Description
Book SynopsisInternational Cooperation Against All Odds: The Ultrasocial World recasts how we understand international relations through an examination of how the human evolutionary predisposition to be ultrasocial as a species impacts which political ideas succeed, transform, manipulate, and inspire on a global scale.At a time when pessimism about our current world order is at an all-time high, this book overturns widespread assumptions that international relations is mainly about conflict, power, and national self-interest. In the last 10-20 years, scientists have discovered that as a species, we are biologically hard-wired, soft-wired, and pre-wired to be other-regarding and cooperative. Humans are an ultrasocial species, and yet this predisposition is completely ignored in governments across the world. Political leaders, experts, and the media have cultivated a myopic vision of global conflict, feeding an obsession on crises of the moment, rather than recognizing frequent and significant breakthroughs in peaceful cooperation and overall trends in the decline of violence. This book shows how time and time again our ultrasocial predisposition has pushed us towards big ideas that inspire and bring us together around the power of possibility. Featuring original research on international cooperation in outer-space exploration, European Union integration, nuclear weapons, and climate change, among other examples, Mai''a K. Davis Cross shows ultrasociality at work in a range of contexts. Tracing the path from social neuroscience and evolutionary biology (among others) to the power of ideas to international agreements, International Cooperation Against All Odds opens up an entirely new understanding of world politics. If we recognize our nature as a species and the potential we have to work together, we can start to transform institutions, and devise policies that take advantage of this. The book ends with a roadmap to promote more international cooperation, and eventually, a more stable, peaceful world order.
Trade ReviewVery rarely is there a book that challenges what we take for granted when studying and organizing world politics. This is one of these books. Cross' book is nothing less than a paradigm shift. It will undoubtedly become a classic * Marianne Riddervold, Innlandet University Norway and University of California Berkeley *
International Cooperation Against All Odds: The Ultrasocial World offers the reader a refreshing and ground-breaking take on global politics, which powerfully and successfully counters the established assumptions about international co-operation. Cross effectively broadens the boundaries of academic discussion with her novel conceptualization of human behaviour, which gets to the very roots of international relations, offering wide-ranging and persuasive cases. It is also a much-needed ray of optimism in today's troubled world! * Karolina Pomorska, Leiden University *
International Cooperation Against All Odds: The Ultrasocial World presents a groundbreaking perspective on international relations, offering a corrective to dominant rationalist IR theories that are ingrained with a baked in design flaw: the erroneous assumption of an individualistic and competitive 'market' model of social and organizational behavior. Instead, Cross provides a framework for understanding world politics that aligns with the emerging consensus in other social and biological sciences: that to be human means group identification and cooperation. It further argues that the human evolutionary algorithm to be "ultrasocial" shapes agenda setting, selecting optimistic over pessimistic political ideas to succeed, transform, manipulate, and inspire on a global scale. * Kaija Schilde, Boston University *
Table of ContentsIntroduction Part I Humans are Ultrasocial Beings 1: The Micro Level 2: Biology Meets Culture 3: The Social in Social Science 4: In an Ultrasocial World, Certain Ideas Matter More Part II European Integration 5: The Federalist Idea & The European Movement 6: European Transformation 7: Optimism, PessimismELand Repeat Part III Space Exploration 8: The Spaceflight Idea & The Spaceflight Movement 9: International Cooperation & the Space Race 10: A Permanent Presence in SpaceELand Beyond Part IV Nuclear Weapons 11: The Non-Use Idea & The Anti-Nuclear Movement 12: The Nuclear Taboo & Disarmament 13: The Taboo & Its Rivals Part V Climate Change 14: The Climate Movement 15: The Net-Zero Idea & the Race to Save Earth Conclusion Bibliography
