Cover -- Politics and the Life Sciences: The State of the Discipline -- Contents -- Editorial Advisory Board -- Preface -- CHAPTER 1 Biology and Politics: An Introduction -- Politics and the Life Sciences -- Historical Development of Biopolitics -- Organizational Foundation of Politics and the Life Sciences -- Entering the Mainstream -- Framing an Interactive Paradigm of Political Behavior -- The Brain Is Not a Black Box -- Epigenetics: Complicating the Model -- Rational Choice Theory -- Biology, Health, and Behavior -- The Life Sciences and Public Policy -- Organization of the Book -- CHAPTER 2 Biology and Political Theory -- Pioneers in Biopolitics: The First Generation -- Empirical Biopolitical Theory: Paradigm Change -- The Nature of Politics and the State -- Normative Biopolitics -- Impact of First-Generation Biopolitical Theory on Mainstream Political Science -- Second-Generation Biopolitics -- Genopolitics -- The Next Frontier -- The Future of Biopolitical Theory: Bringing the Generations Together -- Conclusion -- CHAPTER 3 Introduction to Methodological Issues in Biopolitics -- Biological Approaches to Understanding Human Behavior -- Politics, Political Science, and Biological Explanations -- Multicausal and Multimethod Approaches to Biopolitics -- Observable Measures of Political Behavior -- Cues -- Signals -- Measures of Political Behavior That Are Not Easily Observed -- The Central Nervous System and Brain Scans -- Measuring the Autonomic Nervous System through Psychophysiology -- Hormones in the Expression and Development of Sociopolitical Response -- Genetics -- Personality, Politics, and Changing Interpretations and Indicators -- Conclusions -- CHAPTER 4 Comparative Politics, World Politics, and International Relations in Biopolitical Perspective -- Coalescence of Fields and Subdisciplines.

Comparative Politics and Comparative Political Analysis -- Political Evolution: The Case of the Origins of the State -- International Relations, World Politics, and Biopolitics -- The Case of Ethnic Conflict and Recurring Wars -- Conclusions -- CHAPTER 5 Biology and Political Behavior -- Biological Bases of Political Behavior -- Health Status and Nutrition -- Health, Disability, and Leaders -- Biological Bases of Leadership -- Social and Cultural Neuroscience -- Herding in Humans -- Social Trust -- Empathy -- Aggression and Fear Center -- Implications for Policymakers -- Emotion, Cognition, and Decision Making -- Emotion and Cognition -- Implications for Policymaking? -- Political Ideology and Political Attitudes -- Personality and Political Attitudes -- Political Groundings -- Voting Behavior -- Conclusions: Biology and Political Behavior -- CHAPTER 6 Biopolicy: Social Issues -- Shortcomings of Current Social Policy Analysis -- Social Policy and Ethics -- The Case of Obesity -- Integration of Complex Information Sources -- The Case of Public Health -- Biopolitical Perspective: Energy Policy and Hydraulic Fracturing -- Benefits of Fracking -- Risks of Fracking -- Conclusions: Human-Centered Biopolicy -- CHAPTER 7 Ecology and Environmental Issues at the Global Level -- Introduction -- An Ecological Critique of Modernity -- Modern Rationalism and the Liberal Idea of Progress: Threats to Survival in the 21st Century -- Ecopolitics: A Challenge for Political Theory -- Trends of the Climacteric -- The Climate Change/Global Warming Controversy -- The Relationship of Politics and Economics: The Importance of Bioeconomics -- Conclusions -- Notes -- CHAPTER 8 Toward Human-Centered Political Science -- Biological Determinism -- The Subfields -- A Biopolitical Approach to Survival -- The Challenges Ahead -- Conclusion: Looking Toward the Future -- References.

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