June 21, 2004

Nau's At Home Abroad

I skimmed Henry Nau's At Home Abroad: Identity and Power in American Foreign Policy over the weekend. Nau is basically arguing that too often studies of foreign relations give a special place to the influence of material power without considering the effect of identity on these relationships. This is not a new argument, but it is an important one and Nau adds something to this literature. Readers interested in this topic might find some of his typologies useful, particularly those related to how the structure of the international system changes depending upon both the distribution of power and the level of shared identity. Nau argues that anarchy is only the norm in international relations when the system features divergent identities but a roughly equal balance of material power.

Posted by armand at June 21, 2004 11:03 AM | TrackBack | Posted to Books


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