Jihad for Jerusalem: Identity and Strategy in International Relations

(Hardback)

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Jihad for Jerusalem explores the agent-structure dynamics in world politics and advances a constructivist theory of choice that explains the role of identity, culture, religion, and other core values in international politics. The struggle for Jerusalem by Iran, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Israel is the empirical space where the dynamics between reason and identity, values and strategies, is explored. Jihad for Jerusalem advances a theory of agency in international politics. This theory of agency is based on a reconstituted constructivist paradigm. The theory is tested by an examination of the foreign policy decision making of Iran, Israel, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia towards Israel from 1967-1997. The book uses the foreign policy of these states as cases to test the tension between religion and rationality, between identity and reason, between power and morality, and advances a constructivist theory of choice that explains the importance of the role of culture, religion, identity, and core values in international politics. Anyone interested in international relations theory and the convoluted politics of the Middle East, will find this book intriguing reading.

Reviews

Professionals and practitioners. * Choice *
Jihad for Jerusalem is principally aimed at an IR audience, although IR students of the Middle East will find the book provocative in explaining/understanding the divide between the rhetorical excess of state actors and their actual choices with regard to foreign policy in the region. Furthermore, the diversity of the four cases gives the comparativist a tool to overcome the strictures of area studies. Although generally familiar to the specialist, the empirical detail in the case studies is nicely reworked in accordance with a theory of agency. Jihad for Jerusalem is a welcome addition to the social-scientific literature in IR and the Middle East. * International Journal of Middle East Studies *

Author Bio

M. A. MUQTEDAR KHAN is Assistant Professor of Political Science and Director of International Studies and Chair of the Department of Political Science at Adrian College. He is the author of American Muslims: Bridging Faith and Freedom as well as numerous articles in academic journals and major newspapers throughout the world.