Power and International Relations: A Conceptual Approach

Contrary to conventional wisdom, the concept of power has not always been central to international relations theory. During the 1920s and 30s, power was often ignored or vilified by international relations scholars?especially in America. Power and International Relations explores how this changed in later decades by tracing how power emerged as an important social science concept in American scholarship after World War I. Combining intellectual history and conceptual analysis, David Baldwin examines power's increased presence in the study of international relations and looks at how the three dominant approaches of realism, neoliberalism, and constructivism treat power.