The Oxford Handbook of International Political Sociology

This handbook provides an in-depth analysis of the theoretical agendas, analytical tools, and substantive contributions offered by International Political Sociology. It explores the range of insights available to those who use sociological theory to engage various facets of world politics, from colonialism to globalization. Structured around three defining commitments - relationalism, intersubjectivity, and historicism - the book outlines what is distinct about IPS, where it came from, and where it can go next. Engaging a wide range of debates in International Relations and related fields of enquiry, the volume includes contributions on seminal concepts in the social sciences, including power, order, rule, resistance, and agency, alongside discussion of a range of important issue-areas, from climate change to revolutions. Taken as a whole, the handbook is a seminal point of reference for understanding many of the key dynamics that shape contemporary world politics.

The Oxford Handbooks of International Relations is a twelve-volume set of reference books offering authoritative and innovative engagements with the principal sub-fields of International Relations.
The series as a whole is under the General Editorship of Christian Reus-Smit of the University of Melbourne and Duncan Snidal of the University of Oxford, with each volume edited by specialists in the field. The series both surveys the broad terrain of International Relations scholarship and reshapes it, pushing each sub-field in challenging new directions. Following the example of Reus-Smit and Snidal’s original Oxford Handbook of International Relations, each volume is organized around a strong central thematic by scholars drawn from different perspectives, reading its sub-field in an entirely new way, and pushing scholarship in challenging new directions.

Stacie E. Goddard, Betty Freyhof Johnson ’44 Professor of Political Science, Wellesley College, George Lawson, Professor of International Relations, Australian National University, Ole Jacob Sending, Research Professor, Norwegian Institute of International Affairs

Stacie E. Goddard is the Betty Freyhof Johnson ’44 Professor of Political Science and Associate Provost of Wellesley in the World. Her research and teaching focuses on questions of great power competition and international order. Her latest book, When Right Makes Might: Rising Powers and World Order was published by Cornell University Press in 2018.

George Lawson is Professor of International Relations at the Australian National University. He works primarily on historical sociology and revolutions. His many publications include On Revolutions: Unruly Politics in the Contemporary World (with Colin Beck et al.; OUP 2022), Anatomies of Revolution (CUP 2019), and The Global Transformation: History, Modernity, and the Making of International Relations (CUP 2015).

Ole Jacob Sending is Research Professor at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI) where he leads the Centre for Geopolitics. His current research focuses on the evolving features of power political competition, diplomacy, and changes in global governance arrangements.