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The history of international political orders is written in terms of continuity and change in domestic and international political relations. As a step toward understanding such continuity and change, we explore some ideas drawn from an institutional perspective. An institutional perspective is characterized in terms of two grand issues that divide students of international relations and other organized systems. The first issue concerns the basic logic of action by which human behavior is shaped. On the one side are those who see action as driven by a logic of anticipated consequences and prior preferences. On the other side are those who see action as driven by a logic of appropriateness and a sense of identity. The second issue concerns the efficiency of history. On the one side are those who see history as efficient in the sense that it follows a course leading to a unique equilibrium dictated by exogenously determined interests, identities, and resources. On the other side are those who see history as inefficient in the sense that it follows a meandering, path-dependent course distinguished by multiple equilibria and endogenous transformations of interests, identities, and resources. We argue that the tendency of students of international political order to emphasize efficient histories and consequential bases for action leads them to underestimate the significance of rule- and identity-based action and inefficient histories. We illustrate such an institutional perspective by considering some features of the coevolution of politics and institutions, particularly the ways in which engagement in political activities affects the definition and elaboration of political identities and the development of competence in politics and the capabilities of political institutions.

I take up the question of political identity as the continuity of a community across time. In particular, I examine what it means to think of a political community as the subject of attribution across generations, that is, what is meant when it is made the bearer of responsibility for the past and a custodian of the future. In doing that, I focus on identity, memory, and responsibility and discuss that cluster of concepts using as an illustrative example the idea of constitutional patriotism and its relationship to the past.

This essay examines the paradoxical effects on Arab Jews of their two, rival essentialist nationalisms-Jewish and Arab. It shows how the Eurocentric concept of a single \"Jewish History\" cut non-Ashkenazi Jews off from their origins, even while the Zionist idea that Arabness and Jewishness are mutually exclusive gradually came to be shared by Arab nationalist discourse. The emergence of a new, hybrid identity of Mizrahim, as a product both of Israel's assimilationist policy and of resistance to it, is discussed. Finally, the author proposes an interdisciplinary framework-Mizrahi studies-as a way of going beyond hegemonic Zionist discourses while at the same time making a strong link to the Palestinian issue.

NATO is facing major changes and challenges: enlargement, new threats, new missions, new technology, and declining defence budgets. These developments raise the question of who will pay for the changes and hence the possibility of new burden-sharing debates burden-sharing was a focus of controversy in the past and it could re-emerge in the future. A variety of burden-sharing measures are reviewed. These range from such traditional indicators as the share of defence in GDP to a range of alternative military measures as well as civil indicators, such as contributions to UN humanitarian operations and economic aid. Burden-sharing debates are affected by choice of indicator. Different indicators give different rankings and results. Nations will select the indicator(s) which show that they are bearing an 'unfairly' high burden of the collective defence effort. The final part of the article examines the likely developments in burden-sharing over the next decade (e.g. new missions, new technology, enlargement). On enlargement, emphasis is placed on the need to assess both the benefits and costs of NATO expansion and the conclusion focuses on the optimal size of NATO.

Cognitive theories predict that even experts cope with the complexities and ambiguities of world politics by resorting to theory-driven heuristics that allow them: (a) to make confident counterfactual inferences about what would have happened had history gone down a different path (plausible pasts); (b) to generate predictions about what might yet happen (probable futures); (c) to defend both counterfactual beliefs and conditional forecasts from potentially disconfirming data. An interrelated series of studies test these predictions by assessing correlations between ideological world view and beliefs about counterfactual histories (Studies 1 and 2), experimentally manipulating the results of hypothetical archival discoveries bearing on those counterfactual beliefs (Studies 3-5), and by exploring experts' reactions to the confirmation or disconfirmation of conditional forecasts (Studies 6-12). The results revealed that experts neutralize dissonant data and preserve confidence in their prior assessments by resorting to a complex battery of beliefsystem defenses that, epistemologically defensible or not, make learning from history a slow process and defections from theoretical camps a rarity.

Rationalist models have faced four persistent sets of critics as the research program of international relations has evolved. Under neorealism's structural constraints of international competition and selection, agents' rationality may appear superfluous. Psychological critics have presented neither a single theoretical alternative to rational choice nor contingent hypotheses that specify when psychological distortions of rational decision making are most likely. Both rational choice and psychological approaches must construct models of action for social entities that aggregate individuals. The rationality and individualism of beliefs is questioned by theorists who stress culture, identity, and norms as independent sources of action. Careful stipulation of scope, acknowledgment of methodological shortcomings, and precise definition of differences can serve to bridge the theoretical divide between rational choice models and their critics. Problem-centered research provides a level playing field on which theoretical competition can be established.

At no time has there been more fascination with the contrast that memories of colonialism afford between the “elegance” of domination and the brutality of its effects.Renato Rosaldo, “Imperialist Nostalgia,” in Culture and Truth, (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1985), 68. While images of empire surface and resurface in the public domain, colonial studies has materialized over the last decade as a force of cultural critique, political commentary, and not least as a domain of new expert knowledge. One could argue that the entire field has positioned itself as a counterweight to the waves of colonial nostalgia that have emerged in the post-World War II period in personal memoirs, coffee table books, tropical chic couture, and a film industry that encourages “even politically progressive [North American] audiences” to enjoy “the elegance of manners governing relations of dominance and subordination between the races.”Ibid. Still, Nietzsche's warning against “idle cultivation of the garden of history” resonates today when it is not always clear whether some engagements with the colonial are raking up colonial ground, or vicariously luxuriating in it.Freidrich Nietzsche, “The Uses and Advantages of History,” Untimely Meditations, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996[1874]), 68.