History and Neorealism

by Edited by Ernest R. May , Richard Rosecrance , Zara Steiner

• ISBN13: 9780521761345
• ISBN10: 0521761344
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2010-10-18
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

Neorealists argue that all states aim to acquire power and that state cooperation can therefore only be temporary, based on a common opposition to a third country. This view condemns the world to endless conflict for the indefinite future. Based upon careful attention to actual historical outcomes, this book contends that while some countries and leaders have demonstrated excessive power drives, others have essentially underplayed their power and sought less position and influence than their comparative strength might have justified. Featuring case studies from across the globe, History and Neorealism examines how states have actually acted. The authors conclude that leadership, domestic politics, and the domain (of gain or loss) in which they reside play an important role along with international factors in raising the possibility of a world in which conflict does not remain constant and, though not eliminated, can be progressively reduced.

Author Biography

Ernest R. May was Charles Warren Professor of History at Harvard University and a renowned historian of international relations and foreign policy. Richard Rosecrance is Adjunct Professor in the Kennedy School of Government and Director of the Project on US-Chinese Relations at the Belfer Center, Harvard University. He is also Research Professor in the Department of Political Science, University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Zara Steiner is Senior Fellow of the British Academy and Emeritus Fellow of Murray-Edwards College, University of Cambridge.

Table of Contents

List of tables	p. ix
Notes on contributors	p. x
Acknowledgments	p. xii
Theory and international history	p. 1
Transformations in power	p. 8
Domestically driven deviations: internal regimes, leaders, and realism's power line	p. 29
How international institutions affect outcomes	p. 49
Not even for the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries: power and order in the early modern era	p. 78
Austria-Hungary and the coming of the First World War	p. 103
British decisions for peace and war 1938-1939: the rise and fall of realism	p. 129
Realism and risk in 1938: German foreign policy and the Munich Crisis	p. 155
Domestic politics, interservice impasse, and Japan's decisions for war	p. 185
Military audacity: Mao Zedong, Liu Shaoqi, and China's adventure in Korea	p. 201
The United States' underuse of military power	p. 228
The overuse of American power	p. 246
Redrawing the Soviet power line: Gorbachev and the end of the Cold War	p. 267
Shared sovereignty in the European Union: Germany's economic governance	p. 307
John Mearsheimer's "elementary geometry of power": Euclidean moment or an intellectual blind alley?	p. 322
History and neorealism reconsidered	p. 341
Index	p. 366
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