Since Gideon Rose's 1998 review article in the journal World Politics and especially following the release of Lobell, Ripsman, and Taliaferro's 2009 edited volume Neoclassical Realism, the State, and Foreign Policy, neoclassical realism has emerged as major theoretical approach to the study of foreign policy on both sides of the Atlantic. Proponents of neoclassical realism claim that it is the logical extension of the Kenneth Waltz's structural realism into the realm of foreign policy. In Neoclassical Realist Theory of International Relations, Norrin M. Ripsman, Jeffrey W. Taliaferro, and Steven E. Lobell argue that neoclassical realism is far more than an extension of Waltz's structural realism or an effort to update the classical realism of Hans Morgenthau, E.H. Carr, and Henry Kissinger with the language of modern social science. Rejecting the artificial distinction that Waltz draws between theories of international politics and theories of foreign policy, the authors contend neoclassical realism can explain and predict phenomena ranging from short-term crisis-behavior, to foreign policy, to patterns of grand strategic adjustment by individual states up to long-term patterns of international outcomes. It is, therefore, a more powerful theory of international politics than structural realism. Yet it is also a more intuitively satisfying approach than liberal Innenpolitik theories or constructivism. The authors detail the variables and assumptions of neoclassical realist theory, address various aspects of theory construction and methodology, lay out the areas of convergence and sharp disagreement with other leading theoretical approaches -- liberalism, constructivism, analytic eclecticism, and foreign policy analysis (FPA) --- and demonstrate how neoclassical realist theory can be used to resolve longstanding puzzles and debates in international relations theory.

Neoclassical realism is a major theoretical approach to the study of foreign policy. In Neoclassical Realist Theory of International Relations, Norrin M. Ripsman, Jeffrey W. Taliaferro, and Steven E. Lobell argue that it can explain and predict a far broader range of political phenomena in international politics. Neoclassical realism challenges other approaches, including structural realism, liberalism, and constructivism.

The Oxford Handbook of Foreign Policy Analysis repositions the subfield of Foreign Policy Analysis (FPA) to a central analytic location within the study of International Relations (IR). Over the last twenty years, IR has seen a cross-theoretical turn toward incorporating domestic politics, decision-making, agency, practices, and subjectivity - the staples of the FPA subfield. This turn, however, is underdeveloped theoretically, empirically, and methodologically. To reconnect FPA and IR research, this handbook links FPA to other theoretical traditions in IR, takes FPA to a wider range of state and non-state actors, and connects FPA to significant policy challenges and debates. By advancing FPA along these trajectories, the handbook directly addresses enduring criticisms of FPA, including that it is isolated within IR, it is state-centric, its policy relevance is not always clear, and its theoretical foundations and methodological techniques are stale. The Oxford Handbook of Foreign Policy Analysis provides an inclusive and forward-looking assessment of this subfield. Edited and written by a team of word-class scholars and with a preface by Margaret Hermann and Stephen Walker, the handbook sets the agenda for future research in FPA and in IR. The Oxford Handbooks of International Relations is a twelve-volume set of reference books offering authoritative and innovative engagements with the principal sub-fields of International Relations. The series as a whole is under the General Editorship of Christian Reus-Smit of the University of Queensland and Duncan Snidal of the University of Oxford, with each volume edited by specialists in the field. The series both surveys the broad terrain of International Relations scholarship and reshapes it, pushing each sub-field in challenging new directions. Following the example of Reus-Smit and Snidal's original Oxford Handbook of International Relations, each volume is organized around a strong central thematic by scholars drawn from different perspectives, reading its sub-field in an entirely new way, and pushing scholarship in challenging new directions.

This two-volume set is the output from an extensive research project focused on developing the first forecasting model for nuclear proliferation. The Theory volume consists of an introduction and nine additional chapters devoted to key theoretical issues regarding the dynamics of nuclear weapons (non) proliferation.

Why do states sometimes compete and wage war while at other times they cooperate and pursue peace? Does competition reflect pressures generated by the anarchic international system or rather states' own expansionist goals? This title offers a theory of international politics that identifies the kinds of variables that influence a state's strategy.

This new Major Work is fully indexed and includes a comprehensive index, newly written by the editor, which places the collected material in its historical and intellectual context. It is destined to be valued by scholars, students and researchers.

In the tradition of political realism, this book provides an important reappraisal of the concept of human nature in contemporary realist international-political theory. With special reference to the anthropology of Sigmund Freud, a consequential yet terribly neglected and underestimated thinker in International Relations, Schuett demonstrates that analytical and normative theorizing of all international-political reality, its nature, tragedies, and potentialities, requires a sophisticated theory of human nature. Developing a Freudian philosophical anthropology for political realism, he argues for the careful resurrection of the concept of human nature in the wider study of international relations.