Advancing Interdisciplinary Approaches to International Relations

This edited volume breaks new ground by innovatively drawing on multiple disciplines to enhance our understanding of international relations and conflict.  The expansion of knowledge across disciplines and the increasingly blurred boundaries in the real world both enable and demand thinking across intellectual borders. While multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary are prominent buzz words, remarkably few books advance them. Yet doing so can sharpen and expand our perspective on academic and real world issues and problems. This book offers the most comprehensive treatment to date and is an invaluable resource for students, scholars and practitioners.

Chapter 1: Steve A. Yetiv and Patrick James – Pushing Boundaries in the Study of International Relations

Chapter 2: Steve A. Yetiv –History, International Relations, and Conflict

Chapter 3: Jonathan Renshon and Daniel Kahneman – Hawkish Biases and the Interdisciplinary Study of Conflict Decision Making

Chapter 5: Stefan Fritsch – Technology, Conflict and International Relations

Chapter 6: Raymond Scupin – Anthropology, Conflict, and International Relations

Chapter 7: Maya Eichler and Soumita Basu – Gender in International     Relations: Interdisciplinarity and the Study of Conflict

Chapter 8:  Tadeusz Kugler – Demography in International Relations:  Economics, Politics, Sociology and Conflict

Chapter 9: Kyungkook Kang and Jacek Kugler –International Political Economy and Political Demography: An Interdisciplinary Exploration

Chapter 10: Carolyn C. James and Patrick James – Systemism and  Foreign  Folicy Analysis: A New Approach to the Study of International Conflict

Chapter 11: Patrick James and Steve A. Yetiv – Interdisciplinary Links and Future Directions

List of Figures

Figure 3.1 Hypothetical Value Function

Figure 5.1 Functional Relations in a Social System

Figure 5.2 The Initial Generation of FPA Scholarship

Figure 5.3 The Initial Generation of FPA Scholarship: A Systemist Reinterpretation

Figure 5.4 (F)actors at the International and Domestic Level

Figure 5.5 Models for the Individual and Group Levels

Figure 7.1 Cross-country Trust Levels from the World Values Survey and Others

Figure 9.1 Economic Recovery Anticipated by the OLG Growth Model

Figure 9.2 Cohort Structure Affected by War

Figure 9.3 Effects of the Post War “Baby Boom” on Populations

Figure 9.4 Patterns of Postwar Recovery

List of Tables

Table 2.1 Perspectives Within the Integrated Approach

Table 3.1 Biases Examined in This Chapter

Table 4A.1 The Components of the NMT

Table 8.1 Common Demographic Data Sources

Table 8.2 Traditional Research Agendas

Table 9.1 Summary of Post-Disaster Recovery Conditions

Steve A. Yetiv is the Louis I. Jaffe Professor of International Relations at Old Dominion University. A two-time Choice Outstanding Academic Book Award winner, his books include Explaining Foreign Policy (Johns Hopkins, 2011);  The Petroleum Triangle (Cornell University Press, 2011); and Myths of the Oil Boom (Oxford University Press, 2015).

Patrick James is Professor of International Relations at the University of Southern California.  He is author or editor of 24 books, along with 120 academic articles and book chapters.  A former VP of the International Studies Association, James also served as president of the International Council for Canadian Studies, 2011-13, and president of the Peace Science Society, 2016-17.