Realism and constructivism are often viewed as competing paradigms for understanding international relations, though scholars are increasingly arguing that the two are compatible. Edited by one of the leading proponents of realist constructivism, this volume shows what realist constructivism looks like in practice by innovatively combining exposition and critiques of the realist constructivist approach with a series of international case studies. Each chapter addresses a key empirical question in international relations and provides important guidance for how to combine both approaches effectively in research. Addressing future directions and possibilities for realist constructivism in international relations, this book makes a significant contribution to the theorizing of global politics.

State sovereignty is an inherently social construct. The modern state system is not based on some timeless principle of sovereignty, but on the production of a normative conception that links authority, territory, population, and recognition in a unique way, and in a particular place (the state). The unique contribution of this book is to describe and illustrate the practices that have produced various sovereign ideals and resistances to them. The contributors analyze how the components of state sovereignty are socially constructed and combined in specific historical contexts.

This book offers new ways of thinking about corruption by examining the two distinct ways in which policy approaches and discourse on corruption developed in the UN and the OECD. One of these approaches extrapolated transnational bribery as the main form of corrupt practices and advocated a limited scope offense, while the other approach tackled the broader structure of the global economic system and advocated curbing the increasing power of multinational corporations. Developing nations, in particular Chile, initiated and contributed much to these early debates, but the US-sponsored issue of transnational bribery came to dominate the international agenda. In the process, the ‘corrupt corporation’ was supplanted by the ‘corrupt politician’, the ‘corrupt public official’ and their international counterpart: the ‘corrupt country’. This book sheds light on these processes and the way in which they reconfigured our understanding of the state as an economic actor and the multinational corporation as a political actor.

A concluding chapter discusses the policy implications of aspirational constructivism for Russia and other nations and a methodological appendix lays out a framework for testing the theory.

Using a variety of social scientific methods of investigation ranging from laboratory experiments and public opinion surveys to computer simulations and case studies, Rousseau untangles the complex relationship between social identity and threat perception between states.

This is a collection of scholarly essays on state, society and politics in the Third World, with cases drawn from Africa, the Middle East, Asia, and Latin America. The introductory chapter outlines the theoretical approach of the contributors and the concluding chapter summarizes the importance of their studies and the contribution of the volume to general theory in comparative politics. The book is relevant to the growing state theory literature in the social sciences and it puts forward a state-in-society approach to the study of political development.

This 2001 book discusses the changing uses, regulations and representation of the sea from 1450 to now.