International Relations explores the basic concepts of international politics and investigates the causes of war. The selections in this anthology are drawn from major theoretical writings on international relations and offer sophisticated explanations of the forces and factors that shape the behavior of states in the international system. Among the topics covered are the nature of anarchy, power, the state, the international system, and international society. The discussion of the causes of war considers the impact of security dilemmas, balance of power, hegemonic stability, domestic politics, bureaucratic politics, human aggressiveness, and human cognition. This book offers students an accessible introduction to the central principles of international politics and provides a theoretical grounding for further study or research.

The liberatory sentiment that stoked the Arab Spring and saw the ousting of long-time Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak seems a distant memory. Democratically elected president Mohammad Morsi lasted only a year before he was forced from power to be replaced by precisely the kind of authoritarianism protestors had been railing against in January 2011. Paradoxically, this turn of events was encouraged by the same liberal activists and intelligentsia who'd pushed for progressive reform under Mubarak. This volume analyses how such a key contingent of Egyptian liberals came to develop outright illiberal tendencies. Interdisciplinary in scope, it brings together experts in Middle East studies, political science, philosophy, Islamic studies and law to address the failure of Egyptian liberalism in a holistic manner - from liberalism's relationship with the state, to its role in cultivating civil society, to the role of Islam and secularism in the cultivation of liberalism. A work of impeccable scholarly rigour, Egypt and the Contradictions of Liberalism reveals the contemporary ramifications of the state of liberalism in Egypt.