This book introduces the concept of narrative tradition to study representation in international politics. Focusing specifically on the case of Turkey, the book shows how narrative traditions are constructed, maintained, and passed on by a loose epistemic community that involves practitioners and experts including scholars, journalists, diplomats, and political representatives. Employing an interpretative approach, the book distinguishes between four narrative traditions in the study of Turkey: Turkey as a state that is (1) getting lost, (2) standing at a decisive crossroad, (3) led by strongmen, and (4) struggling with a creeping Islamisation.These narrative traditions carry enduring beliefs that not only describe, moralise, judge, and stigmatise Turkey, but also contribute to the idea of the West. The book focuses on knowledge that is produced from a Western perspective, showing that Turkey provides a channel through which the Western self can be debated, challenged, celebrated, and judged.

This book presents an innovative approach to research in International Relations by examining 12 theoretical contributions to the field as competing narrative bids. It demonstrates the pervasive nature of storytelling and considers narratives as a means of causal explanation in the human sciences. By introducing four classic literary plot structures with their respective characters, events, moods and denouements, the book divides IR literature into tragedies, romances/epics, comedies and ironic/satirical stories. For each plot type, its characteristic features, logic and appeal are first reprised through some well-known prose examples before being employed in the analysis of major IR texts. King Lear, for example, helps bring out the tragic logic of Politics among Nations, and Sleeping Beauty demonstrates the romantic appeal inherent in The End of History. Twelfth Night is used to approach The Transformation of Political Community as a comedy, and A Modest Proposal paves the way for the examination of Bananas, Beaches and Bases as irony/satire. Rather than assess the absolute merits and shortcomings of the competing theories, the book discusses the relative strengths and weaknesses of stories that adhere to different plots in giving meaning to actors and events in the international arena. Discussing a broad range of theories, this text will be of interest to scholars and students of International Relations and World Politics, including various subcommunities such as specialists in peace research and Feminist IR.

Trust is a core concept in International Relations (IR), representing a key ingredient in state relations. It was only relatively recently that IR scholars began to probe what trust really is, how it can be studied, and how it affects state relations. In the process three distinct ways of theorising trust in IR have emerged: trust as a rational choice calculation, as a social phenomenon or as a psychological dimension. Trust in International Relations explores trust through these different lenses using case studies to analyse the relative strengths and weaknesses of different approaches. The case studies cover relations between: United States and India ASEAN and Southeast Asian countries Finland and Sweden USA and Egypt The European Union and Russia Turkey’s relations with the West This book provides insights with real-world relevance in the fields of crisis and conflict management, and will be of great interest for students and scholars of IR, security studies and development studies who are looking to develop a more sophisticated understanding of how different theories of trust can be used in different situations.

This book systematically explores how different theoretical concepts of myth can be utilised to interpretively explore contemporary international politics. From the international community to warlords, from participation to effectiveness – international politics is replete with powerful narratives and commonly held beliefs that qualify as myths. Rebutting the understanding of myth-as-lie, this collection of essays unearths the ideological, naturalising, and depoliticising effect of myths. Myth and Narrative in International Politics: Interpretive Approaches to the Study of IR offers conceptual and methodological guidance on how to make sense of different myth theories and how to employ them in order to explore the powerful collective imaginations and ambiguities that underpin international politics today. Further, it assembles case studies of specific myths in different fields of International Relations, including warfare, global governance, interventionism, development aid, and statebuilding. The findings challenge conventional assumptions in International Relations, encouraging academics in IR and across a range of different fields and disciplines, including development studies, global governance studies, strategic and military studies, intervention and statebuilding studies, and peace and conflict studies, to rethink ideas that are widely unquestioned by policy and academic communities.

Greenland and the International Politics of a Changing Arctic examines the international politics of semi-independent Greenland in a changing and increasingly globalised Arctic. Without sovereign statehood, but with increased geopolitical importance, independent foreign policy ambitions, and a solidified self-image as a trailblazer for Arctic indigenous peoples’ rights, Greenland is making its mark on the Arctic and is in turn affected – and empowered – by Arctic developments. The chapters in this collection analyse how a distinct Greenlandic foreign policy identity shapes political ends and means, how relations to its parent state of Denmark is both a burden and a resource, and how Greenlandic actors use and influence regional institutional settings as well as foreign states and commercial actors to produce an increasingly independent – if not sovereign – entity with aims and ambitions for regional change in the Arctic. This is the first comprehensive and interdisciplinary examination of Greenland’s international relations and how they are connected to wider Arctic politics. It will be essential reading for students and scholars interested in Arctic governance and security, international relations, sovereignty, geopolitics, paradiplomacy, indigenous affairs and anyone concerned with the political future of the Arctic.

This book contextually re-examines the history of international relations in order to explore how the discipline has imported and employed the concept of culture.

This book offers a comprehensive account of Turkey's foreign policy narratives in a period of global power shifts. By examining international and national historical processes, the author highlights narrative processes and traditions that describe Turkey and its position in world politics. He also analyzes how global power shifts, such as the rise of China, affect Turkey's increasingly active and confusing foreign policy and the narratives associated with it. The book covers topics such as Kemalist modernization, Islamic conservative views of the New World Order, Turkey's relations with non-Western countries such as Russia and China, and Turkish narratives of the Syrian war and the COVID-19-pandemic. It is intended for scholars of international relations and European and Middle Eastern politics, and appeals to anyone interested in Turkish history and politics.

NEW IN PAPERBACK FEBRUARY 2005! `The most systematic and wide-ranging survey of the multi-faceted field of International Relations yet produced. It is sure to become a standard reference work and teaching text, and is unlikely to be superseded at any time in the near future. It should be considered as essential reading' - International Affairs The Handbook of International Relations, published 2002 in hardback, quickly established itself as the benchmark volume, providing a state-of-the-art review and indispensable guide to the study of international relations. It is now released in paperback, in order to be accessible to students in classroom use. Divided into three parts, the volume reviews both the historical, philosophical, analytical and normative roots to the discipline and the key contemporary topics of research and debate today. The first part introduces the major approaches within the field and unpacks many of the on-going debates within the discipline including those between rationalist and constructivist approaches. The second part moves on to explore the key concepts and contextual factors important to the subject from concepts like the state and power, to international and transnational actors, debates around globalization, and contending feminist perspectives. The final part reviews a number of the key substantive issues in international relations and is designed to complement the analytical tools and perspectives presented in Parts I and II. Examples of the many topics included are: foreign policy; war and peace; security; nationalism and ethnicity; finance; trade; development; the environment; and human rights.

Making a strong case for the relevance of literary production to understanding international relations, this persuasive volume highlights the potential rewards of developing a methodology to bring literature to bear on a discipline which has tended to neglect fictional sources. Paul Sheeran considers the deep insight that can be gained from the study of key works in fiction and literature to enhance knowledge of the social forces shaping world affairs. While there are numerous relevant works, the author has carefully selected multi-faceted and colourful sources of material to explore developments in contemporary global issues such as the demise of the Soviet Union, the attack on the World Trade Centre, infectious diseases and human conflict. This exciting book enthusiastically breaks new ground and is highly suitable for courses on international relations, cultural studies and literature.

All writers and thinkers, and their works, are in a tradition that preceded them. In The Tree of Tradition, Nicholas Hagger sets out a way for all writers and thinkers to be more aware of the traditions and influences that have shaped their works in all subjects and disciplines in all civilisations, using short personal reflections on how influences shaped his own works as an example. Each discipline has metaphysical and secular traditions, and Hagger's A New Philosophy of Literature set out the fundamental theme of world literature as a perennial conflict between a Romantic individual quest for Reality, the One, and a classical condemnation of social follies and vices. Hagger's 60 Universalist works are innovatory in seeing the ultimate unity of the universe, of all disciplines and of humankind, and in reconciling Romanticism and Classicism within a unity he calls Baroque. A Universalist writer is influenced by many sub-traditions, and Hagger particularises the traditions and sub-traditions that have inspired or influenced his works in seven disciplines (mysticism, literature, philosophy and the sciences, history, comparative religion, international politics and statecraft, and world culture) and in the seven branches of literature in which he has written his works (poems and poetic epics, verse plays and masques, short stories, diaries, autobiographies, letters and his statement of the fundamental unity of world literature), which he symbolises in a stag's two seven-branched antlers. This is an inspirational book that throws light on the traditions and influences behind all works in all disciplines and civilisations, and the 109 traditions and 84 influences behind Hagger's Universalist works.