Archive for the 'amz' Category

Walzer and the Social Sciences

7 December 2006 | amz

Though this time it’s been assigned for class, I always (or at least since first reading it in summer 1999) find myself returning to Just and Unjust Wars about every 2 years. This semester throws the schedule off — I last read it in the spring and it’s popped up on two syllabi for me […]

Clausewitz, the constructivist?

29 November 2006 | amz

Some quick thoughts on Hedley Bull. Really, only one:
Why is it that the prospect of war as reinforcing the state system, rather than reflective of some fundamental breakdown in the order of it, makes so much sense to me and I — I expect — so little to others?
Getting this seems to only take the […]

WANs, the State, and More

3 November 2006 | amz

Mostly, this post is an excuse to lock down my claim to this title, which, one day, could turn into a rather amusing little article on the decreasing efficacy of the notion of traditional levels of analysis. Sure, there’re still First Image, Second Image, and Third Image readings of the world, but pace Waltz (1959) […]

Masterworks of Intranational Relations

21 September 2006 | amz

Thos. Hobbes was rather smart, but for some reason when we read him in IR, we go to great lengths to avoid his chief insight.
Leviathan, masterwork that it is, is for some reason read precisely opposite it’s plain meaning. Setting aside for a moment the simple fact that Hobbes was writing a political-theoretical work aimed […]