Coercion, Cooperation, and Ethics in International Relations

Coercion Cooperation and Ethics in International Relations brings togetherthe recent essays of Richard Ned Lebow one of the leading scholars ofinternational rel... » 

Coercion Cooperation and Ethics in International Relations brings togetherthe recent essays of Richard Ned Lebow one of the leading scholars ofinternational relations and U.S. Foreign Policy. Lebows work has centered onthe instrumental value of ethics in foreign policy decision making and thedisastrous consequences which follow when ethical standard are flouted. Unlikemost realists who have considered ethical considerations irrelevant in statescalculations of their national interest Lebow has argued that self interestand hence national interest can only be formulated intelligently within alanguage of justice and morality. The essays here build on this pervasive themein Lebows work by presenting his substantive and compelling critique ofstrategies of deterrence and compellence illustrating empirically andnormatively how these strategies often produce results counter to those thatare intended. The last section of the book on counterfactuals brings togetheranother set of related articles which continue to probe the relationshipbetween ethics and policy. They do so by exploring the contingency of events tosuggest the subjective and often selffulfilling nature of the frameworks weuse to evaluate policy choices.With a new substantive introduction that will place the essays in the contextof Lebows comprehensive views on ethics and foreign policy this book will bea major statement by a major thinker in international relations. «