This book develops a framework for the study of politics and derives from it a theory of international relations. I elaborate only part of this theory in detail – that having to do with the spirit – because it is the motive more or less ignored by political science. I posit three fundamental motives that reflect universal human needs – appetite, spirit and reason – and a fourth – fear – that grows in importance in proportion to the failure of reason to constrain appetite or spirit. Each motive has an associated “logic” that prompts specific approaches to cooperation, conflict and risk-taking. Appetite, spirit and reason have the potential to generate orders, each associated with a different form of hierarchy and principle of justice, or a combination of principles in the case of reason. Fear can also produce order, but as Aristotle, Hobbes and Weber recognize, it is likely to be short-lived if it is not associated with some principle of justice that brings about a high voluntary degree of compliance.

My theory is dynamic because it accepts change as the norm, defined as movement away from rather than towards any postulated equilibrium.