My Account Log in

2 options

The security dilemma : fear, cooperation and trust in world politics / Ken Booth and Nicholas J Wheeler.

Table of contents only Available online

View online
Van Pelt Library JZ5588 .B66 2008
Loading location information...

Available This item is available for access.

Log in to request item
Format:
Book
Author/Creator:
Booth, Ken, 1943-
Contributor:
Wheeler, Nicholas J.
Language:
English
Subjects (All):
Security, International.
Terrorism.
World politics--2005-.
World politics.
Physical Description:
xv, 364 pages ; 25 cm
Place of Publication:
Basingstoke [England] ; New York : Palgrave Macmillan, 2008.
Summary:
All human societies have to live with uncertainty, the challenge of which is particularly significant in world politics. Governments face dilemmas of interpretation and response about the motives and intentions of others, such that the accumulation of weapons can be understood by one set of decision-makers as a reasonable act of self-protection, but by others as threatening attack or coercion. From this security dilemma flows the pervasiveness of fear, the fragility of cooperation and the elusiveness of trust. While a clear assessment of the difficulties of cooperation and trust is essential to thinking realistically about security issues, this major new work shows that fatalism serves only to reproduce the fears and dynamics of an already dangerous world and points the way to more promising alternatives.
Contents:
Introduction: What is the Security Dilemma? 1
The quintessential dilemma 1
Dilemmas within a dilemma 3
Predicaments and paradoxes 6
Logics of insecurity 10
Part I Anarchy
1 Uncertainty 21
John Herz and the invention of the security dilemma 21
Herbert Butterfield and 'Hobbesian fear' 26
Interpreting Nazi Germany 30
John Mearsheimer and the certainty of uncertainty 34
Uncertainty: past, present and future 38
2 Weapons 42
Weapons as ambiguous symbols 42
Robert Jervis and the spiral and deterrence models 45
'They have nothing to fear from us' 51
Threat assessment 58
3 Fear 62
'The dog that did not bark' 62
'We must fear them because of who they are' 65
'In violence we forget who we are' 70
'Fear itself 78
Part II Society
4 Norms 83
The live-and-let-live logic of anarchy 83
Security regimes against anarchy 87
Reconstructing anarchy 93
Society in anarchy 96
Rationalism, responsibility and reassurance 104
5 Regimes 107
The Concert of Europe 107
US-Soviet detente in the 1970s 114
The nuclear non-proliferation regime 123
The fragility of international cooperation 131
6 Cooperation 137
Common security versus national defence 137
Non-provocative defence and security in Europe 141
The great mitigation: Gorbachev, Reagan and the end of the Cold War 145
Common security in Europe after the Cold War 158
Modalities of mitigation 165
Part III Community
7 Reform 173
Towards an 'organized common peace' 173
A 'working peace system' 177
Security as 'undisturbed social life' 182
A 'laboratory atop a vast graveyard' 190
Trust in international reform? 197
8 Transformation 201
The end of the states system 202
The end of war 205
The end of history 209
The end of capitalism 212
The end of patriarchy 216
The end of government 221
Trust in structural change? 225
9 Trust 228
The promise of trust 229
The properties of trust 234
Elusive trust: the Oslo Accords 245
Trust and transcendence 251
Part IV The Future
10 The Security Dilemma in the Twenty First Century 261
John Herz, the security dilemma and survival research 261
An idea whose time has come 265
The new age of uncertainty 268
Logics and the future 276
11 Beyond the Security Dilemma 294.
Notes:
Includes bibliographical references (pages 309-352) and index.
ISBN:
0333587448
9780333587447
0333587456
9780333587454
OCLC:
187300405

The Penn Libraries is committed to describing library materials using current, accurate, and responsible language. If you discover outdated or inaccurate language, please fill out this feedback form to report it and suggest alternative language.

Find

Home Release notes

My Account

Shelf Request an item Bookmarks Fines and fees Settings

Guides

Using the Find catalog Using Articles+ Using your account