Announcing the publication by Routlege of two books on power:

Alternative Paths to Influence: Soft Power and International Politics (routledge.com)

This book offers new and cutting-edge analyses of under-explored subjects and issues in the realm of soft power. It attempts to fill significant scholarly gaps in understanding the process by which soft power is created, as well as gaps in demonstrating its impact.

Soft power is one of the most influential ideas in the study of international politics over the past thirty years. Can nations attain their most vital foreign policy objectives in agreeable ways? Advocates of the concept of soft power have vociferously answered in the affirmative. After many years of thinking in the field of international affairs that the only effective path to influence in international politics was military and economic power, the idea of soft power offers new and exciting possibilities of gaining such influence through a more benign path, one that elevates cooperation and esteem as preferred alternatives to violence, threat and military capacity. This book posits that the realization of the full potential of soft power as a foundation for international relations is a crucial goal for our present world, one beset by war and planetary crises.

The book will be of special interest to researchers across political science, international relations, cultural studies and foreign policy. It was originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Political Power.

Essays on Evolutions in the Study of Political Power – 1st Edition – G (routledge.com)

This book deals with the most important developments in the study of political power over the last four decades. From the writings of the great Greek philosophers of antiquity to the present, the idea of power has been the major subject in the study of politics. Indeed, some would say it defines the very field of politics itself as a social science.

Penned by the leading scholars in the field, this collection gives a broad overview of the most important issues in the study of political power, tracing the evolution of scholarly thinking about them and in doing so revealing crucial innovations therein. This will be a major contribution in the understanding of the concepts and practices of how power manifests itself across social and political contexts.

This book will be of great interest to scholars, students and individuals who wish to understand the very foundations of social and political life.

The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Political Power, volume 14, issue 1 (2021).