Top 5 books: new thinking in International Relations theory
Every Book Reviews section of International Affairs begins by presenting the latest books on International Relations theory. Over the years, we have featured many, many notable theory books, so creating a top 5 list is not for the faint of heart. However, Book Reviews Editor Mariana Vieira has taken on this momentous task. She has compiled a selection of recently published, accessible and refreshing theory books that offer innovative approaches to old but ever-relevant themes of sovereignty, polarity, state personhood and more.
1) Hybrid sovereignty in world politics
Written by Swati Srivastava. Published in Cambridge by Cambridge University Press.
Swati Srivastava’s first book is a hidden gem, to be recommended for anyone working at the intersection of International Relations theory and sovereignty. The author puts forward a novel analytical framework that distinguishes between ‘lived’ (backstage) and ‘idealized’ (frontstage) sovereignty, to showcase how governance is often shared between governments and private actors. Srivastava supports this nuanced approach with extensive archival research and four case-studies, ranging from the East India Company to Amnesty International. The result is an impressive assessment of the overlapping and competing nature of sovereignty.
Read the full review here.
2) Polarity in International Relations
Edited by Nina Græger, Bertel Heurlin, Ole Wæver and Anders Wivel. Published in Cham, Switzerland by Palgrave Macmillan.
It has been over 30 years since Charles Krauthammer declared America’s unipolar moment as the Soviet Union, its main rival, slowly crumbled alongside the Berlin Wall. Since then, International Relations theorists have used and reused the concept of polarity to explain developments in the ever-changing world order. In this book, the authors successfully shift the conversation to examine how the concept works at the regional and domestic levels, and how these in turn, influence the concept and IR more widely. Combining theoretical discussions with perspectives on the future of polarity, this is an essential read for anyone working on international orders.
Read the full review here.
3) Unmapping the 21st century
Written by Nicholas Michelsen and Neville Bolt. Published in Bristol by Bristol University Press.
Also approaching existing concepts in new ways, Nicholas Michelsen and Neville Bolt’s Unmapping the 21st century highlights how the state and social networks are two different starting-points to mapping the world. The authors excel in demonstrating the representative, interactive and powerful nature of maps; as our reviewer puts it: ‘with maps, we co-create the world’ including its borders, inequalities and so much more. The book will mainly appeal to scholars working on post-structuralism, but it will also yield relevant insights for theorists drawing on constructivism and critical geopolitics.
Read the full review here.
4) Revisiting state personhood and world politics
Written by Bianca Naude. Published in London and New York by Routledge.
I recently picked up Ty Solomon’s 2015 book on US foreign policy, subjectivity and desire. It combines psychoanalysis and IR scholarship to explain how the ‘war on terror’ became a common sense discourse. Its insights have quickly convinced me of the benefit of this approach, so its increased popularity among IR theorists is not surprising. In a similar vein, Bianca Naude’s book draws on psychology to treat states as persons with complex personalities and behavioural expectations. Deploying the case-study of South Africa, the author examines its actions in the face of contradicting demands, external expectations and idealized self-conceptions. Naude persuasively and accessibly illustrates her theoretical framework and raises important questions for ontological security studies.
Read the full review here.
5) Quantum International Relations
Edited by James Der Derian and Alexander Wendt. Published in Oxford by Oxford University Press.
Alexander Wendt is a jack of many trades. Most recently, Wendt has joined forces with James Der Derian to blend the insights of physics and IR theorizing. In this edited volume, Wendt and Der Derian bring together a wide range of contributors to explore how quantum theories, technologies and ideas (such as ‘quantum superposition’ and ‘quantum ethics’) can account for the impact of individual actions on world politics. While this is not necessarily a book for beginners, our review offers a useful starting-point for anyone interested in this important contribution to the emerging field of quantum social sciences.
Read the full review here.
Read the review section in our September 2023 issue in full here.
Find more suggestions from the IA Bookshelf series here.
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Mariana Vieira is the Book Reviews Editor of International Affairs.
All views expressed are individual not institutional.
