Protean Power

Peter J. Katzenstein has served as President of the American Political Science Association and is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Science, the American Philosophical Society and the British Academy. He has been the recipient of the Helen Dwight Reid Award, the Woodrow Wilson prize for the best book published in the United States on international affairs and the Masayoshi Ohira Memorial Prize as well as five honorary degrees of European and Chinese universities. He has taught at Cornell for over forty years. Lucia A. Seybert is a Professorial Lecturer at American University, School of International Service. She is a former Title VIII Research Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center and a recipient of a number of research grants and fellowships, including from the American Council of Learned Societies.

• Part I. Theory and Evidence: 1. Protean power and control power: conceptual analysis Lucia A. Seybert and Peter J. Katzenstein; 2. Uncertainty, risk, power and the limits of international relations theory Peter J. Katzenstein and Lucia A. Seybert; Part II. Protean Power: Embracing Uncertainty: 3. Protean power and revolutions in rights Christian Reus-Smit; 4. Protean power in movement: navigating uncertainty in the LGBT rights revolution Phillip Ayoub; 5. Border collision: power dynamics of enforcement and evasion across the US–Mexico line Noelle K. Brigden and Peter Andreas; 6. High tech: power and unpredictability at the technological frontier and in Bitcoin Lucia A. Seybert and Peter J. Katzenstein; Part III. Mixed Worlds: Agility Meets Ability: 7. Firms in firmament: hydrocarbons and the circulation of power Rawi Abdelal; 8. Incomplete control: the circulation of power in finance Erin Lockwood and Stephen Nelson; 9. Terrorism and protean power: how terrorists navigate uncertainty Barak Mendelsohn; 10. Slumdog versus Superman: uncertainty, innovation and the circulation of power in the global film industry Lucia A. Seybert, Stephen Nelson and Peter J. Katzenstein; Part IV. Protean Power between Risk and Uncertainty: 11. Changing history?: Innovation and continuity in contemporary arms control Jennifer Erickson; 12. From Green to REDD: protean power and the politics of carbon sinks Jessica Green; Part V. Conclusion: 13. Power complexities and political theory Peter J. Katzenstein and Lucia A. Seybert.

'Protean Power is the most important statement on power in international relations in over a decade. Ambitious, creative, and analytical, it sets out a new agenda for imagining how power operates in world politics. The authors make a compelling case that power can be divided between protean and control. Control power dominates much thinking in international relations, with the presumption that one actor forces another to do something against its will. Protean power highlights the improvisational and creative responses to conditions of uncertainty. This distinction directs attention to the uncertainties and social capacities that provide a stage for actors to creatively engage the world and in ways that have the unintended effects of transforming it; the possibility of agency for even the weakest actors; the imperative to distinguish more fully between 'power to' and 'power over'; how, when, and why control power is sandwiched by protean power; and how protean power itself can scramble existing social relations and usurp control power. A masterful volume that not only hits the 'reset' on discussions of power in international relations theory, but also helps us understand the bewildering and unanticipated changes that have occurred over the last half-century.' Michael Barnett, George Washington University, Washington DC