Interpersonal Diplomacy offers a pioneering theory of how emotional connection and trust between world leaders can shape the outcomes of international crises, especially those involving nuclear weapons. Drawing on microsociological theory, particularly Randall Collins' theory of interaction rituals, Holmes and Wheeler show how interpersonal dynamics-such as emotional energy, mutual focus of attention, and bodily co-presence-can foster social bonds that transform adversarial relati...

What if life knocked the wind right out of your stomach? What if you were angry, frustrated, and broken because of death or job loss, or you watched your marriage or relationship dissolve before your very eyes, or you experienced the ultimate betrayal?What would you say, and what steps would you take to move forward?These questions are the core of the heartbreaking and motivational book, The Gratefulness Journey Everyday: What are you doing in the next 30 days to transform ...

The term Spectrum-Autist is how I describe one who is diagnosed with Autism-Spectrum Disorder. Since I do not think of Autism as a "disorder, I prefer "Spectrum-Autist." Being a Spectrum-Autist is to live in the in-between. In-between a typical person and a profound Autist. The in-between is a difficult place to be. People can see me both as normal and as strange. At first meeting me, there are not obvious signs and people often assume that I am like conventional humans. The more time they...

Face-to-face diplomacy has long been the lynchpin of world politics, yet it is largely dismissed by scholars of International Relations as unimportant. Marcus Holmes argues that dismissing this type of diplomacy is in stark contrast to what leaders and policy makers deem as essential and that this view is rooted in a particular set of assumptions that see an individual's intentions as fundamentally inaccessible. Building on recent evidence from social neuroscience and psychology, Holmes ar...

This book analyses digital diplomacy as a form of change management in international politics.The recent spread of digital initiatives in foreign ministries is often argued to be nothing less than a revolution in the practice of diplomacy. In some respects this revolution is long overdue. Digital technology has changed the ways firms conduct business, individuals conduct social relations, and states conduct governance internally, but states are only just realizing its potential to ...

Robert Jervis has been a pioneering leader in the study of the psychology of international politics for more than four decades. How Statesmen Think presents his most important ideas on the subject from across his career. This collection of revised and updated essays applies, elaborates, and modifies his pathbreaking work. The result is an indispensable book for students and scholars of international relations.How Statesmen Think demonstrates that expectations and ...

This edited volume addresses the issue of threat inflation in American foreign policy and domestic politics. The Bush administration's aggressive campaign to build public support for an invasion of Iraq reheated fears about the president's ability to manipulate the public, and many charged the administration with 'threat inflation', duping the news media and misleading the public into supporting the war under false pretences.Presenting the latest research, these essays seek to answ...

How can two states with enemy relations transform their relationship? Nicholas Wheeler argues that the discipline of International Relations has not done a good job of answering this question because its focus has been on the state and the individual levels of analysis. In this ground-breaking book, he argues for the importance of a new level of analysis in trust research the interpersonal relationships between state leaders. In doing so, he makes two key contributions. Firstly, developing...

The world faces explosive conflicts about the distribution and scarcity of resources, about ethnicity and religion, and about the risks of urban life. These conflicts can easily spiral out of control toward mass slaughter-an evil of huge proportions that is often escalated by the media. What should be done to prevent this lethal trend? We need to understand how the 'spiral of escalation' works. How do media create anxiety, provide space for agitation, and disconnect people? Three approache...

Mistakes, in the form of bad decisions, are a common feature of every presidential administration, and their consequences run the gamut from unnecessary military spending, to missed opportunities for foreign policy advantage, to needless bloodshed. This book analyzes a range of presidential decisions made in the realm of US foreign policy—with a special focus on national security—over the past half century in order to create a roadmap of the decision process and a guide to better foreign p...

With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the United States was left as the world’s sole superpower, which was the dawn of an international order known as unipolarity. The ramifications of imbalanced power extend around the globe—including the country at the center. What has the sudden realization that it stands alone atop the international hierarchy done to the United States? In Psychology of a Superpower, Christopher J. Fettweis examines how unipolarity affects the way U.S. leaders...

Does state acquisition of nuclear weapons lead to stability and peace or instability and crises? This is one of the great debates in international relations scholarship. Michael D. Cohen argues that nuclear weapons acquisition often does dangerously embolden the acquiring state to undertake coercion and aggression, but that this behavior moderates over time as leaders learn the dangers and limitations of nuclear coercion. This book examines the historical cases of the Soviet Union and Paki...