World Politics Interests, Interactions, Institutions 4th Ed

This book has five parts. The first part (Chapters 1 and 2) introduces the broad patterns of conflict and cooperation in international history and lays out the text’s framework. Part Two (Chapters 3 through 6) deals with the central puzzles in the study of war and political violence: • Given the human and material costs of military conflict, why do countries sometimes wage war rather than resolve their disputes through negotiations? (Chapter 3) • What if there are actors within a country who see war as beneficial and who expect to pay few or none of its costs? Do countries fight wars to satisfy influential domestic interests? (Chapter 4) • Why is it so hard for the international community to prevent and punish acts of aggression among and within states? (Chapter 5) • Why is so much political violence in the contemporary world conducted by or against nonstate actors, including rebel groups and terrorist organizations? Why do people sometimes use violence against their own governments or unarmed civilians? (Chapter 6)