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(Download PDF) International Relations Theory A Critical Introduction 3Rd Edition Cynthia Weber Online Ebook All Chapter PDF
(Download PDF) International Relations Theory A Critical Introduction 3Rd Edition Cynthia Weber Online Ebook All Chapter PDF
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International Relations
Theory
The third edition of this innovative textbook introduces students to the main theories
in international relations. It explains and analyzes each theory, allowing students
to understand and critically engage with the myths and assumptions behind them.
Each theory is illustrated using the example of a popular film.
Key features of this textbook include:
• discussion of all the main theories: realism and neo-realism, idealism and
neo-idealism, liberalism, constructivism, postmodernism, gender, globalization
and environmentalism
• a new chapter on environmentalism, climate change and Al Gore’s An
Inconvenient Truth including use of the film WALL-E
• innovative use of narratives from films with which students will be familiar:
Lord of the Flies, Independence Day, Wag the Dog, Fatal Attraction, The Truman
Show, East is East, Memento and WALL-E
• an accessible and exciting writing style which is well illustrated with film stills
in each chapter, boxed key concepts and guides to further reading.
Third edition
Cynthia Weber
First published 2001
by Routledge
Second edition published 2005 by Routledge
Third edition published 2010 by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized
in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or
hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information
storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
LIST OF PLATES x
LIST OF FIGURES xii
LIST OF TABLES xiii
LIST OF BOXES xv
PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION xvi
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION xviii
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION xx
vii
CONTENTS
viii
CONTENTS
BIBLIOGRAPHY 229
INDEX 236
ix
Plates
Independence Day
3.1 An alien spaceship over Manhattan 43
3.2 The aliens destroy Washington, DC, and cities around the world 50
3.3 The President with Area 51 scientists 51
3.4 Steve and David team up to fly an old alien ship into the alien
mothership where they plant a virus that disables the ship’s
protective shields 53
3.5 Jasmine and her son wander round Los Angeles in the aftermath
of the alien invasion, rescuing survivors 54
x
PLATES
Fatal Attraction
5.1 Dan’s wife, Beth, reads to their daughter 93
5.2 Dan and Alex meet at a party 94
5.3 Dan comforts Alex after her suicide attempt 97
5.4 Alex attacks Dan 99
Memento
7.1 Faded Polaroid photo of a dead body 142
7.2 Leonard and Teddy 144
7.3 Tattooed Leonard 150
7.4 Leonard holding up a Polaroid photo as evidence of his (unreliable)
memory 154
East is East
8.1 Ella and Annie having a smoke outside “George’s English Chippy” 174
8.2 Best friends Sajid and Ernest 176
8.3 The pork-eating Khan children 177
8.4 George and his wife, Ella, at the cinema 180
8.5 Tariq/Tony with his girlfriend, Stella 182
WALL-E
9.1 WALL-E, a mobile trash compacting robot, at home in his
Buy N Large container 205
9.2 WALL-E with his indestructible pet cockroach 206
9.3 EVE, short for Extra-terrestrial Vegetation Evaluator 207
9.4 WALL-E on his way to work in the trash-scape that was
New York City 208
xi
Figures
xii
Tables
xiii
TABLES
xiv
Boxes
xv
Preface to the third
edition
As the orangish-red map on the cover of this volume suggests, the earth—and
debates about the earth—have been heating up in recent times. Concerns about
global warming are recontextualizing IR Theory and being recontextualized within
IR Theory. They recontextualize IR Theory by changing the scale of IR concerns
from clashes or cooperation among sovereign nation-states or (more recently)
“civilizations” to clashes and cooperation between humans and the earth, “culture”
and “nature” on a planetary scale. As such, concerns about global warming are
reconstituted within IR Theory as genuine security risks to all states and all of
civilization. And we are told that we have a moral imperative to tackle this planetary
emergency if we want our children and our planet to survive.
This third edition includes a new chapter devoted to the newly dominant myth
about global warming, “human-made climate change is an inconvenient truth.”
Popularized by Nobel Peace Prize recipient and former US Vice President Al Gore,
Jr., this myth is interesting not just because of what it says but also because of how
Gore says it. In particular, among the most interesting things about Gore’s myth
is that it was visual before it was textual. First a slideshow, then a film, and only later
an accompanying book and supportive website, An Inconvenient Truth crystallizes
Gore’s ideas into a succinct soundbite supported by stunning imagery presented
in the “high tech” format of documentary. It is therefore unsurprising that it takes
an even more visually spectacular film to get us to think about what must go without
saying in order for Gore’s myth to appear to be true. What might be surprising,
though, is that this film comes from a company renowned for producing animated
fiction films (like Toy Story and The Incredibles) that are accessible to children but
edgy enough for adults. The company is Pixar Studios, and the film is their 2008
production WALL-E. Reading Gore’s myth through WALL-E, this new chapter
explores not the truth or falsity of human-made climate change but its convenience
or inconvenience, for whom, and at what cost to the environment and to Gore’s claim
to be an environmentalist.
xvi
INTRODUCTION
We circulate our sense about the world in many ways, and one of the ways we
do this is through stories. This is why another cultural theorist, Clifford Geertz,
described culture as “an ensemble of stories we tell about ourselves” (Geertz, 1975:
448). For Geertz, these stories are not always conscious. They can be composed of
beliefs we consciously hold as well as of habits we unconsciously perform. Cultural
stories are composed of both sense (consciousness) and common sense (uncon-
sciousness). Common sense is what we know but don’t think about, what Roland
Barthes described as “what-goes-without-saying” (Barthes, 1972: 11).
Studying culture understood as “sense making,” “signifying practices,” or “an
ensemble of stories, beliefs, and habits” means we have to pay attention to how
meanings are made. We must think about how meaning making relies upon what is
said and what goes without saying. And we must recognize that cultures aren’t just
“there,” fully formed for us to study. Indeed, it may be impossible for us to identify
“cultures” as objects of study at all. Studying culture means looking at how what
we objectify as “culture” is made. And part of what makes culture and helps to
distinguish some “cultures” from other “cultures” are cultural practices that produce,
organize, and circulate meanings through stories told about the world.
IR theory can be studied as a site of cultural practice. IR theory is “an ensemble
of stories” told about the world it studies, which is the world of international politics.
Studying IR theory as a site of cultural practice means being attentive to how IR
theory makes sense of the world of international politics. We have to ask of IR theory:
How do the stories it tells about the world of international politics become sense and
common sense? And why do we take for granted the sense IR theory makes of our
lives in relation to international politics?
My answer to these questions is that IR theory relies upon IR myths in order
to transform its culturally produced stories about the world into common sense about
the world that we take for granted. But before we explore this process in detail, let
me introduce another important concept that plays a part in this process. This
concept is ideology.
Ideology
Unlike the term culture, ideology is a term for which formal definitions confidently
abound (see Box 1.2). The most common way ideology is defined is as “a fairly
coherent and comprehensive set of ideas that explains and evaluates social condi-
tions, helps people understand their place in society, and provides a program for
social and political action” (Ball and Dagger, 1995: 9). It is a ready-made set of
meanings and interpretations that can help us to make sense of our world and tell
us how to act in relation to our world.
This way of defining ideology assumes that all ideologies are consciously held.
And many are. Examples of “conscious ideologies” are liberalism, conservatism,
socialism, feminism, ecologism, and even vegetarianism. Conscious ideologies are
easily identifiable. We know what they are, and we can subscribe to them or reject
them.
While conscious ideologies like liberalism and conservatism are powerful
because they can politically mobilize people and “raise consciousness” about political
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by one into the arms of gendarmes below. The palaces along the
Riva were a broad ribbon of color with a binding of black coats and
hats. The wall of San Giorgio fronting the barracks was fringed with
the yellow legs and edged with the white fatigue caps of two
regiments. Even over the roofs and tower of the church itself specks
of sight-seers were spattered here and there, as if the joyous wind in
some mad frolic had caught them up in very glee, and as suddenly
showered them on cornice, sill, and dome.
Beyond all this, away out on the lagoon, toward the islands, the red-
sailed fishing-boats hurried in for the finish, their canvas aflame
against the deepening blue. Over all the sunlight danced and blazed
and shimmered, gilding and bronzing the roof-jewels of San Marco,
flashing from oar blade, brass, and ferro, silvering the pigeons
whirling deliriously in the intoxicating air, making glad and gay and
happy every soul who breathed the breath of this joyous Venetian
day.
None of all this was lost upon the Professor. He stood in the bow
drinking in the scene, sweeping his glass round like a weather-vane,
straining his eyes up the Giudecca to catch the first glimpse of the
coming boats, picking out faces under flaunting parasols, and waving
aloft his yellow rag when some gondola swept by flying Pietro’s
colors, or some boat-load of friends saluted in passing.
Suddenly there came down on the shifting wind, from far up the
Giudecca, a sound like the distant baying of a pack of hounds, and
as suddenly died away. Then the roar of a thousand throats, caught
up by a thousand more about us, broke on the air, as a boatman,
perched on a masthead, waved his hat.
“Here they come! Viva Pietro! Viva Pasquale!—Castellani!—Nicoletti!
—Pietro!”
The dense mass rose and fell in undulations, like a great carpet
being shaken, its colors tossing in the sunlight. Between the thicket
of ferros, away down the silver ribbon, my eye caught two little
specks of yellow capping two white figures. Behind these, almost in
line, were two similar dots of blue; farther away other dots, hardly
distinguishable, on the horizon line.
The gale became a tempest—the roar was deafening; women waved
their shawls in the air; men, swinging their hats, shouted themselves
hoarse. The yellow specks developed into handkerchiefs bound to
the heads of Pietro and his brother Marco; the blues were those of
Pasquale and his mate.
Then, as we strain our eyes, the two tails of the sea-monster twist
and clash together, closing in upon the string of rowers as they
disappear in the dip behind San Giorgio, only to reappear in full
sight, Pietro half a length ahead, straining every sinew, his superb
arms swinging like a flail, his lithe body swaying in splendid,
springing curves, the water rushing from his oar blade, his brother
bending aft in perfect rhythm.
“Pietro! Pietro!” came the cry, shrill and clear, drowning all other
sounds, and a great field of yellow burst into flower all over the
lagoon, from San Giorgio to the Garden. The people went wild. If
before there had been only a tempest, now there was a cyclone. The
waves of blue and yellow surged alternately above the heads of the
throng as Pasquale or Pietro gained or lost a foot. The Professor
grew red and pale by turns, his voice broken to a whisper with
continued cheering, the yellow rag streaming above his head, all the
blood of his ancestors blazing in his face.
The contesting boats surged closer. You could now see the rise and
fall of Pietro’s superb chest, the steel-like grip of his hands, and
could outline the curves of his thighs and back. The ends of the
yellow handkerchief, bound close about his head, were flying in the
wind. His stroke was long and sweeping, his full weight on the oar;
Pasquale’s stroke was short and quick, like the thrust of a spur.
Now they are abreast. Pietro’s eyes are blazing—Pasquale’s teeth
are set. Both crews are doing their utmost. The yells are demoniac.
Even the women are beside themselves with excitement.
Suddenly, when within five hundred yards of the goal, Pasquale
turns his head to his mate; there is an answering cry, and then, as if
some unseen power had lent its strength, Pasquale’s boat shoots
half a length ahead, slackens, falls back, gains again, now an inch,
now a foot, now clear of Pietro’s bow, and on, on, lashing the water,
surging forward, springing with every gain, cheered by a thousand
throats, past the red tower of San Giorgio, past the channel of spiles
off the Garden, past the red buoy near the great warship,—one
quick, sustained, blistering stroke,—until the judge’s flag drops from
his hand, and the great race is won.
“A true knight, a gentleman every inch of him,” called out the
Professor, forgetting that he had staked all his soldi on Pietro. “Fairly
won, Pasquale.”
In the whirl of the victory, I had forgotten Pietro, my gondolier of the
morning. The poor fellow was sitting in the bow of his boat, his head
in his hands, wiping his forehead and throat, the tears streaming
down his cheeks. His brother sat beside him. In the gladness and
disappointment of the hour, no one of the crowd around him seemed
to think of the hero of five minutes before. Not so Giorgio, who was
beside himself with grief over Pietro’s defeat, and who had not taken
his eyes from his face. In an instant more he sprang forward, calling
out, “No! no! Brava Pietro!” Espero joining in as if with a common
impulse, and both forcing their gondolas close to Pietro’s.
A moment more and Giorgio was over the rail of Pietro’s boat,
patting his back, stroking his head, comforting him as you would
think only a woman could—but then you do not know Giorgio. Pietro
lifted up his face and looked into Giorgio’s eyes with an expression
so woe-begone, and full of such intense suffering, that Giorgio
instinctively flung his arm around the great, splendid fellow’s neck.
Then came a few broken words, a tender caressing stroke of
Giorgio’s hand, a drawing of Pietro’s head down on his breast as if it
had been a girl’s, and then, still comforting him—telling him over and
over again how superbly he had rowed, how the next time he would
win, how he had made a grand second—
Giorgio bent his head—and kissed him.
When Pietro, a moment later, pulled himself together and stood erect
in his boat, with eyes still wet, the look on his face was as firm and
determined as ever.
Nobody laughed. It did not shock the crowd; nobody thought Giorgio
unmanly or foolish, or Pietro silly or effeminate. The infernal Anglo-
Saxon custom of always wearing a mask of reserve, if your heart
breaks, has never reached these people.
As for the Professor, who looked on quietly, I think—yes, I am quite
sure—that a little jewel of a tear squeezed itself up through his
punctilious, precise, ever exact and courteous body, and glistened
long enough on his eyelids to wet their lashes. Then the bright sun
and the joyous wind caught it away. Dear old relic of a by-gone time!
How gentle a heart beats under your well-brushed, threadbare coat!
SOME VENETIAN CAFFÈS
VERY one in Venice has his own particular caffè, according
to his own particular needs, sympathies, or tastes. All the
artists, architects, and musicians meet at Florian’s; all the
Venetians go to the Quadri; the Germans and late
Austrians, to the Bauer-Grünwald; the stay-over-nights, to the
Oriental on the Riva; the stevedores, to the Veneta Marina below the
Arsenal; and my dear friend Luigi and his fellow-tramps, to a little
hole in the wall on the Via Garibaldi.