The Great Powers and the International System
Systemic Theory in Empirical Perspective

The first book to describe and test a fully systemic theory of international politics using statistics and diplomatic history.

Bear F. Braumoeller (Author)

9781107659186, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 11 February 2013

297 pages, 34 b/w illus. 10 tables
23.5 x 15.5 x 1.6 cm, 0.43 kg

"Bear F. Braumoeller’s The Great Powers and the International System: Systemic Theory in Empirical Perspective accomplishes what no other scholarly work has effectively done by bridging the agent-structure gap and arguing for a truly systemic theory of international relations."
Michael Cairo, Transylvania University, H-Net Reviews

Do great leaders make history? Or are they compelled to act by historical circumstance? This debate has remained unresolved since Thomas Carlyle and Karl Marx framed it in the mid-nineteenth century, yet implicit answers inform our policies and our views of history. In this book, Professor Bear F. Braumoeller argues persuasively that both perspectives are correct: leaders shape the main material and ideological forces of history that subsequently constrain and compel them. His studies of the Congress of Vienna, the interwar period, and the end of the Cold War illustrate this dynamic, and the data he marshals provide systematic evidence that leaders both shape and are constrained by the structure of the international system.

1. Introduction
2. System, state, and citizen
3. System, process, and evidence
4. Systems in historic perspective
5. Conclusions and implications.

Subject Areas: International law [LB], Diplomacy [JPSD], International relations [JPS], Politics & government [JP]