Patrick James, Dornsife Dean's Professer Emeritus, School of International Relations, Dana and David Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences, University of Southern California and James M. Scott, University Professor and Chair, Department of Politics and Government, Illinois State University, USA

• Contents1 Understanding the challenges of conflict, crisis, and war PART I UNDERSTANDING THE PROBLEM2 Conflict, crisis, and war in world politics 3 The evolution of conflict, crisis, and war 4 The issues PART II EXPLAINING THE PROBLEM5 System-level explanations 6 State-level explanations 7 Individual-level explanations 8 Understanding crises 9 Understanding civil wars 10 Multi-level explanations PART III COPING WITH THE PROBLEM11 Taking matters into their own hands: state-based approaches tomanaging conflict, crisis, and war 12 Working with and through others: IGOs, NGOs, and conflict, crisis,and war 13 What do we know about conflict, crisis, and war? 14 References

‘In this timely, comprehensive, and thought-provoking book, Patrick James and James M. Scott offer an integrated approach to the study of conflict processes that brings together multiple levels of analysis. They masterfully blend existing scholarly work with unique visual tools and offer a wealth of illuminating examples from the real world. This authoritative text puts the pieces of the puzzle together in a highly accessible way, making it an extraordinary resource for all who are concerned with conflict in the contemporary global system.’