginning students to grasp the theory's powerful insights.
What hasn't changed: Bueno de Mesquita's commitment to covering the fundamentals of IR. You'll find a full examination of security problems, with special attention to theories of war, an exploration of the democratic peace, the problems of terrorism, military intervention, the role of foreign aid, democratization, international political economy, globalization, international organizations, alliances, and international law.
Helpful pedagogical features allow students to master the principles, including:
chapter-opener overviews,
bolded key terms,
"Try This" feature boxes,
a full glossary, and
appendixes (a survey of world history and a primer on the scientific method).
Responding to user feedback and classroom testing, Principles has been completely recast so that the book is focused squarely on the central insights of the strategic perspective. Honing in on two key ideas--winning coalitions and selectorate size--the book delivers the fundamental lessons of the theory more easily than ever, giving students even better access to the most powerful way of thinking about IR today.
Not only will students find the text easier to follow, they'll also find the book shorter--almost half the length of the previous edition. Streamlining places the take-away points front and center, and the basic tools of the model are delivered in clear step-by-step language, allowing beginning students to grasp the theory's powerful insights.
What hasn't changed: Bueno de Mesquita's commitment to covering the fundamentals of IR. You'll find a full examination of security problems, with special attention to theories of war, an exploration of the democratic peace, the problems of terrorism, military intervention, the role of foreign aid, democratization, international political economy, globalization, international organizations, alliances, and international law.
Helpful pedagogical features allow students to master the principles, including:
chapter-opener overviews,
bolded key terms,
"Try This" feature boxes,
a full glossary, and
appendixes (a survey of world history and a primer on the scientific method).
488 pages, Paperback
First published November 1, 1999
6 people are currently reading
218 people want to read
About the author
Bruce Bueno de Mesquita
39 books279 followersBruce Bueno de Mesquita is a political scientist, professor at New York University, and senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. He specializes in international relations, foreign policy, and nation building. He is also one of the authors of the selectorate theory.
He has founded a company, Mesquita & Roundell, that specializes in making political and foreign-policy forecasts using a computer model based on game theory and rational choice theory. He is also the director of New York University's Alexander Hamilton Center for Political Economy.
He was featured as the primary subject in the documentary on the History Channel in December 2008. The show, titled Next Nostradamus, details how the scientist is using computer algorithms to predict future world events.
Excerpted from Wikipedia.
He has founded a company, Mesquita & Roundell, that specializes in making political and foreign-policy forecasts using a computer model based on game theory and rational choice theory. He is also the director of New York University's Alexander Hamilton Center for Political Economy.
He was featured as the primary subject in the documentary on the History Channel in December 2008. The show, titled Next Nostradamus, details how the scientist is using computer algorithms to predict future world events.
Excerpted from Wikipedia.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
March 8, 2017
As someone who enjoys reading about matters of international relations [1], this is the sort of book I would likely enjoy more than many people. I was not surprised that this book took a datacentric approach, nor was I surprised about the sorts of issues it discussed. One thing that did surprise me, though, was the extent to which the author showed a perhaps unintentional degree of humor by including himself as one of his most important authorities. This was something I noted somewhat anecdotally while reading the book and then decided to investigate by looking at the bibliography and saw that the author included a page of his own sources and citations in the bibliography. If that degree of self-referential respect amuses you as much as it amuses me, and you are as interested in the interaction and relationship between domestic politics and geopolitics, this is a worthwhile book to read, although it is a far longer read than most books are and will likely require a great deal of time and attention before someone is able to get out of it all that can be understood.
The contents of this book take more than 400 pages to cover, but for those who want to take the time and enjoy the material, the book is worth the time commitment it requires. The author opens the book with an introductory chapter that discusses the schools of thought in International Relations. The author then discusses the strategic perspective, when foreign policy collides with domestic politics, tools for analyzing international affairs (mostly mathematically based), introduces the reader to game theory, discusses two structural theories of war, give strategic theories of war, discuss the domestic origins of war as a way of exploring the implications of the democratic peace, discussing terrorism as a rational choice, discussing the relationship between military intervention and nation building, gives some of the problems of financial aid, discusses the international political economy of trade, and then talks about international organizations and international law. The book also has two appendices that are well worth reading, on modern political economic history and international politics and a discussion of how the reader should evaluate arguments about international politics using a highly empirical approach. Those who are already familiar with international relations will still find much to enjoy even where much of the information here will be a review of what one is already familiar with.
Given that this book is clearly highly technical, it was enjoyable in a way that many books of this kind are not. Part of that, as has been mentioned, is the way that the author refers to himself as an authority in an offhand way, not seeming to think anything unusual about it. There are other aspects, though, to the high enjoyment value of this book. One is the way that the author has such a fun way of looking at how people twist data and define matters differently, and another is in the way that author shows a willingness to take striking and unusual approaches to problems, such as the difference between reluctant terrorists and true believers. Looking at that analysis, I was struck by the fact that as someone for whom being a doormat is less appealing than fighting back in some fashion, I would qualify as a "reluctant terrorist" in a repressive regime. Given my experiences in some of my international travels, this makes an alarming amount of sense, and is the cause for a great deal of reflection and pondering, and even soul-searching. The fact that this book is able to strike out distinctive ground by focusing on data and strategic analysis rather than cliche and repeating talking points makes this an immensely worthwhile book, which is also in evidence when the author mentions that foreign aid does exactly what people want it to, which is why so little of it is given, and much of that is targeted at corrupt political elites, exactly as designed. It is rare when I read a book that is as cynical as I am, and that is something to appreciate.
[1] See, for example:
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017...
The contents of this book take more than 400 pages to cover, but for those who want to take the time and enjoy the material, the book is worth the time commitment it requires. The author opens the book with an introductory chapter that discusses the schools of thought in International Relations. The author then discusses the strategic perspective, when foreign policy collides with domestic politics, tools for analyzing international affairs (mostly mathematically based), introduces the reader to game theory, discusses two structural theories of war, give strategic theories of war, discuss the domestic origins of war as a way of exploring the implications of the democratic peace, discussing terrorism as a rational choice, discussing the relationship between military intervention and nation building, gives some of the problems of financial aid, discusses the international political economy of trade, and then talks about international organizations and international law. The book also has two appendices that are well worth reading, on modern political economic history and international politics and a discussion of how the reader should evaluate arguments about international politics using a highly empirical approach. Those who are already familiar with international relations will still find much to enjoy even where much of the information here will be a review of what one is already familiar with.
Given that this book is clearly highly technical, it was enjoyable in a way that many books of this kind are not. Part of that, as has been mentioned, is the way that the author refers to himself as an authority in an offhand way, not seeming to think anything unusual about it. There are other aspects, though, to the high enjoyment value of this book. One is the way that the author has such a fun way of looking at how people twist data and define matters differently, and another is in the way that author shows a willingness to take striking and unusual approaches to problems, such as the difference between reluctant terrorists and true believers. Looking at that analysis, I was struck by the fact that as someone for whom being a doormat is less appealing than fighting back in some fashion, I would qualify as a "reluctant terrorist" in a repressive regime. Given my experiences in some of my international travels, this makes an alarming amount of sense, and is the cause for a great deal of reflection and pondering, and even soul-searching. The fact that this book is able to strike out distinctive ground by focusing on data and strategic analysis rather than cliche and repeating talking points makes this an immensely worthwhile book, which is also in evidence when the author mentions that foreign aid does exactly what people want it to, which is why so little of it is given, and much of that is targeted at corrupt political elites, exactly as designed. It is rare when I read a book that is as cynical as I am, and that is something to appreciate.
[1] See, for example:
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017...
March 9, 2021
Very helpful in tandem with a course in understanding introductory international politics, but when math is involved, it gets confusing. What I mean specifically is that he only defines variables and equations briefly within thick paragraphs. This is like taking Algebra for the first time and a teacher simply talks about it with maybe a couple of visual examples on the board that you’re squinting to see.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews