World Politics into the 21st Century: Unique Contexts, Enduring Patterns

World Politics into the 21st Century combines contemporary and historical coverage of the central issues in world politics with tools that encourage students' understanding, independent thinking, and active evaluation of real-world problems. The two traditional foundational issues in world politics―military conflict and the quest for security; the politics of international economics―receive equal, exhaustive coverage while laying the groundwork for a systematic discussion of emerging issues involving human rights and the environment. The authors emphasize what is distinctive about each of these four major issue areas while using a focus on the politics of strategic choice and the linkages between domestic and international politics to identify enduring political patterns. The authors stress the value of finding a common ground for introducing students to world politics that respects different worldviews and perspectives.

Alan Lamborn is professor of political science at Colorado State University and, since 1999, also associate dean of the College of Liberal Arts. He has been a visiting professor at the University of Colorado, Boulder, and at the Graduate School of International Studies at the University of Denver. Before coming to Colorado State University, he taught at Smith College, where a nomination by his students led to his selection as a Danforth Associate by the Danforth Foundation. The Danforth Foundation describes the Associate Program as one designed to honor college faculty who are "interested and active in research, and concerned with the development of undergraduate students in terms of their values and social responsibility." In 1994 he was selected for a Pew Faculty Fellowship in International Affairs, a program based at the John F Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, which promoted case-method teaching and active learning techniques. He received a Ph.D. and M.A. in political science at the University of Michigan and a B.A. in government from Oberlin College.

Professor Lamborn's scholarly work focuses on the politics of strategic choice, bargaining and conflict resolution, the linkages between domestic and international politics, the nature of power, and theories of world politics. He is the author of The Price of Power: Risk and Foreign Policy in Britain, France, and Germany (1991) and coauthor, with Stephen Mumme, of Statecraft, Domestic Politics, and Foreign Policy Making (1988). His principal articles have appeared in the International Studies Quarterly and the International Studies Review.

Joseph Lepgold. The late Joseph Lepgold was associate professor of international affairs and government in the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service and the Department of Government at Georgetown University, where he won the School of Foreign Service Award for the Best Teacher in Government in 1997 and the School of Foreign Service Teaching Award in 1993 and 1996. He was field chair of the international relations subfield in the Department of Government and chair of the Faculty Field Committee for International Politics in the School of Foreign Service. He received a Ph.D. and M.A. in political science from Stanford University and a B.A. in international relations from the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee.

Professor Lepgold's scholarly interests included multilateral security, theories of strategic interaction and of cognitive processes, and the link between theories of international relations and policy practice. He was the author, coauthor, or co-editor of five books dealing with alliance politics, regional conflict management, the uses of international relations theory in policy making, and burden-sharing: Beyond the Ivory Tower: International Relations Theory and the Problem of Policy Relevance with Miroslav Nincic (2001), Being Useful: Policy Relevance and International Relations Theory, edited with Miroslav Nincic (2000), Collective Conflict Management, edited with Thomas Weiss (1998), Friends in Need: Burden Sharing in the Persian Gulf, edited with Andrew Bennett and Danny Unger (1997), and The Declining Hegemon: The United States and European Defense, 1960-1990 (1990). His articles appeared in International Security, International Organization, Security Studies, Political Science Quarterly, Journal of Strategic Studies, Review of International Studies, and International Interactions. He also contributed chapters to a variety of scholarly collections on security studies and international relations theory.