Protean Power: Exploring the Uncertain and Unexpected in World Politics

Protean Power: Exploring the Uncertain and Unexpected in World Politics

Protean Power: Exploring the Uncertain and Unexpected in World Politics

Protean Power: Exploring the Uncertain and Unexpected in World Politics

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Overview

Mainstream international relations continues to assume that the world is governed by calculable risk based on estimates of power. This ground-breaking work departs from existing definitions of power that focus on actors' evolving ability to exercise control in situations of calculable risk. Instead, it introduces the concept of 'protean power', which focuses on actors' agility as they adapt to situations of uncertainty. Twelve real world case studies are used to examine how the dynamics of protean and control power can be tracked in the relations among different state and non-state actors, operating in diverse sites, stretching from local to global, in both times of relative normalcy and moments of crisis. This volume argues for a new approach to IR, where the inclusion of protean power in our analytical models helps in accounting for unforeseen changes in world politics. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781108441254
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Publication date: 01/18/2018
Series: Cambridge Studies in International Relations , #146
Pages: 380
Product dimensions: 5.94(w) x 8.98(h) x 0.67(d)

About the Author

Peter J. Katzenstein has served as President of the American Political Science Association and is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Science, the American Philosophical Society and the British Academy.  He has been the recipient of the Helen Dwight Reid Award, the Woodrow Wilson prize for the best book published in the United States on international affairs and the Masayoshi Ohira Memorial Prize as well as five honorary degrees of European and Chinese universities. He has taught at Cornell for over forty years.

Lucia A. Seybert is a Professorial Lecturer at American University, School of International Service. She is a former Title VIII Research Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center and a recipient of a number of research grants and fellowships, including from the American Council of Learned Societies.

Table of Contents

Part I. Theory and Evidence: 1. Protean power and control power: conceptual analysis Lucia A. Seybert and Peter J. Katzenstein; 2. Uncertainty, risk, power and the limits of international relations theory Peter J. Katzenstein and Lucia A. Seybert; Part II. Protean Power: Embracing Uncertainty: 3. Protean power and revolutions in rights Christian Reus-Smit; 4. Protean power in movement: navigating uncertainty in the LGBT rights revolution Phillip Ayoub; 5. Border collision: power dynamics of enforcement and evasion across the US–Mexico line Noelle K. Brigden and Peter Andreas; 6. High tech: power and unpredictability at the technological frontier and in Bitcoin Lucia A. Seybert and Peter J. Katzenstein; Part III. Mixed Worlds: Agility Meets Ability: 7. Firms in firmament: hydrocarbons and the circulation of power Rawi Abdelal; 8. Incomplete control: the circulation of power in finance Erin Lockwood and Stephen Nelson; 9. Terrorism and protean power: how terrorists navigate uncertainty Barak Mendelsohn; 10. Slumdog versus Superman: uncertainty, innovation and the circulation of power in the global film industry Lucia A. Seybert, Stephen Nelson and Peter J. Katzenstein; Part IV. Protean Power between Risk and Uncertainty: 11. Changing history?: Innovation and continuity in contemporary arms control Jennifer Erickson; 12. From Green to REDD: protean power and the politics of carbon sinks Jessica Green; Part V. Conclusion: 13. Power complexities and political theory Peter J. Katzenstein and Lucia A. Seybert.
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