Reading guide

Heywood, Andrew, and Ben Whitham. 2023. Global Politics, 3rd ed., Chapter 3, “Traditional Theories of Global Politics.”

Provides the common comparison of realism, liberalism, and constructivism used throughout the lecture.

Wendt, Alexander. 1992. “Anarchy Is What States Make of It: The Social Construction of Power Politics.” International Organization 46(2): 391–425.

Challenges the claim that self-help follows automatically from anarchy and shows how interaction can produce identities and interests.

Mearsheimer, John J. 2019. “Bound to Fail: The Rise and Fall of the Liberal International Order.” International Security 43(4): 7–50.

Applies realist reasoning to the liberal international order and gives the lecture a contemporary dispute on which to compare theories.

Whitham, Ben, and Andrew Heywood. 2023. Global Politics, 3rd ed., Chapter 12, “The Global Politics of Weapons of Mass Destruction.”

Introduces deterrence, arms control, proliferation, and the institutional setting in which nuclear choices are made.

Sagan, Scott D. 1996. “Why Do States Build Nuclear Weapons? Three Models in Search of a Bomb.” International Security 21(3): 54–86.

Distinguishes security, domestic-politics, and norms explanations and provides the lecture's central analytical framework.

Acharya, Amitav. 2003. “Will Asia's Past Be Its Future?” International Security 28(3): 149–164.

Questions whether European balance-of-power history supplies an adequate template for Asian regional order.

Acharya, Amitav. 2014. “International Relations Theory and the ‘Rise of Asia.’” In The Oxford Handbook of the International Relations of Asia.

Evaluates how Asia can test and extend theory. Acharya also asks how the region might generate concepts instead of serving only as a site for Western frameworks.

Heywood, Andrew, and Ben Whitham. 2023. Global Politics, 3rd ed., Chapters 8–9.

Connects nations and nationalism to the global politics of identity, difference, and culture.

Nagel, Joane. 2022. “Masculinity and Nationalism: Gender and Sexuality in the Making of Nations.” In Nations and Nationalism, 110–130.

Shows that national projects are gendered through institutions, symbols, protection, reproduction, and expectations of citizenship.

Heywood, Andrew. 2014. Global Politics, 2nd ed., Chapter 7, “Society in a Global Age.”

Maps how globalization transforms social relations, communication, risk, identity, and belonging.

Rodrik, Dani. 2018. “Populism and the Economics of Globalization.” Journal of International Business Policy 1(1): 12–33.

Explains why different globalization shocks may generate different populist cleavages and policy responses.

Whitham, Ben, and Andrew Heywood. 2023. Global Politics, 3rd ed., discussion of contending global futures.

Provides contrasting expectations about global order and political change, including the role of technology and ecology. The 2026 syllabus identifies the reading as “Chapter 21: Images of Global Futures.” That number and title do not match the table of contents in the local third edition, so this guide leaves the chapter citation unverified.

Mitchell, Audra. 2017. “Is IR Going Extinct?” European Journal of International Relations 23(1): 3–25.

Argues that extinction and multispecies vulnerability expose limits in a discipline centered on human states and conventional security.