Review of: Henry R.

Nau, Perspectives on International Relations: Power, Institutions, and Ideas

(Washington, D. C.: C Q Press, 2007, 401pp., pbk.).

Dr Adam R. C. Humphreys
University of Reading
a.r.humphreys@reading.ac.uk

This is the final, post-acceptance, pre-copy-edit version.

Published in Millennium: Journal of International Studies, Vol. 36, No. 2, April 2008, pp.370-2.
doi: 10.1177/03058298080360020204
http://mil.sagepub.com/content/36/2/370.full.pdf+html
Henry R. Nau, Perspectives on International Relations: Power, Institutions, and Ideas
(Washington, D. C.: C Q Press, 2007, 401pp., pbk.).

As Peter Katzenstein observes in his praise for Henry Nau's new textbook, introductions to
international relations compete in a crowded field. Perspectives on international relations takes on
bestsellers such as John Baylis and Steve Smith's The globalization of world politics: An
introduction to international relations, 3rd ed. (Oxford: OUP, 2005) and Joseph S. Nye's
Understanding international conflicts: An introduction to theory and history, 6th ed. (New York:
Longman, 2007). As its title suggests, Perspectives on International Relations is distinguished by
its use of competing perspectives to analyze each topic: Nau's realist, liberal, and identity
perspectives emphasize, respectively, the power, institutions, and ideas of the subtitle.
Following a very clear exposition of the three perspectives, the book is divided into three
parts. The first examines international conflict, incorporating chapters on world history to the end
of the nineteenth century, the two world wars, the Cold War, and the post-Cold War world. The
second part examines the evolution and operation of the world economy, with chapters on the
emergence of global capitalism, globalization, trade, and development. The third part explores
fragmenting and unifying issues: ethnic, religious and national conflict, the environment, and global
governance. Nau concludes with an illustration of how the democratic peace can be explained from
three perspectives and on three levels of analysis.
Perspectives on international relations is clearly organized and presented. Tables indicate
how causal factors can be arranged by perspective and by level of analysis, whilst each chapter
concludes with a list of key concepts and suggested study questions. Nau also provides helpful
demonstrations of how the perspectives can be used to interpret individual scholars' positions on
key topics. Although the chapters on contemporary issues have a conventional, thematic structure,
the historical chapters are more distinctively organized, exploring their subject matter from each of
the three perspectives in turn. For example, Chapter 7 ('How the West became rich') demonstrates
how the three perspectives emphasize different features of the same historical process. Realists
identify a progression through mercantilism to the Pax Britannica, inter-war beggar-thy-neighbour
policies, and the Pax Americana. Liberals emphasize the industrial revolution, laissez-faire trade
rules, and the Bretton Woods institutions. The identity perspective describes the development of
ideas from the Protestant ethic to economic liberalism, economic nationalism, and the debate
between Keynesians and the Chicago School.
The book is aimed at an American audience. The chapter on 'How globalization actually
works', for example, starts by examining the international consequences of 'American Joe' receiving
a tax cut (p. 232). Yet this does not compromise Nau's substantive arguments: the chapters on the
operation of the global economy are, in fact, one area in which this textbook is head and shoulders
above its competitors. Nevertheless, the book's main strength is its use of the three perspectives.
Though introductory works routinely claim to illustrate the interplay of theory and history,
Perspectives on international politics is distinguished by Nau's deliberate emphasis on the plurality
of possible interpretations and by his even-handed presentation of each perspective. He seeks to
demonstrate how facts, theories, and values become inter-twined by forcing readers to look 'at the
same evidence from different angles' (p. xxv). His aim is to equip students 'to think critically – that
is, by alternatives – and to make their own intellectual choices' (p. xxv).
This strength, however, can also be a weakness: when the perspectives are applied, their
distinctive content is somewhat diluted. The realist and identity perspectives can appear reducible
to a general emphasis on the importance of power and ideas, whilst the liberal perspective seems to
encompass an array of residual factors, including 'diplomatic miscalculations' (p. 81), 'technological
and institutional factors' (p. 205), 'market reforms' (p. 310), and 'learned behaviour' (p. 375).
Further, Nau employs the perspectives not only to generate explanations, but also to generate
'accounts' (p. 61), 'views' (p. 66), 'solutions' (p. 96), and 'interpretations' (p. 138), categories that he
never satisfactorily differentiates. Consequently, it remains unclear whether the perspectives should
be interpreted as offering distinctive explanations, or whether they are merely intended to illustrate
the complexity of international relations.
Nau defines perspectives as 'scaled-down' versions of theories (p. xxiv): they are '"ideal
type" explanations that abstract and emphasize certain causes of world events over others' (p. 1).
Yet he neither indicates on what grounds we can adjudicate between perspectives, nor demonstrates
how their various insights may be combined. Although he argues that his incorporation of an
identity perspective 'updates the field' (p. xxv), Nau does not show how it is possible to construct
explanations that do justice both to 'the causal role of ideas' (p. xxv) and to the importance of power
and institutions. Rather, Perspectives on international relations depicts a divided discipline. Each
perspective offers some useful insights, but these insights cannot, ultimately, be combined in
integrated explanations.