International Cooperation Against All Odds by Mai'a K Davis Cross

International Cooperation Against All Odds by Mai'a K Davis Cross

International Cooperation Against All Odds: The Ultrasocial World recasts how we understand international relations through an examination of how the human evolutionary predisposition to be "ultrasocial" as a species impacts which political ideas succeed, transform, manipulate, and inspire on a global scale. At a time when pessimism about our current world order is at an all-time high, this book overturns widespread assumptions that international relations is mainly about conflict, power, and national self-interest. In the last 10-20 years, scientists have discovered that as a species, we are biologically hard-wired, soft-wired, and pre-wired to be other-regarding and cooperative. Humans are an ultrasocial species, and yet this predisposition is completely ignored in governments across the world. Political leaders, experts, and the media have cultivated a myopic vision of global conflict, feeding an obsession on crises of the moment, rather than recognizing frequent and significant breakthroughs in peaceful cooperation and overall trends in the decline of violence. This book shows how time and time again our ultrasocial predisposition has pushed us towards big ideas that inspire and bring us together around the power of possibility. Featuring original research on international cooperation in outer-space exploration, European Union integration, nuclear weapons, and climate change, among other examples, Mai'a K. Davis Cross shows ultrasociality at work in a range of contexts. Tracing the path from social neuroscience and evolutionary biology (among others) to the power of ideas to international agreements, International Cooperation Against All Odds opens up an entirely new understanding of world politics. If we recognize our nature as a species and the potential we have to work together, we can start to transform institutions, and devise policies that take advantage of this. The book ends with a roadmap to promote more international cooperation, and eventually, a more stable, peaceful world order.

Very rarely is there a book that challenges what we take for granted when studying and organizing world politicsThis is one of these books. Cross' book is nothing less than a paradigm shift. It will undoubtedly become a classic * Marianne Riddervold, Innlandet University Norway and University of California Berkeley *
International Cooperation Against All Odds: The Ultrasocial World offers the reader a refreshing and ground-breaking take on global politics, which powerfully and successfully counters the established assumptions about international co-operation. Cross effectively broadens the boundaries of academic discussion with her novel conceptualization of human behaviour, which gets to the very roots of international relations, offering wide-ranging and persuasive cases. It is also a much-needed ray of optimism in today's troubled world! * Karolina Pomorska, Leiden University *
International Cooperation Against All Odds: The Ultrasocial World presents a groundbreaking perspective on international relations, offering a corrective to dominant rationalist IR theories that are ingrained with a baked in design flaw: the erroneous assumption of an individualistic and competitive 'market' model of social and organizational behavior. Instead, Cross provides a framework for understanding world politics that aligns with the emerging consensus in other social and biological sciences: that to be human means group identification and cooperation. It further argues that the human evolutionary algorithm to be "ultrasocial" shapes agenda setting, selecting optimistic over pessimistic political ideas to succeed, transform, manipulate, and inspire on a global scale. * Kaija Schilde, Boston University *

Mai'a K. Davis Cross is the Dean's Professor of Political Science, International Affairs, and Diplomacy and Director of the Center for International Affairs and World Cultures at Northeastern University. She is the author of four books, including The Politics of Crisis in Europe (Cambridge University Press, 2017) and Security Integration in Europe: How Knowledge-based Networks are Transforming the European Union (University of Michigan Press, 2011), which is the 2012 winner of the Best Book Prize from the University Association of Contemporary European Studies. She holds a PhD in Politics from Princeton University, and AB in Government from Harvard University. She is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780198894995
ISBN 10	0198894996
Title	International Cooperation Against All Odds
Author	Mai'a K Davis Cross
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Oxford University Press
Year published	2023-11-03
Number of pages	320
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.