On The Role of IR Theory and The Doctrine of Pre-Emption: An Interview with Walter Mattli

Understanding the role of international cooperation in the contemporary context is both a theoretical and empirical question. In the inaugural STAIR interview, Dr Walter Mattli of the University of Oxford reflects upon the contributions and limitations of the dominant international relations (IR) theory perspectives on cooperation. He then moves on to discuss the empirical issue of the prospects for cooperation in the context of the Bush Administration's so-called 'doctrine of pre-emption'. He argues that to fully understand the current juncture, it is necessary to go beyond the purely state-centric neo-realist approaches that dominate the academy in the United States where he taught for a decade before coming to Oxford.