This book by Jonathan Turner and Anthony Roberts proposes a new theoretical approach for explaining the dynamics of inter-societal systems. The authors argue that inter-societal systems have existed since the beginning of human societies and the dynamics of these systems are a fundamental property of the social universe. However, while world-systems analysis has emphasized this latter point, the authors argue the reluctance to theorize complex abstract models and systems of explanatory propositions on the dynamics driving inter-societal systems hinders scientific explanation of inter-societal dynamics. In this context, the authors critically look at contemporary theorizing and review key theories that have been developed to explain geo-economic, geo-political, and geo-cultural dynamics, from the classic period through present-day world-systems analysis and cliometrics. The book summarizes these theories clearly, emphasizing their strengths and weakness, finally developing a theoretical synthesis through new models and propositions on the dynamics of premodern and modern inter-societal systems. Professor Turner’s decades of experience writing theory books for undergraduates have ensured that this book presents abstract ideas clearly and with examples so that students can understand the arguments. This book is a must-read for all social theory researchers, academics, serious undergraduate students, graduate students, and interested laypersons.

Non-state actors have always been treated with ambivalence in the works of international law. While their empirical existence is widely acknowledged and their impact and influence uncontested, non-state actors are still not in the centre of international legal research. The idea that non-state actors are not law-makers, however, stands in sharp contrast with the growing notion of non-state actors as law-takers. This book examines the position of non-state actors in international law as law-makers and law-takers and questions whether these different positions can or should be separated from each other. Each contribution reveals both the political and normative aspects of the question as well as the positivistic possibilities and constraints to accommodate non-state actors as law-takers and law-makers in the contemporary international legal system. Altogether, each expert reveals that the position of non-state actors in international law is not a fixed one but changes with the functional and theoretical perspectives of the observer. Non-State Actor Dynamics in International Law is a welcomed addition to an under researched field of legal study. An indispensable read to scholars and policy makers wishing to gain new insights into general discourse on non-state actors in international law and the process of norm formation in the international realm.

Based on a wealth of original information and research, this book offers both a critical introduction to NGOs and a discussion of recent theoretical approaches which have either dismissed or wildly exaggerated their political significance.

Good addition to handbooks programme, no direct competitiors HIST section of ISA is growing each year Faced with an uncertain future, an increasing number of scholars have looked to the past for guidance, patterns and ideas. This tendency has been clear, despite theoretical and methodological difference, this book will fill a lacuna.

When states’ survival is at stake, do states behave according to norms, do states refrain from using certain weapons based on norms against their use? Adachi presents a comprehensive analytical framework for analysing norm dynamics, incorporating the existing literature, while expanding the norm life cycle model to address contestation of, resistance to diffusion of, and disappearance of norms. He also examines the changing nature of international society, and how the evolving characteristics of this society change how norms are shared. His focus is on norms relating to the use and non-use of weapons, with examples of how norms developed in different places and at different times with regard to particular types of weapons. From the banning of gun use in Japan under Bushido, to international bans on chemical weapons and the foundation of norms on nuclear weapons, he looks not only at how such norms come about, but how they can become contested or disappear. A valuable contribution to the literature on norms in International Relations, this volume will be of particular interest to scholars and students with an interest in the control of arms.

First published in 1998. The writing of this book started in earnest with the establishment of a joint research group that gathered at the Netherlands Institute of Advanced Study (Wassenaar, The Hague) between September 1995 and June 1996. The starting point was the question, to what extent and in what way the new dynamics in (South)east Asia would influence Europe's global position, and more specifically, how these changes should be conceptualized in order to assist in the formulation of new policies to deal with the new international environment. Most contributors to this book would agree that there is ample reason to view these changes as an opportunity for Europe, and not just as a threat.

This book provides a comprehensive study of asymmetric territorial conflict combining game theory, statistical empirical analysis and historiographic analysis. Using the Israeli-Palestine conflict as a case study, it tests the model on a database of almost four hundred territorial conflicts.

Written by award-winning scholar Jonathan H Turner, this is a comprehensive, in-depth and detailed review of present-day theory in sociology.