Stephen Brooks (academic)

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Stephen Gallup Brooks (born 1971) is a Professor of Government in the Department of Government at Dartmouth College. [1]

Contents

Academic career

Brooks was educated at the University of California, Santa Cruz (B.A.) and Yale University (Ph.D.). He has taught at Dartmouth College since 2001. [2] Brooks is well known in the international relations community for his contributions to international political economy and American grand strategy. Along with William Wohlforth, he has authored a number of articles related to American foreign policy and has advocated for continued American primacy around the world.

Selected works

Related Research Articles

Pax Americana is a term applied to the concept of relative peace in the Western Hemisphere and later in the world after the end of World War II in 1945, when the United States became the world's dominant economic, cultural, and military power.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bush Doctrine</span> US foreign policy principles of President George W. Bush promoting preventive war and unilateralism

The Bush Doctrine refers to multiple interrelated foreign policy principles of the 43rd President of the United States, George W. Bush. These principles include unilateralism, preemptive war, and regime change.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Great power</span> Nation that has great political, social, and economic influence on a global scale

A great power is a sovereign state that is recognized as having the ability and expertise to exert its influence on a global scale. Great powers characteristically possess military and economic strength, as well as diplomatic and soft power influence, which may cause middle or small powers to consider the great powers' opinions before taking actions of their own. International relations theorists have posited that great power status can be characterized into power capabilities, spatial aspects, and status dimensions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Middle power</span> Type of state

In international relations, a middle power is a sovereign state that is not a great power nor a superpower, but still has large or moderate influence and international recognition.

Grand strategy or high strategy is a state's strategy of how means can be used to advance and achieve national interests in the long-term. Issues of grand strategy typically include the choice of military doctrine, force structure and alliances, as well as economic relations, diplomatic behavior, and methods to extract or mobilize resources.

The concept of balancing derives from the balance of power theory, the most influential theory from the realist school of thought, which assumes that a formation of hegemony in a multistate system is unattainable since hegemony is perceived as a threat by other states, causing them to engage in balancing against a potential hegemon.

Hegemonic stability theory (HST) is a theory of international relations, rooted in research from the fields of political science, economics, and history. HST indicates that the international system is more likely to remain stable when a single state is the dominant world power, or hegemon. Thus, the end of hegemony diminishes the stability of the international system. As evidence for the stability of hegemony, proponents of HST frequently point to the Pax Britannica and Pax Americana, as well as the instability prior to World War I and the instability of the interwar period.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">International security</span> Measures taken by states and international organizations to ensure mutual safety and survival

International security is a term which refers to the measures taken by states and international organizations, such as the United Nations, European Union, and others, to ensure mutual survival and safety. These measures include military action and diplomatic agreements such as treaties and conventions. International and national security are invariably linked. International security is national security or state security in the global arena.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Realism (international relations)</span> Belief that world politics is always and necessarily a field of conflict among actors pursuing power

Realism, a dominant school of thought in international relations theory, is a theoretical framework that views world politics as an enduring competition among self-interested states vying for power and positioning within an anarchic global system devoid of a centralized authority. It centers on states as rational primary actors navigating a system shaped by power politics, national interest, and a pursuit of security and self-preservation.

Polarity in international relations is any of the various ways in which power is distributed within the international system. It describes the nature of the international system at any given period of time. One generally distinguishes three types of systems: unipolarity, bipolarity, and multipolarity for three or more centers of power. The type of system is completely dependent on the distribution of power and influence of states in a region or globally.

Offshore balancing is a strategic concept used in realist analysis in international relations. It describes a strategy in which a great power uses favored regional powers to check the rise of potentially-hostile powers. This strategy stands in contrast to the dominant grand strategy in the United States, liberal hegemony. Offshore balancing calls for a great power to withdraw from onshore positions and focus its offshore capabilities on the three key geopolitical regions of the world: Europe, the Persian Gulf, and Northeast Asia.

Soft balancing is a recent addition to balance of power theory used to describe non-military forms of balancing evident since the end of the Cold War, particularly during and after the 2003 Iraq War. Soft balancing as a strategy can be attributed to the work of Robert Pape and T. V. Paul. It was criticized by Stephen Brooks, William Wohlforth and Augusto Dall'Agnol. Soft balancing has been practiced in many developing countries, such as Brazil, India and South Africa. Most countries share the common denominator of not having a strong military force, thus they utilize internal force rather than aggressive force.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Ikenberry</span> American political scientist (born 1954)

Gilford John Ikenberry is a theorist of international relations and United States foreign policy, and the Albert G. Milbank Professor of Politics and International Affairs at Princeton University. He is known for his work on liberal International Relations theory, such as the books After Victory (2001) and Liberal Leviathan (2011). He has been described as "the world's leading scholar of the liberal international order."

Offensive realism is a structural theory in international relations that belongs to the neorealist school of thought and was put forward by the political scholar John Mearsheimer in response to defensive realism. Offensive realism holds that the anarchic nature of the international system is responsible for the promotion of aggressive state behavior in international politics. The theory fundamentally differs from defensive realism by depicting great powers as power-maximizing revisionists privileging buck-passing and self-promotion over balancing strategies in their consistent aim to dominate the international system. The theory brings important alternative contributions for the study and understanding of international relations but remains the subject of criticism.

Robert Gilpin was an American political scientist. He was Professor of Politics and International Affairs at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University where he held the Eisenhower professorship.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Balance of power (international relations)</span> Theory in international relations

The balance of power theory in international relations suggests that states may secure their survival by preventing any one state from gaining enough military power to dominate all others. If one state becomes much stronger, the theory predicts it will take advantage of its weaker neighbors, thereby driving them to unite in a defensive coalition. Some realists maintain that a balance-of-power system is more stable than one with a dominant state, as aggression is unprofitable when there is equilibrium of power between rival coalitions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">William Wohlforth</span>

William Curti Wohlforth is the Daniel Webster Professor of Government in the Dartmouth College Department of Government, of which he was chair for three academic years (2006-2009). Wohlforth was Editor-in-chief of Security Studies from 2008 to 2011. He is linked to the Neoclassical realism school and known for his work on American unipolarity.

Neoclassical realism is a theory of international relations and an approach to foreign policy analysis. Initially coined by Gideon Rose in a 1998 World Politics review article, it is a combination of classical realist and neorealist – particularly defensive realist – theories.

Charles Louis Glaser is a scholar of international relations theory, known for his work on defensive realism, as well as nuclear strategy. He is the founding director of the Institute for Security and Conflict Studies at the George Washington University's Elliott School of International Affairs, as well as a professor of political science and international affairs. His best-known book, Rational Theory of International Politics: The Logic of Competition and Cooperation received an Honorable Mention for 2011 Best Book from the International Security Studies Section of the International Studies Association.

In political science, triangular diplomacy is a foreign policy of the United States, developed during the Vietnam War (1955–1975) by Henry Kissinger, as a means to manage relations between the contesting communist powers, the Soviet Union and China. Connecting heavily with the correlating policy of linkage, the policy was intended to exploit the ongoing rivalry between the two Communist powers, as a means to strengthen American hegemony and diplomatic interest.

References

  1. "Stephen G. Brooks | Faculty Directory". home.dartmouth.edu. 2 April 2013. Retrieved 2019-04-27.
  2. "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2018-11-21. Retrieved 2019-04-27.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)