Mathias Albert – författare

Observing International Relations draws upon the modern systems theory of society, developed by Niklas Luhmann, to provide new perspectives on central aspects of contemporary world society and to generate theoretically informed insights on the possibilities and limits of regulation in global governance. The authors develop a Luhmannian theory of world society by contrasting it with competing notions of international society, critically discussing the use of modern systems theory in international relations theory and assessing its treatment of central concepts within international relations, such as power, sovereignty, governance and war.

It is generally assumed that regional integration leads to stability and peace. This book is a systematic study of the impact of European integration on the transformation of border conflicts. It provides a theoretical framework centred on four 'pathways' of impact and applies them to five cases of border conflicts: Cyprus, Ireland, Greece/Turkey, Israel/Palestine and various conflicts on Russia's border with the EU. The contributors suggest that integration and association provide the EU with potentially powerful means to influence border conflicts, but that the EU must constantly re-adjust its policies depending on the dynamics of each conflict. Their findings reveal the conditions upon which the impact of integration rests and challenge the widespread notion that integration is necessarily good for peace. This book will appeal to scholars and students of international relations, European politics, and security studies studying European integration and conflict analysis.

It is generally assumed that regional integration leads to stability and peace. This book is a systematic study of the impact of European integration on the transformation of border conflicts. It provides a theoretical framework centred on four 'pathways' of impact and applies them to five cases of border conflicts: Cyprus, Ireland, Greece/Turkey, Israel/Palestine and various conflicts on Russia's border with the EU. The contributors suggest that integration and association provide the EU with potentially powerful means to influence border conflicts, but that the EU must constantly re-adjust its policies depending on the dynamics of each conflict. Their findings reveal the conditions upon which the impact of integration rests and challenge the widespread notion that integration is necessarily good for peace. This book will appeal to scholars and students of international relations, European politics, and security studies studying European integration and conflict analysis.

An interdisciplinary exploration of the role of sovereignty, national identity, and borders in international politics.Political ScienceAn interdisciplinary exploration of the role of sovereignty, national identity, and borders in international politics.Informed by current debates in social theory, Identities, Borders, Orders brings together a multinational group of respected scholars to seek and encourage imaginative adaptations and recombinations of concepts, theories, and perspectives across disciplinary lines. These contributors take up a variety of substantive, theoretical, and normative issues such as migration, nationalism, citizenship, human rights, democracy, and security. Together, their essays contribute significantly to our understanding of sovereignty, national identity, and borders. Contributors: Didier Bigo, Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Paris; Lothar Brock, U of Frankfurt am Main; Chris Brown, London School of Economics; Neil Harvey, New Mexico State U; Martin O. Heisler, U of Maryland; Rey Koslowski, Rutgers U; Friedrich Kratochwil, Ludwig Maximilians U, Munich; Ronnie D. Lipschutz, UC Santa Cruz; Richard W. Mansbach, Iowa State U; David Newman, Ben Gurion U of the Negev, Israel; Antje Wiener, Queen’s U of Belfast; and Frankie Wilmer, Montana State U.

Functional differentiation has long been at the heart of sociological thought, and as such has become a defining feature in the evolution of modern society; one which distinguishes it from pre-modern societies which have instead typically differentiated by means of segmentation, or stratified social systems such as class. Drawing on the latest developments on differentiation theory in international relations and sociology, this book brings together contributions from leading IR scholars and sociological theorists to offer a unique interdisciplinary synthesis in which contemporary world politics is discussed as a differentiated social realm. Bringing Sociology to International Relations is an illuminating and innovative new resource for scholars and students which strives to respond to a significant question across all its chapters: what happens when this well-established sociological theoretical framework is transposed from the domestic level, for which it was originally designed, to the larger and more complex subject of international relations?

In this book, Mathias Albert develops an ambitious theoretical framework that describes world politics as a specific social system set within the wider political system of world society. Albert's analysis of the historical evolution and contemporary form of world politics takes the theory of social differentiation as its starting point. World politics is a specific, relatively recent form of politics and Albert shows how the development of a distinct system of world politics first began during the long nineteenth century. The book goes on to identify the different forms of social differentiation that underlie the variety of contemporary forms of organizing political authority in world politics. Employing sociological and historical perspectives, A Theory of World Politics also reflects critically on its relation to accounts of world politics in the field of international relations and will appeal to a wide readership in a range of fields.

Functional differentiation has long been at the heart of sociological thought, and as such has become a defining feature in the evolution of modern society; one which distinguishes it from pre-modern societies which have instead typically differentiated by means of segmentation, or stratified social systems such as class. Drawing on the latest developments on differentiation theory in international relations and sociology, this book brings together contributions from leading IR scholars and sociological theorists to offer a unique interdisciplinary synthesis in which contemporary world politics is discussed as a differentiated social realm. Bringing Sociology to International Relations is an illuminating and innovative new resource for scholars and students which strives to respond to a significant question across all its chapters: what happens when this well-established sociological theoretical framework is transposed from the domestic level, for which it was originally designed, to the larger and more complex subject of international relations?

Observing International Relations draws upon the modern systems theory of society, developed by Niklas Luhmann, to provide new perspectives on central aspects of contemporary world society and to generate theoretically informed insights on the possibilities and limits of regulation in global governance. The authors develop a Luhmannian theory of world society by contrasting it with competing notions of international society, critically discussing the use of modern systems theory in international relations theory and assessing its treatment of central concepts within international relations, such as power, sovereignty, governance and war.

In this book, Mathias Albert develops an ambitious theoretical framework that describes world politics as a specific social system set within the wider political system of world society. Albert's analysis of the historical evolution and contemporary form of world politics takes the theory of social differentiation as its starting point. World politics is a specific, relatively recent form of politics and Albert shows how the development of a distinct system of world politics first began during the long nineteenth century. The book goes on to identify the different forms of social differentiation that underlie the variety of contemporary forms of organizing political authority in world politics. Employing sociological and historical perspectives, A Theory of World Politics also reflects critically on its relation to accounts of world politics in the field of international relations and will appeal to a wide readership in a range of fields.

Analysing social change has too often been characterized by parochialism, either a Eurocentrism that projects European experience outwards or a disciplinary narrowness that ignores insights from other academic disciplines. This book moves beyond these limits to develop a global perspective on social change.The book provincializes Europe in order to analyse European modernity as the product of global developments and brings together renowned scholars from international relations, history and sociology in the search for common understandings. In so doing, it provides a range of promising theoretical approaches, analytical takes and substantive research areas that offer new vistas for understanding change on a global scale.

Analysing social change has too often been characterized by parochialism, either a Eurocentrism that projects European experience outwards or a disciplinary narrowness that ignores insights from other academic disciplines. This book moves beyond these limits to develop a global perspective on social change.The book provincializes Europe in order to analyse European modernity as the product of global developments and brings together renowned scholars from international relations, history and sociology in the search for common understandings. In so doing, it provides a range of promising theoretical approaches, analytical takes and substantive research areas that offer new vistas for understanding change on a global scale.

Available open access digitally under CC-BY-NC-ND licence.Comparative practices are integral to global security politics. The balance of power politics, status competitions and global security governance would not be possible without them. Yet, they are rarely treated as the main object of study. Exploring the varied uses of comparisons, this book addresses three key questions: •How is comparative knowledge produced? •How does it become politically relevant? •How do comparative practices shape security politics? This book takes a bold new step in uniting disparate streams of research to show how comparative practices order governance processes and modulate competitive dynamics in world politics.

This book assesses the impact of the work of Chris Brown in the field of International Political Theory. The volume engages with general issues of IPT as well as basic issues such as the use and role of practical reasoning and presents a nuanced understanding about issues regarding the legitimacy of war and violence.

By drawing on a broad range of disciplinary backgrounds, this book illustrates the immense complexities of Svalbard as a place, point of reference, or social concept. It portrays the multiple, situated perspectives that characterize understandings and imaginings of Svalbard, and brings together contributions from academic fields that rarely interact with each other.Svalbard Imaginaries contributes to a number of research contexts, ranging from a broadly conceived, multi-disciplinary field of ‘Arctic Studies’ to more disciplinary specific debates on how places are reworked at the interstices of various global flows and vice versa. It assembles contributions on imaginaries that cover a wide array of issues, including—but not limited to—Svalbard as a geopolitical site, a landscape, an image, a (mining) heritage assemblage, a tourist destination, a wilderness, a built environment, a site of knowledge production, a site of artistic engagement, and projections of the future. It deliberately assembles analyses that refer to a variety of timescales and covers representations of the past, the present, and possible futures of Svalbard.

It assembles contributions on imaginaries that cover a wide array of issues, including—but not limited to—Svalbard as a geopolitical site, a landscape, an image, a (mining) heritage assemblage, a tourist destination, a wilderness, a built environment, a site of knowledge production, a site of artistic engagement, and projections of the future.

This book refers to the foundations for the empirical analysis by grounding the inquiry into the circle of Arctic knowledge production and the science/politics interface in a theoretical background that we establish on the basis of various approaches primarily drawn from the fields of International Relations (IR) and Sociology. While at the core we look for the formation and re-production of worldviews in and between science and politics, we also pay particular attention to important boundary processes and boundary organisations in order to explore how Arctic knowledge is validated, shared and transferred both within and between science and politics. In doing so, we also need to tie back these concepts to the even broader (and older) debates on the operative autonomy of different (functionally differentiated) social systems and the resulting problems of communication. After all, to put it bluntly, the often-heard frustration on the side of scientists (‘we have all the results, but the politicians won’t listen’) is not a frustration that would be peculiar to, for example, glaciologists working on the mass loss of the Greenland ice sheet. Rather, it points to rather basic issues of the autonomy of social systems as well as the possibilities and limits of directed steering. We will draw from these extensive debates in order to inquire how, and to which degree, the ‘boundary work’ between science and politics in our circle could be improved. We deliberately take such a conceptually rather ‘deep’ approach in order to forestall assumptions according to which the problem of hand might be reduced to a problem of simply ‘communicating science better’ (and, most notably, hiring more communications staff or training scientists to become better communicators).

This book assesses the impact of the work of Chris Brown in the field of International Political Theory. The volume engages with general issues of IPT as well as basic issues such as the use and role of practical reasoning and presents a nuanced understanding about issues regarding the legitimacy of war and violence.

Der Band setzt sich mit den Bedingungen und Möglichkeiten internationalen oder globalen Regierens in einer sozialen Umwelt (Weltgesellschaft) unter drei Perspektiven auseinander: der Perspektive von Theorien globaler Ordnung, der Perspektive spezifischer Formen globaler Ordnungsbildung und der Perspektive die Normativität globaler Ordnung.

Das vorliegende Buch behandelt umfassend Theorie und Praxis der Wälzlagertechnik und verknüpft dabei von Anfang an die theoretische Basis mit den praktischen Anwendungen. Die wissenschaftlichen Grundlagen der Wälzlagertechnik sind sehr vielschichtig, und es bestehen intensive Wechselbeziehungen zwischen dem Wälzlager und seiner Peripherie. Auf dem Ergebnis dieser Beziehungen beruht die Zuverlässigkeit des Lagers. Um diese Zuverlässigkeit beurteilen und ausnützen zu können, muß der Konstrukteur ein bestimmtes Maß an wälzlagertechnischem Wissen beherrschen. Das Buch bietet, in geschlossene Informationsblöcke gegliedert, wertfreie Gestaltungsunterlagen. Solche Unterlagen ließen sich allenfalls auch aus verschiedenen Herstellerhandbüchern zusammenstellen, wären dann jedoch keinesfalls wertfrei. Deshalb enthält das Buch auch nicht die gewohnte herstellerspezifischen Produkt-Tafeln, wie sie jeder Hersteller gerne zur Verfügung stellt. Die Gliederung des Stoffes in Entwicklung, Funktionserfüllung, Lagerwahl und Peripheriegestaltung, Ein- und Ausbau, Wartung, Schäden und ihre Verhütung, Qualitätssicherung, Standardisierung und Normung, Fertigungstechnologie, Forschungs- und Entwicklungstrend (Beispiele), wird dazu beitragen, das Buch zu einer wertvollen Arbeitshilfe zu machen. Die theoretischen Teile der einzelnen Abschnitte dienen in schwierigen Anwendungsfällen dazu, die Grundlagen der praktischen Wälzlagertechnik näher zu erklären. Weitergehenden mathematischen Ableitungen kann der Forscher in dem umfangreichen Literaturverzeichnis nachspüren. Damit ist das Buch sehr wohl auch für Dozenten und Studenten geeignet.

The »global« is permanently made and remade by how it is envisioned in political projects, in language, and in literature. Through a range of case studies, this book shows how practices of referring to the world actually constitute the global in its many facets. It aims to provide a sense in readers of how the global is not something »out there«, but that it is embedded in a wide range of the seemingly »everyday«. The contributions appeal to a readership from a background in Sociology, History, Political Science, Literary Studies, and Social Work.

How can we understand long-term change in world politics better? Based on readings of thinkers as diverse as Habermas, Foucault and Luhmann, the authors of this book propose a framework for understanding such change in terms of social evolution. They show that processes of social learning and unlearning are key to understanding the long-term historical evolution of complex societies, and propose to approach these with the core concepts of autonomization, hierarchical complexity, and co-evolution. Three case studies illustrate this social evolutionary perspective to the study of world politics, examining the evolution of forms of organizing political authority, of conflicts, of diplomacy, of law as boundary condition.