Click here to read the introduction.

Click here to watch Bruce Bueno de Mesquita’s TED Talk about the future of Iran’s leadership and nuclear program!

A little revolution now and again is a good thing. The scientific approach to international relations has transformed the field. And now, thanks to a revolutionary revision, Principles of International Politics offers a crisp and clear introduction to international relations from the strategic point of view.

Responding to user feedback and classroom testing, Principles has been completely recast so that the book is focused squarely on the central insights of the strategic perspective. Honing in on two key ideas—winning coalitions and selectorate size—the book delivers the fundamental lessons of the theory more easily than ever, giving students even better access to the most powerful way of thinking about IR today.

Not only will students find the text easier to follow, they’ll also find the book shorter—almost half the length of the previous edition. Streamlining places the take-away points front and center, and the basic tools of the model are delivered in clear step-by-step language, allowing beginning students to grasp the theory’s powerful insights.

What hasn’t changed: Bueno de Mesquita’s commitment to covering the fundamentals of IR. You’ll find a full examination of security problems, with special attention to theories of war, an exploration of the democratic peace, the problems of terrorism, military intervention, the role of foreign aid, democratization, international political economy, globalization, international organizations, alliances, and international law.

Helpful pedagogical features allow students to master the principles, including: 

• chapter-opener overviews,
• bolded key terms, 
• “Try This” feature boxes, 
• a full glossary, and 
• appendixes (a survey of world history and a primer on the scientific method).

Responding to user feedback and classroom testing, Principles has been completely recast so that the book is focused squarely on the central insights of the strategic perspective. Honing in on two key ideas—winning coalitions and selectorate size—the book delivers the fundamental lessons of the theory more easily than ever, giving students even better access to the most powerful way of thinking about IR today.

Not only will students find the text easier to follow, they’ll also find the book shorter—almost half the length of the previous edition. Streamlining places the take-away points front and center, and the basic tools of the model are delivered in clear step-by-step language, allowing beginning students to grasp the theory’s powerful insights.

CQ Press is pleased to comply with the Higher Education Opportunity Act. Please email heoacompliance@cqpress.com for additional information that may be available. Be sure to include your name, contact information, academic affiliation, and the title, author, and edition of the book in question.

Contact us at collegesales@cqpress.com if we may assist you in your book selection or if you have feedback to share. Thank you for your consideration of CQ Press books.

Introduction: Foundations of International Relations
A Brief History of International Relations Thinking
Solving International Relations Puzzles
Organizational Features of this Book

1. The Strategic Perspective: When Foreign Policy Collides with Domestic Politics
International Politics: Domestic Politics with a Twist
Who and What to Study in International Affairs?
How to Study International Affairs
Selectorate Theory: An Example of the Strategic Perspective

2. Tools for Analyzing International Affairs
The Example: Iran’s Nuclear Pursuit
The Median Voter Theorem: A Spatial Model
Win-Sets: The Median Voter and Issue Linkage
Expected Utility Risk Taking and Expected Utility

3. An Introduction to Game Theory
Prisoners’ Dilemma: Illustrating a Simple Game
Subgame Perfection and Backward Induction

4. Two Structural Theories of War
War versus Negotiation: Indivisibility, Uncertainty, and Commitment
Realist Theories of War
How Well Does Neorealism Do in Explaining War and Instability?
History and Neorealist Empirical Claims
Other Neorealist Hypotheses and the Historical Record
The Power Transition: A Structural Alternative to Neorealism

5. Strategic Theories of War
The International Interaction Game and War
Arms Race, Deterrence, and War
Other Hypotheses about War

6.Domestic Origins of Foreign Policy: Exploring the Democratic Peace
The Facts that MakeUp the Democratic Peace
Some Evidence
The Realist Democratic-Peace Naysayers
The Normative Explanation
Institutional Explanations
The Selectorate-Democratic Peace

7. Can Terrorism Be Rational?
Beliefs about Terrorism 
Terrorism, Credible Commitments, and Strategic Dilemmas
Land for Peace: A Credible Commitment Problem

8.Military Intervention and Democratization
Nation-Building
Democracies and Nation-Building
Autocracies and Nation-Building
The United Nations and Nation-Building
What Do We Expect and What Does the Evidence Show?

9.What’s the Problem with Foreign Aid?
Foreign Aid: The Problem
The Aid Debate
A Third Explanation for Aid
Aid and Democratization

10. International Political Economy of Trade and Globalization
Globalization in Historical Perspective
An Economics Primer: Comparative Advantage, Supply, and Demand
Trade as a Public or Private Good
Currency, Exchange Rates, and International Political Economy
Political Economy and Trade
Factors of Production
Mobility of Factors of Production
The Consequence of Free Trade: Some Evidence

11. International Organizations, Alliances, and International Law
International Law, Organizations, and Regimes: Definitions and Distinctions
Can We Evaluate the Effects of International Regimes?
Sovereignty: A Successful International Institution
The Purpose of International Rules and Institutions
International Organizations as a Way to Promote Repeated, Cooperative Interaction
Membership Inclusiveness: Trade-Offs between Regime Efficiency and Effectiveness
Organizational Decision-Making Rules
Compliance and Effectiveness

Appendix A. Modern Political Economic History and International Politics
The Fourteen Hundreds
The Fifteen Hundreds
The Sixteen Hundreds
The Seventeen Hundreds
The Eighteen Hundreds
The Twentieth Century

Appendix B. Evaluating Arguments about International Politics
Theories as Simplifications of Reality
Judging Theories
The First Principle of Wing-Walking
The Case Study Method and Testing Theories
A Standard for Comparing Theories
Practical Uses of Theories
The Scientific Method
When a Theory Is Wrong
Scientific Theories Must Be Falsifiable

“Bruce Bueno de Mesquita has transformed this text substantially from earlier editions. This new, beautifully designed volume will be up there on the bookshelf of students and scholars for many years, in the section for classics. The volume is informative, interesting, and crisply written. It doesn’t read like a textbook, but when you have read it you will know a considerable amount about how to understand and interpret world politics.”

“Bueno de Mesquita's Principles of International Politics combines a formidable theoretical approach to international relations with a comprehensive assessment of the state of the field. This extremely accessible and engaging volume offers a unique and compelling take on pressing current issues, including Iran's development of nuclear weapons, military intervention, foreign aid, and terrorism while providing deep historical context. Students and practitioners alike will be able to benefit from the masterful treatment of all the major models, methods and mysteries which infiltrate the study of international politics.”

“This is a terrific text. A masterful blend of history and theory, Principles of International Politics introduces students to the major problems and puzzles in international politics and to the key ideas in international relations theory. Revised and reorganized, the book provides students with the tools to begin thinking through the complexities of the strategic problems in international politics.”

“Although this new edition continues to be driven for the connections between power, perception and preferences, these driving concepts are now centered within a framework that emphasizes how the struggle of state leaders to stay in power interacts with domestic forces and the necessity of defending the interests of the state in a uncertain strategic environment. The arguments are penetrating, and Bueno de Mesquita holds himself to the same high standards he expects of others. Anyone who takes this book’s ideas to mind will come away with a deeper insight into the factors that shape the interactions of states.”

“Principles continues to be a major contribution to pedagogy in International Relations. The book communicates the strategic approach to politics effectively in a general way as well as through game-theoretic applications. Students will find the strategic perspective on issues ranging from terrorism to foreign aid to be fascinating. The book is flexible in its application and can be used in courses at varying levels. It is certain to stimulate interest in students across the board.”

Bruce Bueno de Mesquita is Julius Silver Professor of Politics and Director of the Alexander Hamilton Center for Political Economy at New York University and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. He is an expert on international conflict, foreign policy formation, the peace process, and nation-building. He is the author of many books, including The Logic of Political Survival (with Alastair Smith, Randolph M. Siverson, and James D. Morrow); War and Reason (with David Lalman); Predicting Politics; The Strategy of Campaigning (with Kiron Skinner, Serhiy Kudelia, and Condoleezza Rice); and The War Trap. He is the Managing Partner of Mesquita & Roundell, LLC, a consultancy. In 2007 he won the DMZ Peace Prize for contributing to the advancement of peace on the Korean peninsula. He received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Conflict Processes Section of the American Political Science Association and the Distinguished Scholar Award from the Foreign Policy section of the International Studies Association in 2008. He is a former Guggenheim Fellow, recipient of the Karl Deutsch Award, and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Council on Foreign Relations.

Student resources are available at:

http://bdm.cqpress.com

The student companion website features summaries, quizzes, flashcards, and exercises.

Instructor's Resources available for adopters!

For adopters: Resources include PowerPoint lecture slides, a test bank featuring hundreds of questions, an instructor’s manual, sample syllabi, discussion questions, downloadable graphics from the text, a simulation, a solution guide for the Applying the Strategic Perspective workbook and more.To register, please click the link below.

http://college.cqpress.com/instructors-resources/bdm/

Applying the Strategic Perspective: Problems and Models, 4th Edition Workbook

Principles of International Politics, 4th Edition Package (text and workbook)