Quantum International Relations: A Human Science for World Politics

Description

The contributors to this volume are motivated by a common apprehension and a common hope. The apprehension was first voiced by Einstein, who lamented the inability of humanity, at the individual and social level, to keep up with the increased speed of technological change brought about by the quantum revolution. As quantum science and technology fast forward into the 21st century, the social sciences remain stuck in classical, 19th century ways of thinking. Can such a mechanistic model of the mind and society possibly help us manage the fully realized technological potential of the quantum? That's where the hope appears: that perhaps quantum is not just a physical science, but a human science too. In Quantum International Relations, James Der Derian and Alexander Wendt gather rising scholars and leading experts to make the case for quantum approaches to world politics. As a fundamental theory of reality and enabler of new technologies, quantum now touches everything, with the potential to revolutionize how we conduct diplomacy, wage war, and make wealth. Contributors present the core principles of quantum mechanics--entanglement, uncertainty, superposition, and the wave function--as significant catalysts and superior heuristics for an accelerating quantum future. Facing a reality which no longer corresponds to an outdated Newtonian worldview of states as billiard balls, individuals as rational actors or power as objective interest, Der Derian and Wendt issue an urgent call for a new human science of quantum International Relations. At the centenary of the first quantum thought experiment in the 1920s, this book offers a diversity of explorations, speculations and approaches for understanding geopolitics in the 21st century. Cover Quantum International Relations Copyright Contents Foreword: Setting the Stage List of Contributors Introduction 1. Quantum International Relations: The Case for a New Human Science of World Politics Part 1. History and Theory 2. Quantum Mechanics and the Human Sciences: First Encounters 3. Mind, Matter, and Motion: A Genealogy of Quantum Entanglement and Estrangement 4. A Quantum Temperament for Life: A Dialogue between Philosophy and Physics 5. A Conceptual Introduction to Quantum Theory Part 2. Science and Technology 6. The Quantum Moonshot 7. Climate Politics and Social Change: What Can Cognitive and Quantum Approaches Offer? 8. These Are Not the Droids You’re Looking For: Offense, Defense, and the Social Context of Quantum Cryptology 9. Quantum Technology Hype and National Security Part 3. Quantizing IR 10. Quantum Pedagogy: Teaching Copenhagen and Discovering Affinities with Dialectical Thinking in International Relations 11. The Problématique of Quantization in Social Theory: A Category-​Theoretic Way Forward 12. On Quantum Social Theory and Critical International Relations 13. Quantum Sovereignty +​ Entanglement 14. Quantum and Systems Theory in World Society: Not Brothers and Sisters but Relatives Still? 15. The Value of Value: A Quantum Approach to Economics, Security, and International Relations Part 4. Bringing the Human Back into Science 16. Introspection Redux: Incorporating Consciousness into Social Research 17. To “See” Is to Break an Entanglement: Quantum Measurement, Trauma, and Security 18. The Moral Failure of the Quest for Certainty Index