Quantum Social Theory for Critical International Relations Theorists PDF Download

Author: Michael P. A. Murphy
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030601110
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 110

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Book Description
This book examines the crossroads of quantum and critical approaches to International Relations and argues that these approaches share a common project of uncovering complexity and uncertainty. The “quantum turn” in International Relations theory has produced a number of interesting insights into the complex ways in which our assumptions about the physics of the world around us can limit our understanding of social life. While critique is possible within a Newtonian social science, core assumptions of separability and determinism of classical physics impose limits on what is imaginable. The author argues that by adopting a quantum imaginary, social theory can move beyond its Newtonian limits, and explore two methods for quantizing conceptual models—translation and application. This book is the first introductory book to quantum social theory ideas specifically intended for an audience of critical International Relations.

Author: Alexander Wendt
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107082544
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 367

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Book Description
A unique contribution to the understanding of social science, showing the implications of quantum physics for the nature of human society.

Author: James Der Derian
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0197568203
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 417

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Book Description
The contributors to this volume are motivated by a common apprehension and a common hope. The apprehension was first voiced by Einstein, who lamented the inability of humanity, at the individual and social level, to keep up with the increased speed of technological change brought about by the quantum revolution. As quantum science and technology fast forward into the 21st century, the social sciences remain stuck in classical, 19th century ways of thinking. Can such a mechanistic model of the mind and society possibly help us manage the fully realized technological potential of the quantum? That's where the hope appears: that perhaps quantum is not just a physical science, but a human science too. In Quantum International Relations, James Der Derian and Alexander Wendt gather rising scholars and leading experts to make the case for quantum approaches to world politics. As a fundamental theory of reality and enabler of new technologies, quantum now touches everything, with the potential to revolutionize how we conduct diplomacy, wage war, and make wealth. Contributors present the core principles of quantum mechanics--entanglement, uncertainty, superposition, and the wave function--as significant catalysts and superior heuristics for an accelerating quantum future. Facing a reality which no longer corresponds to an outdated Newtonian worldview of states as billiard balls, individuals as rational actors or power as objective interest, Der Derian and Wendt issue an urgent call for a new human science of quantum International Relations. At the centenary of the first quantum thought experiment in the 1920s, this book offers a diversity of explorations, speculations and approaches for understanding geopolitics in the 21st century.

Author: Stefano Guzzini
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134319584
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 360

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Book Description
This new book unites in one volume some of the most prominent critiques of Alexander Wendt's constructivist theory of international relations and includes the first comprehensive reply by Wendt. Partly reprints of benchmark articles, partly new original critiques, the critical chapters are informed by a wide array of contending theories ranging from realism to poststructuralism. The collected leading theorists critique Wendt’s seminal book Social Theory of International Politics and his subsequent revisions. They take issue with the full panoply of Wendt’s approach, such as his alleged positivism, his critique of the realist school, the conceptualism of identity, and his teleological theory of history. Wendt’s reply is not limited to rebuttal only. For the first time, he develops his recent idea of quantum social science, as well as its implications for theorising international relations. This unique volume will be a necessary companion to Wendt’s book for students and researchers seeking a better understanding of his work, and also offers one of the most up-to-date collections on constructivist theorizing.

Author: Emmanuel Haven
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139851497
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
Written by world experts in the foundations of quantum mechanics and its applications to social science, this book shows how elementary quantum mechanical principles can be applied to decision-making paradoxes in psychology and used in modelling information in finance and economics. The book starts with a thorough overview of some of the salient differences between classical, statistical and quantum mechanics. It presents arguments on why quantum mechanics can be applied outside of physics and defines quantum social science. The issue of the existence of quantum probabilistic effects in psychology, economics and finance is addressed and basic questions and answers are provided. Aimed at researchers in economics and psychology, as well as physics, basic mathematical preliminaries and elementary concepts from quantum mechanics are defined in a self-contained way.

Author: Laura Zanotti
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351854100
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 148

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Book Description
While the relevance of ontological commitments for epistemology and methodology in International Relations have been the subject of growing debate for several years, the implications for ethics and political agency of embracing an ontology of entanglement have remained unexplored. This work focuses on the importance of addressing the ontological and epistemological assumptions of the discipline of International Relations. There is increased awareness of the limits of abstract principles as ways of adjudicating real life political and ethical choices regarding International Intervention and international development for both practitioners and scholars. The work challenges IR prevailing ontological imaginaries rooted upon Newtonian physics and argues that non-substantialist ontological positions nurture a political ethos that privileges ‘modest’ engagements of practical solidarity and weights political choices with regard to the consequences and distributive effects they may produce in the context where they are made rather than based upon their universal normative aspirations. While the book is firmly rooted in metatheory, Zanotti also highlights the easiness with which political failures are dismissed as unintended consequences and argues that the current crisis in Syria, and genocides in Srebrenica and Rwanda have shown that advocating abstract ethical principles, be they the Responsibility to Protect, impartiality, or following rules can lead to disaster and can foster violent and exclusionary practices. She also exemplifies how an alternative ethos can be practiced through the example of an international NGO in Haiti. Highlighting the need for critically re-thinking the way we conceptualize political agency and validate ethics, this work will be of interest to scholars of International Relations theory, ethics and critical security studies.

Author: Steven C. Roach
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135173699
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 185

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Book Description
This is first detailed account on the origins of critical theory and how it has developed and influenced international relations. Making complex ideas accessible to all, it discusses Marx and post-Marxist thinkers; the Frankfurt School; Adorno, Benjamin and Marcuse; Habermas, Gramsci and Foucault alongside critical IR scholars Robert W. Cox, Rob Walker, James Der Derian, Christine Sylvester, Richard Ashley and Andrew Linklater.

Author: Ken Booth
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1509508341
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 408

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Book Description
International Relations (IR) theorists speak with conviction, and often passion, to the global condition of human society. The result is an important, dynamic and often deeply divided field. This long-awaited new edition of International Relations Theory Today offers undergraduate and postgraduate students an essential guide to the complex terrain of IR theory and the key questions on its agenda. With chapters by 25 prominent and provocative IR theorists, the book reveals the intellectual excitement - and turmoil - of theorizing world politics. It reflects the conflicts and tensions around the profound challenges facing the contemporary world, such as climate change, globalization, nuclear proliferation, and economic and political injustice and conflict, while also expressing hope that we can better understand, and respond to, these challenges. Above all, this book demonstrates the significance of thinking theoretically about international relations and developing the tools not merely to describe but also to explain, analyse, prescribe and possibly re-imagine the global political landscape. As the world comes face-to-face with historic challenges over the coming decades, International Relations Theory Today will help its readers to participate more effectively in debates about the most important global political dilemmas of our time.

Author: Alexander Wendt
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107268435
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 264

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Book Description
Drawing upon philosophy and social theory, Social Theory of International Politics develops a theory of the international system as a social construction. Alexander Wendt clarifies the central claims of the constructivist approach, presenting a structural and idealist worldview which contrasts with the individualism and materialism which underpins much mainstream international relations theory. He builds a cultural theory of international politics, which takes whether states view each other as enemies, rivals or friends as a fundamental determinant. Wendt characterises these roles as 'cultures of anarchy', described as Hobbesian, Lockean and Kantian respectively. These cultures are shared ideas which help shape state interests and capabilities, and generate tendencies in the international system. The book describes four factors which can drive structural change from one culture to another - interdependence, common fate, homogenization, and self-restraint - and examines the effects of capitalism and democracy in the emergence of a Kantian culture in the West.

Author: J. Samuel Barkin
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190463430
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 240

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Book Description
Many scholars, intentionally or unintentionally, have entangled constructivisms and critical theories in problematic ways, either by assigning a critical-theoretical politics to constructivisms or by assuming the appropriateness of constructivist epistemology and methods for critical theorizing. IR's Last Synthesis? makes the argument that these connections mirror IR's grand theoretical syntheses of the 1980s and 1990s and have similar constraining effects on the possibilities of IR theory. They have been made without adequate reflection, in contradiction to the base assumptions of each theoretical perspective, and to the detriment of both knowledge accumulation about global politics and theoretical rigor in disciplinary IR. It is not that constructivisms and critical theories have no common ground; rather, the fact that it has become routine for IR scholars to overstate their common ground is counterproductive to the discovery and utilization of their potential dialogues. To that end, IR's Last Synthesis? argues that scholars using the two in conjunction should be cognizant of, rather than gloss over, the tensions between the approaches and the tools they have to offer. Along these lines, the book uses the concept of affordances to look at what each has to offer the other, and to argue for a modest, reflective, specified return to (constructivist and critical) IR theorizing. By rejecting its over-simple syntheses, this book hews a road toward reviving IR theorizing.