Polity Press

The election of Donald Trump as president of the United States sent shockwaves across the globe. How was such an outcome even possible? In two lectures given at American universities in the immediate aftermath of the election, the leading French philosopher Alain Badiou helps us to make sense of this extraordinary occurrence. He argues that Trump's...

Russia is back as a major force in global politics, but what does this mean? Is Russia the dangerous revisionist foe that meddles in Western elections and tries to subvert the liberal international order? Or is it a country precariously trying to maintain security and enhance prosperity at home, while re-asserting its place as a great power in the...

Today Syria is a country known for all the wrong reasons: civil war, vicious sectarianism, and major humanitarian crisis. But how did this once rich, multi-cultural society end up as the site of one of the twenty-first century's most devastating and brutal conflicts?In this incisive book, internationally renowned Syria expert David Lesch takes the...

Since 1945, Britain has had to cope with a slow descent from international primacy. The decline in global influence was intended to be offset by the United Kingdom's entry into Europe in 1975, with the result that national foreign policy came to rest on the two pillars of the Atlantic alliance and the Common Foreign and Security Policy of the...

Jean-Jacques Rousseau is one of the most controversial philosophers of the eighteenth century, and his groundbreaking work still provokes heated debate in contemporary political theory.In this book, Céline Spector, one of the world's foremost experts on Rousseau's thought, provides an accessible introduction to his moral, social and political...

International Relations emerged as a distinct academic discipline in the early twentieth century, but its philosophic foundations draw on centuries of thinking about human nature, power and authority, justice and injustice, and their implications for relations within and between political communities. In this fully revised and updated third...