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"Why do presidents, when facing the same circumstances, focus on different threats to national security? Enemies of the American Way attempts to answer this question by investigating the role of identity in presidential decision making. The book explains why presidents disagree on what constitute a threat to the US security via the study of three US presidencies in the 19th century (Cleveland, Harrison and McKinley). These case studies help draw a theory of threat identification to understand how and why specific actions are taken, including the decision to wage war. Using a constructivist approach, the book develops a rule-based identity theory to posit that American identity defines potential national security threats, i.e., how a policymaker defines Americans also defines the threats to Americans. Enemies of the American Way offers a new means of understanding a key period when America rose to prominence in international relations while proposing a template that can be used to explain American foreign policy today. It will appeal to students of international relations and foreign policy."--Bloomsbury Publishing

The scholarly study of international relations tends to go over the same cases, issues, and themes. This book addresses this by challenging readers to think creatively about international politics. It highlights some of the strangest and rarest phenomena in diplomacy and world politics. Comprised of a series of vignettes and organized by common themes like nonsensical borders, quasi-countries, and diplomatic taboos, Weird IR encourages readers to think critically about the discipline without losing one's sense of humor completely. David Bell Mislan is Assistant Professor of International Studies at American University, USA. Philip Streich is Assistant Professor of Human Sciences at Osaka University, Japan.--

In the last decade the concept of disaster diplomacy has drawn interest to the links between major natural disasters and international conflict. This paper reviews the disparate set of works covering this relationship. This body of work, which draws on multiple disciplinary traditions extending over three generations, holds vast potential for political scientists that seek to understand the intersection of ecological catastrophe and politics. The latest wave of publications has the greatest potential to yield valuable and generalizable insight into political phenomena as well as to produce practical knowledge for disaster-related organizations and agencies, policymakers, and citizens. This paper reviews the three generations of literature and then makes suggestions along three lines of argument: (1) refining definitions of variables, (2) refining the concept of 'disaster diplomacy', and (3) using existing theories and concepts of interstate conflict. Adapted from the source document.