Power and Progress: International Politics in Transition

Snyder, Jack L.

Routledge

Electing to Fight: Why Emerging Democracies Go to War (Belfer Center Studies in International Security)

Does the spread of democracy really contribute to international peace? Successive U. S. administrations have justified various policies intended to promote democracy not only by arguing that democracy is intrinsically good but by pointing to a wide range of research concluding that democracies rarely, if ever, go to war with one another. To promote democracy, the United States has provided economic assistance, political support, and technical advice to emerging democracies in Eastern and Central Europe, and it has attempted to remove undemocratic regimes through political pressure, economic sanctions, and military force. In Electing to Fight, Edward Mansfield and Jack Snyder challenge the widely accepted basis of these policies by arguing that states in the early phases of transitions to democracy are more likely than other states to become involved in war.Drawing on both qualitative and quantitative analysis, Mansfield and Snyder show that emerging democracies with weak political institutions are especially likely to go to war. Leaders of these countries attempt to rally support by invoking external threats and resorting to belligerent, nationalist rhetoric. Mansfield and Snyder point to this pattern in cases ranging from revolutionary France to contemporary Russia. Because the risk of a state's being involved in violent conflict is high until democracy is fully consolidated, Mansfield and Snyder argue, the best way to promote democracy is to begin by building the institutions that democracy requires -- such as the rule of law -- and only then encouraging mass political participation and elections. Readers will find this argument particularly relevant to prevailing concerns about the transitional government in Iraq. Electing to Fight also calls into question the wisdom of urging early elections elsewhere in the Islamic world and in China.

Electing To Fight: Why Emerging Democracies Go To War (BCSIA Studies in International Security)

Politics & Social Sciences

MANSFIELD, EDWARD D.

Politics & Government

Mit Pr

A trenchant analysis of the attempts to mediate the transition from oppression to freedom, and a warning of the potentially disastrous challenges that face burgeoning democracies. With the collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1989, many proclaimed the triumph of liberal democracy as they watched democratization sweep through formerly authoritarian countries in Latin America, Eastern Europe, and East Asia. Yet the 1990s turned out to be a decade marked by chronic nationalist conflict, and the sense of democratic triumph turned to frustration. In From Voting to Violence, Jack Snyder shows how democratization can actually exacerbate nationalist fervor and ethnic conflict if the conditions permitting a successful transition are not in place. Arguing that international organizations can cause conflict rather than averting it in their rush to establish democratic governments and punish outgoing leaders, he prescribes policies that will make transitions less dangerous and allow fledgling democracies to flourish. In the light of such tragic examples as Weimar Germany and contemporary Bosnia--each drawn into a spiral of ethnic hatred and civil war by political leaders manipulating nationalist sentiments--From Voting to Violence questions the sometimes rash optimism of liberal democracy that would rush to democracy at the cost of freedom.

From Voting to Violence: Democratization and Nationalist Conflict

Snyder, Jack

W.W. Norton & Co., Inc.

Product Description 
A balanced collection of readings―refreshed and reimagined With 30% new readings in the Eighth Edition, 
Essential Readings in World Politics introduces students to key classic and contemporary works in international relations. The selections in each chapter reflect diverse perspectives on major topics in international relations, and the headnotes provide the context and background that introductory students need. In the Eighth Edition, new readings offer diverse perspectives on current topics such the environment, global health, China’s role in the global order, and the future of globalization. 
 About the Author 
Jack L. Snyder is the Robert and Renee Belfer Professor of International Relations in the Department of Political Science and the Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies at Columbia University. He holds a Ph.D. from Columbia. His books include 
Electing to Fight: Why Emerging Democracies Go to War, coauthored with Edward D. Mansfield (MIT Press, 2007) and 
From Voting to Violence: Democratization and Nationalist Conflict (W.W. Norton, 2000). His articles on such topics as crisis diplomacy, democratization and war, nationalism, imperial overstretch, war crimes tribunals versus amnesties, international relations theory after September 11, and anarchy and culture have appeared in 
Foreign Affairs, 
Foreign Policy, 
International Organization, 
International Security, and 
World Politics. Professor Snyder teaches graduate and undergraduate courses on nationalism, comparative methods, and grand strategy. Professor Snyder is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and an elected member of Columbia's Arts and Sciences Policy and Planning Committee. He is the editor of the Norton Series in World Politics.\nKaren A. Mingst is Professor Emeritus at the Patterson School of Diplomacy and International Commerce at the University of Kentucky. She holds a PhD in political science from the University of Wisconsin. A specialist in international organization, international law, and international political economy, Professor Mingst has conducted research in Western Europe, West Africa, and Yugoslavia. She is the author or editor of seven books and numerous academic articles. She has frequently taught the introductory international relations course. In addition, she has traveled and lectured extensively at universities around the globe.\nHeather Elko McKibben is an associate professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of California, Davis. She has been at Davis since 2009, after receiving her PhD from the University of Pittsburgh in 2008 and holding a postdoctorate position in the Niehaus Center for Globalization and Governance at Princeton University in the 2008–2009 academic year. In her research, Professor McKibben is interested in understanding when, why and how different countries negotiate with each other. When and why will countries come to the negotiating table to resolve problems instead of resorting to more coercive measures? What types of strategies do they use in those negotiations, and why do those strategies differ from country to country and negotiation to negotiation? When and why will countries be able to reach cooperative agreements, and what are the resulting agreements likely to look like? Examining international negotiations in a wide variety of settings, Professor McKibben seeks to answer these types of questions.

Essential Readings in World Politics (The Norton Series in World Politics)

Mingst, Karen A.

McKibben, Heather Elko

W.W.Norton&Company

An affordable, balanced collection―refreshed and reimagined With 20% new readings, this edition introduces students to key classic and contemporary works in international relations. Readings are contextualized with insightful headnotes written by three leading scholars. The selections reflect diverse perspectives on the field’s major topics. New readings on issues such as populism, cybersecurity, and international cooperation reflect the current state of global politics.

Essential Readings in World Politics

In his new book, Jack Snyder focuses his clear logic on a pressing issue of our times: nationalism.From Voting to Violence examines the ways in which democratization can exacerbate nationalist fervor and ethnic conflict if the conditions promoting a successful transition are not in place. The book argues that international organizations sometimes cause more conflict than they avert in their rush to establish democratic governments and punish outgoing leaders. Snyder closes by prescribing policies that can make democratic transitions less dangerous and allow fledgling democracies to flourish.

Jack Snyder's analysis of the attitudes of military planners in the years prior to the Great War offers new insight into the tragic miscalculations of that era and into their possible parallels in present-day war planning. By 1914, the European military powers had adopted offensive military strategies even though there was considerable evidence to support the notion that much greater advantage lay with defensive strategies. The author argues that organizational biases inherent in military strategists' attitudes make war more likely by encouraging offensive postures even when the motive is self-defense.
Drawing on new historical evidence of the specific circumstances surrounding French, German, and Russian strategic policy, Snyder demonstrates that it is not only rational analysis that determines strategic doctrine, but also the attitudes of military planners. Snyder argues that the use of rational calculation often falls victim to the pursuit of organizational interests such as autonomy, prestige, growth, and wealth. Furthermore, efforts to justify the preferred policy bring biases into strategists' decisions―biases reflecting the influences of parochial interests and preconceptions, and those resulting from attempts to simplify unduly their analytical tasks.The frightening lesson here is that doctrines can be destabilizing even when weapons are not, because doctrine may be more responsive to the organizational needs of the military than to the implications of the prevailing weapons technology. By examining the historical failure of offensive doctrine, Jack Snyder makes a valuable contribution to the literature on the causes of war.

The Ideology of the Offensive: Military Decision Making and the Disasters of 1914 (Cornell Studies in Security Affairs)

History

Military

Cornell University Press

Overextension is the common pitfall of empires. Why does it occur? What are the forces that cause the great powers of the industrial era to pursue aggressive foreign policies? Jack Snyder identifies recurrent myths of empire, describes the varieties of overextension to which they lead, and criticizes the traditional explanations offered by historians and political scientists. He tests three competing theories―realism, misperception, and domestic coalition politics―against five detailed case studies: early twentieth-century Germany, Japan in the interwar period, Great Britain in the Victorian era, the Soviet Union after World War II, and the United States during the Cold War. The Resulting insights run counter to much that has been written about these apparently familiar instances of empire building.

Myths of Empire: Domestic Politics and International Ambition (Cornell Studies in Security Affairs)

World

Business & Money

Management & Leadership

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Snyder, Jack L.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Snyder, Jack L.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Snyder, Jack L.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Power and Progress: International Politics in Transition

Electing To Fight: Why Emerging Democracies Go To War (BCSIA Studies in International Security)

From Voting to Violence: Democratization and Nationalist Conflict

Essential Readings in World Politics (The Norton Series in World Politics)

Essential Readings in World Politics

From Voting to Violence: Democratization and Nationalist Conflict

The Ideology of the Offensive: Military Decision Making and the Disasters of 1914 (Cornell Studies in Security Affairs)

Myths of Empire: Domestic Politics and International Ambition (Cornell Studies in Security Affairs)

The Ideology of the Offensive: Military Decision Making and the Disasters of 1914 (Cornell Studies in Security Affairs)

Myths of Empire: Domestic Politics and International Ambition (Cornell Studies in Security Affairs)