This book offers the first authoritative guide to assumptions about time in theories of contemporary world politics. It demonstrates how predominant theories of the international or global ‘present’ are affected by temporal assumptions, grounded in western political thought, that fundamentally shape what we can and cannot know about world politics today. The first part of the book traces the philosophical roots of assumptions about time in contemporary political theory. The second part examines contemporary theories of world politics, including liberal and realist International Relations theories and the work of Habermas, Hardt and Negri, Virilio and Agamben. In each case, it is argued, assumptions about political time ensure the identification of the particular temporality of western experience with the political temporality of the world as such and put the theorist in the unsustainable position of holding the key to the direction of world history. In the final chapter, the book draws on postcolonial and feminist thinking, and the philosophical accounts of political time in the work of Derrida and Deleuze, to develop a new ‘untimely’ way of thinking about time in world politics.

International Relations scholars have traditionally expressed little direct interest in addressing time and temporality. Yet, assumptions about temporality are at the core of many theories of world politics and time is a crucial component of the human condition and our social reality. Today, a small but emerging strand of literature has emerged to meet questions concerning time and temporality and its relationship to International Relations head on. This volume provides a platform to continue this work. The chapters in this book address subjects such as identity, terrorism, war, gender relations, global ethics and governance in order to demonstrate how focusing on the temporal aspects of such phenomena can enhance our understanding of the world. Contributors: Andrew Hom, Christopher McIntosh, Liam Stockdale, Alasdair McKay, Shahzad Bashir, Kevin K. Birth, Valerie Bryson, Kathryn Marie Fisher, Robert Hassan, Caroline Holmqvist, Kimberly Hutchings, Tim Luecke, Tom Lundborg, Tim Stevens and Ty Solomon.

This groundbreaking book represents the most systematic examination to date of the often-invoked but rarely examined declaration that "history matters." Most contemporary social scientists unconsciously take a "snapshot" view of the social world. Yet the meaning of social events or processes is frequently distorted when they are ripped from their temporal context. Paul Pierson argues that placing politics in time--constructing "moving pictures" rather than snapshots--can vastly enrich our understanding of complex social dynamics, and greatly improve the theories and methods that we use to explain them. Politics in Time opens a new window on the temporal aspects of the social world. It explores a range of important features and implications of evolving social processes: the variety of processes that unfold over significant periods of time, the circumstances under which such different processes are likely to occur, and above all, the significance of these temporal dimensions of social life for our understanding of important political and social outcomes. Ranging widely across the social sciences, Pierson's analysis reveals the high price social science pays when it becomes ahistorical. And it provides a wealth of ideas for restoring our sense of historical process. By placing politics back in time, Pierson's book is destined to have a resounding and enduring impact on the work of scholars and students in fields from political science, history, and sociology to economics and policy analysis.

rofessor Gilpin uses history, sociology, and economic theory to identify the forces causing change in the world order.

What is time and how does it influence our knowledge of international politics? For decades International Relations (IR) paid little explicit attention to time. Recently this began to change as a range of scholars took an interest in the temporal dimensions of politics. Yet IR still has not fully addressed the issue of why time matters in international politics, nor has it reflected on its own use of time — how temporal ideas affect the way we work to understand political phenomena. Moreover, IR remains beholden to two seemingly contradictory visions of time: the time of the clock and a longstanding tradition treating time as a problem to be solved. International Relations and the Problem of Time develops a unique response to these interconnected puzzles. It reconstructs IR's temporal imagination by developing an argument that all times - from natural rhythms to individual temporal experience - spring from social and practical timing activities, or efforts to establish meaningful and useful relationships in complex and dynamic settings. In IR's case, across a surprisingly wide range of approaches scholars employ narrative timing techniques to make sense of confounding processes and events. This innovative account of time provides a more systematic and rigorous explanation for time in international politics. It also develops provocative insights about IR's own history, its key methodological commitments, supposedly 'timeless' statistical methods, historical institutions, and the critical vanguard of time studies. This book invites us to reimagine time, and in so doing to significantly rethink the way we approach the analysis of international politics.

The author examines how indigenous activists are cultivating international support for a programme of self-determination and legal protection, as well as how the indigenous voice in world politics is transforming civic discourse within the international community. With the United Nations designating 1993 as the `Year of Indigenous Peoples', this book could not be more timely.

Catastrophic events like the bombing of Hiroshima, Hurricane Katrina’s devastation of New Orleans, and drone strikes periodically achieve renewed political significance as subsequent developments summon them back to public awareness. But why and how do different conceptions of time inform and challenge these key events and the narratives they create? In this book, Michael J. Shapiro provides an approach to politics and time that unsettles official collective histories by introducing analyses of lived experience articulated in cinematic, televisual, musical, and literary genres. His investigation is framed by questions of our responsibility to acknowledge those victims of violence and catastrophe who have failed to rise above the threshold of public recognition. Ultimately, by focusing on time as an active force shaping our conception of political life, we can deepen our understanding of complex political dynamics and improve the theories and methods we rely on to interpret them. This bold and original book will be of interest to students and scholars of political theory, cultural studies and cinema studies looking for a new perspective on the temporal aspects of political life.