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Could World War I have been averted if Franz Ferdinand and his wife hadn't been murdered by Serbian nationalists in 1914? What if Ronald Reagan had been killed by Hinckley's bullet? Would the Cold War have ended as it did? In Forbidden Fruit, Richard Ned Lebow develops protocols for conducting robust counterfactual thought experiments and uses them to probe the causes and contingency of transformative international developments like World War I and the end of the Cold War. He uses experiments, surveys, and a short story to explore why policymakers, historians, and international relations scholars are so resistant to the contingency and indeterminism inherent in open-ended, nonlinear systems. Most controversially, Lebow argues that the difference between counterfactual and so-called factual arguments is misleading, as both can be evidence-rich and logically persuasive. A must-read for social scientists, Forbidden Fruit also examines the binary between fact and fiction and the use of counterfactuals in fictional works like Philip Roth's The Plot Against America to understand complex causation and its implications for who we are and what we think makes the social world work.

"What is international relations (IR) theory? Is it an arcane academic enterprise or relevant to the real world? What do we mean by theory? What kinds of knowledge do theories seek or represent? How do they stipulate it should be found? How should we evaluate any resulting knowledge claims? What do answers to these questions tell us about the theory project in IR, and more generally in the social sciences? I address all of these questions in this book and set of companion videos. The videos can be accessed free of charge at nedlebow.com I cover epistemological ground with which you may be familiar, but perhaps not. I lay bare and query the assumptions of positivist and interpretivist approaches to knowledge in general and to IR in particular. I identify and explore the most important inner tensions of these epistemologies and question the assumptions they make about the world. I identify problems that need to be addressed, suggest some possible strategies or reformulations toward this end, and how adherents of the two epistemologies might learn from one other. Above all, I am interested in the extent to which IR theories can tell us something useful about the world. This book is as about theory in IR, not about theories of IR. This distinction is an important one. It focuses on theory, what it is, purports to be, and how it organizes our understanding of the discipline and the world. It engages some IR theories and research programs, but only as illustrations or for the insights they offer into the questions I have posed. It differs significantly from most other books on IR theory"--

Philosophy and social science assume that reason and cause are objective and universally applicable concepts. Through close readings of ancient and modern philosophy, history and literature, Richard Ned Lebow demonstrates that these concepts are actually specific to time and place. He traces their parallel evolution by focusing on classical Athens, the Enlightenment through Victorian England, and the early twentieth century. This important book shows how and why understandings of reason and cause have developed and evolved, in response to what kind of stimuli, and what this says about the relationship between social science and the social world in which it is conducted. Lebow argues that authors reflecting on their own social context use specific constructions of these categories as central arguments about the human condition. This highly original study will make an immediate impact across a number of fields with its rigorous research and the development of an innovative historicised epistemology.

Lebow demonstrates that foreign policies consistent with generally accepted ethical norms are more likely to succeed, and those at odds with them to fail. Constructing original data sets and analyzing multiple case studies, Lebow makes an empirical case for ethics in international relations. His approach looks to create a productive dialogue between those who ask primarily 'ought' questions and those who pose 'is' questions. The former want to establish appropriate criteria for the behaviour of state and non-state actors and the discourses that lead to their policy decisions, whereas scholars who pose 'is' questions are concerned with how political actors behave and the principles and assumptions that might explain their behaviour. Lebow bridges the gap between 'is' and 'ought' questions by making an instrumental argument in favour of ethical foreign policy. He examines policymaking as well as policy, offering ethical guidelines for policymaking that are likely to result in more successful policies.

Drawing on political theory, comparative politics, international relations, psychology and classics, Ned Lebow offers insights into why social and political orders form, how they evolve, and why and how they decline. Following The Tragic Vision of Politics and A Cultural Theory of International Relations, this book thus completes Lebow's trilogy with an original theory of political order. He identifies long- and short-term threats to political order that are associated respectively with shifts in the relative appeal of principles of justice and lack of self-restraint by elites. Two chapters explore the consequences of late-modernity for democracy in the United States, and another chapter, co-authored with Martin Dimitrov, the consequences for authoritarianism in China. The Rise and Fall of Political Orders forges new links between political theory and political science via the explicit connection it makes between normative goals and empirical research.

Drawing on political theory, comparative politics, international relations, psychology and classics, Ned Lebow offers insights into why social and political orders form, how they evolve, and why and how they decline. Following The Tragic Vision of Politics and A Cultural Theory of International Relations, this book thus completes Lebow's trilogy with an original theory of political order. He identifies long- and short-term threats to political order that are associated respectively with shifts in the relative appeal of principles of justice and lack of self-restraint by elites. Two chapters explore the consequences of late-modernity for democracy in the United States, and another chapter, co-authored with Martin Dimitrov, the consequences for authoritarianism in China. The Rise and Fall of Political Orders forges new links between political theory and political science via the explicit connection it makes between normative goals and empirical research

This book recapitulates and extends Ned Lebow's decades' long research on conflict management and resolution. It updates his critique of conventional and nuclear deterrence, analysis of reassurance, and the conditions in which international conflicts may be amenable to resolution, or failing that, a significant reduction in tensions. This text offers a holistic approach to conflict management and resolution by exploring interactions among deterrence, reassurance, and diplomacy, and how they might most effectively be staged and combined. Richard Ned Lebow is Professor of International Political Theory at the Department of War Studies, King's College London, UK, and Bye-Fellow of Pembroke College, University of Cambridge, UK. He is also the James O. Freedman Presidential Professor Emeritus at Dartmouth College, US.

Self-interest is an important human motive and this book explores its evolution in the United States and its consequences for politics, business, and personal relationships. In the postwar era American understandings of self-interest have moved away from Alexis de Tocqueville's concept of "self-interest well-understood"--In which people recognize that their interests are served by the success of the community of which they are part - towards "individualism"--by which he meant narrow framing that often leads people to pursue their interests at the expense of the community. The book documents this evolution through qualitative and quantitative content analysis of presidential speeches, television sitcoms and popular music, before exploring its negative consequences for democracy. .--

Intro -- Contents -- List of Figures -- Chapter 1: Introduction -- Structure of the Book -- Chapter 2: Self-Interest -- Tocqueville -- Conclusion -- Chapter 3: Presidential Speeches -- Chapter 4: I Love Lucy to Modern Family -- Comparative Analysis -- Chapter 5: Rock to Rap -- Chapter 6: Self-Interest and Democracy -- Tocqueville Revisited -- Index

Intro -- Acknowledgements -- Contents -- 1 Introduction -- 2 Deterrence: A Political and Psychological Critique -- 2.1 Data and Method -- 2.2 Political Failings -- 2.3 How Deterrence Can Backfire -- 2.4 Psychological Problems -- 2.4.1 Flawed Assessments -- 2.4.2 Challenger's Insensitivity to Warnings -- 2.5 Problems in Applying Deterrence -- 2.6 The Primacy of Self -- 2.7 Implications for Deterrence Theory -- References -- 3 Making Sense of the World -- 4 Poking Counterfactual Holes in Covering Laws: Cognitive Styles and Political Learning -- 4.1 The Correlational Studies: Applying Abstract Covering Laws to Specific Historical Cases -- 4.1.1 Guiding Theory -- 4.1.2 Hypothesis -- 4.1.3 Research Design and Logic of Analysis -- 4.1.4 Methods and Measures -- 4.1.4.1 Covering-Law Beliefs -- 4.1.4.2 The Need for Explanatory Closure -- 4.1.4.3 Beliefs About Close-Call Counterfactuals -- 4.1.5 Findings -- 4.1.6 Discussion -- 4.2 Experimental Studies: The Power of Counterfactuals to Change Minds -- 4.2.1 Experiment 1: The Cuban Missile Crisis -- 4.2.1.1 Guiding Theory -- 4.2.1.2 Hypotheses -- 4.2.1.3 Methods and Measures -- 4.2.1.4 Retrospective Perceptions of Inevitability and Impossibility -- 4.2.1.5 Findings -- 4.2.2 Experiment 2: Unpacking Alternative Outcomes of the Cuban Missile Crisis -- 4.2.2.1 Guiding Theory -- 4.2.2.2 Hypotheses -- 4.2.2.3 Research Design, Method, and Logic of Analysis -- 4.2.2.4 Findings -- 4.2.3 Experiment 3: Unmaking the West -- 4.2.3.1 Guiding Theory -- 4.2.3.2 Hypotheses -- 4.2.3.3 Research Design, Methods, and Measures -- 4.2.3.4 Findings -- 4.3 General Discussion -- 4.4 Conclusion -- References -- 5 The Politics and Ethics of Identity: In Search of Ourselves -- 5.1 Introduction -- 5.2 Autonomy -- 5.3 Genealogy of Identity -- 5.4 Identity Interrogated -- 5.5 Rethinking Identity -- 5.6 Structure of the Book.

"Identity is the master variable for many constructivist scholars of international politics. In this comparative study, Richard Ned Lebow shows that states do not have identities any more than people do. Leaders, peoples, and foreign actors seek to impose national identifications consistent with their political projects and psychological needs. These identifications are multiple, fluid and rise in importance as a function of priming and context. Leaders are at least as likely to invoke national identifications as rationalizations for policies pursued for other reasons as they are to be influenced by them. National identifications are nevertheless important because they invariably stress the alleged uniqueness of a people and its country, and are a principal means of seeking status and building self-esteem. Lebow tracks the relative appeal of these principles, the ways in which they are constructed, how they influence national identifications, and how they in turn affect regional and international practices"--