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This paper offers an overview of the evolution of IR theory as an essentially Western, especially American social science. It highlights the historical and philosophical underpinnings of IRT, its close nexus with the Western state-system and Western political thought. It then looks at the marginal place of Asians political experience and philosophical traditions in IR theory and examines the reasons for this. Finally the paper explores the different ways in which greater integration of Asian into IRT can be accomplished. It addresses much the same issues as are outlined in the panel proposal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper comprises a study of contemporary statecraft by Western actors. While the U.S. has been consumed in the application of an array of hard power instruments in two ongoing wars, the EU has quietly developed a panoply of softer instruments that it ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The proposition that states balance against power or threats is a cornerstone of international relations theory, but very little work has been done on exactly what constitutes an act of "hard balancing". This paper distinguishes between four types of hard balancing behavior and argues that the United States tends to balance against, and contain, threats from peer competitors or near peer competitors differently than other great powers in history. In particular, whereas 19th and early 20th century European great powers were inclined to see their adversaries as legitimate actors with legitimate interests regardless of the way they are organized, the United States?only the world's second ever democratic great power?equates legitimacy with regime type and a state's internal behavior. Thus, while most great powers have sought to stabilize and preserve the basic contours of a balance of power and spheres of influence, the United States, on those occasions when it has chosen to engage the world rather than isolate itself from it, has tried to collapse the power base of its autocratic rivals and transform the international system. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Realist IR scholars have become increasingly committed to the canons of positivist social science. Contemporary realist theorizing largely presupposes a strict separation of subject and object, emphasizing ?theory testing? and ?prediction? as touchstones of social science. For example, Stephen Walt noted with satisfaction that security studies (which ?fits comfortably within the realist paradigm?) ?adopted the norms and objectives of social science,? including the development of theories and ?the testing [of} their predictions against a scientifically selected body of evidence.? And John Mearsheimer urged scholars to ?use their theories to make predictions about the future . . . The world can be used as a laboratory to decide which theories best explain international politics.? If the world is a laboratory, it is incumbent upon realist theorists to detach themselves from the political events anticipated by their theories in the same manner that, say, a chemist avoids intervening in the experimental processes underway in his lab. In practice, however, realist IR scholars often intervene in political reality. They consult national security agencies, whisper in the ears of decision makers, write op-ed pieces, give interviews, and sign petitions in an attempt to influence policy and shape political events. For example, in recent months realists of all stripes have engaged in an overt political campaign against U.S. policy in Iraq. In their actual practices, then, realist scholars attempt to construct and re-construct political reality without realizing that the very act of their political intervention subverts the neat subject-object separation presupposed by their theories. By abandoning positivist presuppositions and drawing instead on constructivist approaches that regard purpose and analysis as ?part and parcel of a single process? (E. H. Carr), realists could greatly reduce the dissonance between their epistemological principles and their actual practices. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The question of whether policy makers learn from past experience is both a central and a vexing to students of foreign policy analysis. As Levy (1994) has noted, it is the latter because it is fraught with conceptual and methodological problems, but it is central because establishing the presence of learning would legitimate the idea that leadersÂ’ beliefs, cognitions and attitudes mattered when predicting the behavior of states in the international system. While some attempts have been made to systematically assess the impact of prior success or failure on foreign policy choices, most of these have focused on behavioral indicators of learning (i.e. change in strategy over time) rather than systematically assessing changes in the mental states of the decision makers. This analysis of the belief systems of US Presidents in response to crisis outcomes attempts to fill this void. The International Crisis Behavior project dataset provides a subset of crises for which we examine US behavior, target behavior and crisis outcomes. We use using the Verbs in Context system of content analysis to generate operational code indicators for the relevant US President before and after the crisis in order to establish whether congruence or disparity between each PresidentsÂ’ subjective representation of the situation and his anticipated behavior of the opponent interacts with outcome quality to reinforce or change his belief structures. We then determine whether Presidents exhibiting belief change are more likely to demonstrate learning by acting differently in the next crisis. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]