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Introduction to the symposium. The concept of protean power: change we can believe in?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 August 2020

Jacques E. C. Hymans Open the ORCID record for Jacques E. C. Hymans [Opens in a new window]
Jacques E. C. Hymans*
Affiliation:
University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA
*
Corresponding author. E-mail: hymans@usc.edu
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Abstract

This introductory article to the symposium first presents and then critiques the protean power concept of the Katzenstein and Seybert volume. Although the volume underestimates the value of rational choice models to explain some cases of protean power, it rightly demonstrates that our conventional theoretical toolkit insufficiently anticipates many such disruptions. Drawing on the examples of post-World War I veterans' movements and India's 1998 decision to test nuclear weapons, I argue that the protean power research agenda should focus on the reciprocal relationship between radical uncertainty and psychological and behavioral rigidity.

Keywords

protean powerpolitical psychologyagile actorsrigid actorsveterans' movementsnuclear weapons
Type
Symposium: Protean Power: Exploring the Uncertain and Unexpected in World Politics: Edited by Jacques E. C. Hymans
Information
International Theory , Volume 12 , Issue 3 , November 2020 , pp. 410 - 421
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press

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