This study revisits Sino-Soviet relations and develops a model explaining the structure of state-to-state relations within the socialist camp. It is aimed at contributing to our understanding of the positioning of the Peoples Republic of China (PRC) within the realm of the socialist camp, and the influence this positioning had on the global setting of the Cold War. To achieve these aims the idea of triangularity in international relations is used to explain triangularity as a hidden structure within the bipolar structure of the Cold War world. While the bipolarity of the structure helps us to understand the mechanisms of long-term relative stability, triangularity helps us to understand the changes in the system and its eventual collapse.

This chapter examines Heidegger’s use of seemingly nonsensical sentences in his 1926 Logic lectures to illustrate the primacy of a kind of practical sense, which serves as a basis for a derivative logical-propositional sense. It contrasts Heidegger’s approach with a conception of nonsense emerging out of an “austere” reading of Wittgenstein’s Tractatus, according to which nonsense is never a function of what words mean but only a result of a failure to assign a meaning to one or more elements of a would-be proposition; according to this austere reading, there are thus no nonsensical propositions, but only strings of meaningless signs. Although Heidegger in certain respects hews to this austere conception, viz. in recognizing the interplay between bipolarity and something’s being a proposition at all, his use of nonsense nonetheless departs from the specifics of the austere reading. Doing so, the chapter argues, allows Heidegger to do a kind of phenomenological-ontological work, whose possibility the austere reading renders obscure (at best).

This chapter argues that in the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries the early Ming and the Timurid Empire can very much be thought of as post-Chinggisid polities. Timur (Tamerlane) very deliberately fashioned himself after Genghis Khan, but the early Ming rulers such as Hongwu and Yongle also very much understood sovereignty in the manner of their Chinggisid predecessors. As a result, both the Timurid and the early Ming manifested ambitions of world empire and recognition as well and came close to constructing a world order we may call 'bipolar' in our time. This is the story told in this chapter, as well the demise of this would-be world order in the middle of the fifteenth century – the Timurids lost control over their realm and the Ming jettisoned Chinggisid norms, turning increasingly isolationist. The chapter speculates whether the fragmentation of this world order may have something to do with a period of continental crisis in the middle of the fifteenth century, which caused a coin shortage and disrupted trade flows.

What will be the contours of the “post-post-Cold War” world? This chapter takes up that question by examining the defining international and domestic characteristics of this new age and assessing their similarities with previous eras. We begin by identifying three defining attributes of the Cold War: ideological clash, limited economic exchange, and nuclear arms racing between the American and Soviet-led blocs. Next, we explore the central feature of the post-Cold War era - namely, American primacy. We then examine the trends that have eroded primacy's material underpinnings and produced new domestic and International conditions — global power shifts, technological change, and sociopolitical fragmentation -- then project forward how those trends are likely to evolve over the next ten to fifteen years. Finally, we examine the extent to which those trends are distinct from, or continuous with, the conditions facing the United States during the Cold War and post-Cold War eras, and find that some important continuities remain even as meaningful discontinuities will disrupt existing patterns of international order. The chapter concludes by arguing that the post-post-Cold War world requires a new strategic approach for the United States — one guided by a principle of openness, rather than Cold War-style containment or post-Cold War-style liberal universalism.

The Cold War’s denouement not only saw profound political changes throughout Eurasia, but an unprecedented power shift resulting from the Soviet Union’s decline that ultimately ushered in the United States’ “unipolar era.” Nevertheless, the United States’ response to the late Cold War power shift remains underexplored. This chapter fills the gap by examining the processes by which the United States recognized the power shift underway and adapted its foreign policy. I make three arguments. First, American policymakers in the Reagan and George H. W. Bush administrations acknowledged that Soviet decline rebounded to the United States’ geopolitical advantage. Second, American policymakers responded by exploiting Soviet problems, driven by recognition that Soviet decline allowed for American gains, yet worried that the window for gains would soon close. Third, this effort altered European security, as the United States undercut the Soviet Union as a challenger while fostering conditions that could allow it to dominate European security irrespective of whether Soviet problems continued. Put simply, the United States used the Soviet decline to reify American advantages in Europe, garnering oversight over a region that had long been the cockpit of geopolitical contestation. The result meant that unipolarity also translated into American near-hegemony in Europe.

The practice-based approach to theory development in the book is described.Three core values of electoral accountability - identifiability, evaluability, and the probability of sanction - are discussed.Theories of retrospective voting and conditional representation are also presented.