Cambridge studies in international relations ;

War has traditionally been studied as a problem deriving from the relations between states. Strategic doctrines, arms control agreements, and the foundations of international organizations such as the United Nations, are designed to prevent wars between states. Since 1945, however, the incidence of interstate war has actually been declining rapidly, while the incidence of internal wars has been increasing. The author argues that in order to understand this significant change in historical patterns, we should jettison many of the analytical devices derived from international relations studies and shift attention to the problems of "weak" states: those states unable to sustain domestic legitimacy and peace. This book surveys some of the foundations of state legitimacy and demonstrates why many weak states will be the locales of war in the future. Finally, the author asks what the United Nations can do about the problems of weak and failed states.

US-Japan alliance diplomacy 1945-1990 is a pioneering study of a remarkable relationship. Based upon extensive primary sources, it traces how over the past forty-five years the USA has moved from hostility to close friendship with Japan. Boger Buckley is concerned with three principal issues: the degree of continuity in American policies towards Japan, the role of personalities and the beneficiaries of foreign policy. He addresses these questions by highlighting the main features of each phase of the changing relationship. He also stresses both the inequalities of US-Japan ties until the 1970s and the present strains that the two nations face in attempting to come to terms with the twin challenges of shifts in relative economic power and a rapidly evolving international environment. The study concludes with an analysis of the overall character of this extraordinary alliance and demonstrates how strengthening ties are now the key to peace and stability in the entire Asian-Pacific region. In this book, Roger Buckley presents for the first time the historical background to a relationship that attracts widespread interest not only in the USA and Japan, but in the entire Asian-Pacific region and beyond. It will therefore be widely read by students and specialists of Japanese and American history, Asian studies and international relations.

"In this book Rob Walker offers an original analysis of the relationship between twentieth-century theories of international relations, and the political theory of civil society since the early modern period. He views theories of international relations both as an ideological expression of the modern state, and as a clear indication of the difficulties of thinking about a world politics characterized by profound spatiotemporal accelerations. International relations theories should be seen, the author argues, more as aspects of contemporary world politics than as explanations of contemporary world politics. These theories are examined in the light of recent debates about modernity and post-modernity, sovereignty and political identity, and the limits of modern social and political theory." "This book is a major contribution to the field of critical international relations, and will be of interest to social and political theorists and political scientists, as well as students and scholars of international relations. Book jacket."--BOOK JACKET.