Fear of Enemies and Collective Action

Explores the way the fear of enemies shapes political groups and helps to preserve them in times of crisis.

Ioannis D. Evrigenis (Author)

9780521886208, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 3 December 2007

254 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.7 cm, 0.54 kg

"Far from imposing a disciplinary continuity of negative association amongst the great thinkers, Evrigenis instead contextualizes the historical conditions each wrote within. Indeed, Fear of Enemies is in certain portions (such as Chapter 7) just as much intellectual history and biography as it is a work of international political theory. This of course makes the major thesis more compelling - despite the variety of experiences for each theorist or philosopher, they all discovered a common referent, and then served to captain this ship of negative association and steer it towards a particular direction depending upon the time and place of their writing. Thus, the referent of negative association found in Fear of Enemies and Collective Action may serve as both a heuristic device and a pedagogical frame, the latter of which to train graduate students attempting to sort out the realist tradition’s origins and impact upon IR theory today."
Brent J. Steele, University of Kansas, International Studies Review

What makes individuals with divergent and often conflicting interests join together and act in unison? By drawing on the fear of external threats, this book develops a theory of 'negative association' that examines the dynamics captured by the maxim 'The enemy of my enemy is my friend'. It then traces its role from Greek and Roman political thought, through Machiavelli and the reason of state thinkers, and Hobbes and his emulators and critics, to the realists of the twentieth century. By focusing on the role of fear and enmity in the formation of individual and group identity, this book reveals an important tradition in the history of political thought and offers insights into texts that are considered familiar. This book demonstrates that the fear of external threats is an essential element of the formation and preservation of political groups and that its absence renders political association unsustainable.

Prologue
Introduction
1. Negative association
2. 'Carthage must be saved'
3. Enemies at the gates: Machiavelli's return to the beginnings of cities
4. The enemy of my enemy is my friend: negative association and reason of state
5. Survival through fear: Hobbes's problem and solution
6. Hobbism
7. The politics of enmity
Epilogue.

Subject Areas: International relations [JPS], Political science & theory [JPA], History of ideas [JFCX]