Misunderstanding International Relations: A Focus On Liberal Democracies

Description

This book examines the ways in which the study and practice of international relations are misunderstood, both by scholars and politicians. It begins by examining critical errors in reasoning and argument which determine the way key issues in the field are discussed and explained. It then explores a number of case studies which are affected by these errors, including the legal status of the modern nation-state, the Israel-Palestine conflict, the idea of the Deep State, the relationship between the West and radical Islam, the impact of moral righteousness on historical understanding, and the role of class in modern Western politics. Acknowledgements......Page 6 Contents......Page 7 Chapter 1: Introduction......Page 9 Chapter 2: Critical Thinking: Part One—The Limits of the Expressible......Page 13 Fencing the Discussion: The Limits of Thinkable Thought......Page 14 Ideas, Interests and Human Nature......Page 19 The Power of Vested Interests: Marginalising Dissent......Page 25 Chapter 3: Critical Thinking: Part Two—Escaping the Zeitgeist and Building an Intellectual Self-Defence......Page 35 Escaping the Zeitgeist: Antidotes to Presentism......Page 39 Indoctrination and Propaganda......Page 46 Cognitive Traps and Fallacies of Reasoning......Page 49 Chapter 4: Israel-Palestine: Part One—Do States Have a “Right to Exist”?......Page 60 Related Rights......Page 61 A “Right to Exist”? Legal and Self-Arrogated Rights......Page 63 What Would a Right to Exist Politically Acknowledge?......Page 66 Chapter 5: Israel-Palestine: Part Two—Australian Foreign Policy and the Israel-Palestine Conflict—Avoiding the Colonialist Narrative......Page 70 Aspects of Settler Colonial Societies and Relations Between Them......Page 71 Establishing the Policy Framework......Page 76 The ALP Has a Rethink......Page 78 The Split Gets Wider......Page 81 Conclusion......Page 86 Chapter 6: Is There a Deep State?......Page 91 The Deep State and International Relations......Page 93 What Is the Deep State?......Page 95 Who Is the Deep State?......Page 97 The 2016 Election......Page 100 Trump and Wall Street......Page 105 Chapter 7: United States Foreign Policy: Radical Islam and the West......Page 112 A Moral Panic as Orthodoxy......Page 114 The Arab Spring, Islamists and the West......Page 116 Washington, London and Islamists......Page 119 Blowback or Something Deeper?......Page 123 To Complement and Control......Page 126 Our Responsibilities......Page 130 Concluding Thoughts......Page 132 Chapter 8: The Vietnam War: Morality and History......Page 138 The War as a Mirror to Our Morality......Page 141 Chapter 9: Class Power in the United States and Australia......Page 146 Case Study: When a Class Mobilises......Page 149 Class Identity......Page 151 Class Conflict in Australia......Page 153 Bipartisanship......Page 159 It’s Too Complex......Page 161 Index......Page 166