Is the idea of the Middle East simply a geopolitical construct conceived by the West to serve particular strategic and economic interestsOCoor can we identify geographical, historical, cultural, and political patterns to indicate some sort of internal coherence to this label? While the term has achieved common usage, no one studying the region has yet addressed whether this conceptualization has real meaningOCoand then articulated what and where the Middle East is, or is not.
This volume fills the void, offering a diverse set of voicesOCofrom political and cultural historians, to social scientists, geographers, and political economistsOCoto debate the possible manifestations and meanings of the Middle East. At a time when geopolitical forces, social currents, and environmental concerns have brought attention to the region, this volume examines the very definition and geographic and cultural boundaries of the Middle East in an unprecedented way."

This volume explores the ways petroleum as an industry and substance has moulded the social, cultural and artistic life of the Middle East. Rather than tackle the powers of this crucial resource from the perspective of macro-economics, impersonal rentier states and large corporations, this book 'brings oil back' into the ebbs and flows of Middle Eastern life. It focuses on the ways petroleum mediates and is mediated by national formations and imaginaries, visual practices, as well as scientific, business and artistic production. In focusing on the largest oil producing and exporting region in the world, this volume sheds light on the effects and affects of petroleum's presence within and beyond the oil-industry.

For nearly 60 years--from its uprising against British rule in the 1950s, to the bloody civil war between Greek and Turkish Cypriots in the 1960s, the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in the 1970s, and the United Nation's ongoing 30-year effort to reunite the island--the tiny Mediterranean nation of Cyprus has taken a disproportionate share of the international spotlight. And while it has been often in the news, accurate and impartial information on the conflict has been nearly impossible to obtain.
In The Cyprus Problem: What Everyone Needs to Know(r), James Ker-Lindsay--recently appointed as expert advisor to the UN Secretary-General's Special Advisor on Cyprus--offers an incisive, even-handed account of the conflict. Ker-Lindsay covers all aspects of the Cyprus problem, placing it in historical context, addressing the situation as it now stands, and looking toward its possible resolution. The book begins with the origins of the Greek and Turkish Cypriot communities as well as the other indigenous communities on the island (Maronites, Latin, Armenians, and Gypsies). Ker-Lindsay then examines the tensions that emerged between the Greek and Turkish Cypriots after independence in 1960 and the complex constitutional provisions and international treaties designed to safeguard the new state. He pays special attention to the Turkish invasion in 1974 and the subsequent efforts by the UN and the international community to reunite Cyprus. The book's final two chapters address a host of pressing issues that divide the two Cypriot communities, including key concerns over property, refugee returns, and the repatriation of settlers. Ker-Lindsay concludes by considering whether partition really is the best solution, as many observers increasingly suggest.
Written by a leading expert, The Cyprus Problem brings much needed clarity and understanding to a conflict that has confounded observers and participants alike for decades.
What Everyone Needs to Know(r) is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press

"Churchill, America and Vietnam 1941-1945" offers a nuanced analysis of British policy towards the post-war structure of the European colonial empires. By ample, carefully deployed evidence, the book concludes, that Churchill was willing to sacrifice French colonial interests in Vietnam for the sake of his all-important 'special relationship' with America. This reveals not only a clear sense of Churchill's wartime priorities, but also fresh and original insights into the inconsistencies sometimes apparent in the Prime Minister's position - for example as a staunch defender of imperialism. There are also numerous illustrations of the personality and character, not only of Churchill, but also of Roosevelt and other leading figures. In effect, this book represents a fusion of British imperial and diplomatic history, and it emphasises how important they are to one another, by using the often-neglected case study of Britain's involvement with Vietnam.

What explains the variety of responses that states adopt toward different refugee groups? Refugees might be granted protection or turned away; they might be permitted to live where they wish and earn an income, pursue education, and access medical treatment; or, they might be confined to a camp and forced to rely on aid while being denied basic services. However, states do not consistently wield their capacity for control, nor do they jealously guard their authority to regulate. In this book, Lamis Elmy Abdelaaty asks why states sometimes assert their sovereignty vis-a-vis refugee rights and at other times seemingly cede it by delegating refugee oversight to the United Nations. To explain this selective exercise of sovereignty, Abdelaaty develops a two-part theoretical framework in which policymakers in refugee-receiving countries weigh international and domestic concerns. Policymakers in a receiving country might decide to offer protection to refugees from a rival country in order to undermine the sending country's stability, saddle it with reputation costs, and even engage in guerilla-style cross-border attacks. At the domestic level, policymakers consider political competition among ethnic groups-welcoming refugees who are ethnic kin of citizens can satisfy domestic constituencies, expand the base of support for the government, and encourage mobilization along ethnic lines. When these international and domestic incentives conflict, the state shifts responsibility for refugees to the UN, which allows policymakers to placate both refugee-sending countries and domestic constituencies. Abdelaaty analyzes asylum admissions worldwide, and then examines three case studies in-depth: Egypt (a country that is broadly representative of most refugee recipients), Turkey (an outlier that has limited the geographic application of the Refugee Convention), and Kenya (home to one of the largest refugee populations in the world). Discrimination and Delegation argues that foreign policy and ethnic identity, more so than resources, humanitarianism, or labor skills, shape reactions to refugees.

Co-published with The Graduate Institute, this book examines how energy issues have intensified with modern development, how they shape geopolitics and access to energy in Africa, and how inconsistent energy governance really is. It discusses energy policy options in developing and emerging countries and questions the role of development aid.

As the Indo-Pacific emerges as the world's most strategically consequential region and competition with China intensifies, the United States must adapt its approach if it seeks to preserve its power and sustain regional stability and prosperity. Yet as China grows more powerful and aggressive and the United States appears increasingly unreliable, the Indo-Pacific has become riven with uncertainty. These dynamics threaten to undermine the region's unprecedented peace and prosperity. U.S. Strategy in the Asian Century offers vital perspective on the future of power dynamics in the Indo-Pacific, focusing on the critical roles that American allies and partners can play. Abraham M. Denmark argues that these alliances and partnerships represent indispensable strategic assets for the United States. They will be necessary in any effort by Washington to compete with China, promote prosperity, and preserve a liberal order in the Indo-Pacific. Blending academic rigor and practical policy experience, Denmark analyzes the future of major-power competition in the region, with an eye toward American security interests. He details a pragmatic approach for the United States to harness the power of its allies and partners to ensure long-term regional stability and successfully navigate the complexities of the new era.

By most estimates, global consumption of natural gas - a cleaner-burning alternative to coal and oil - will double by 2030. However, in North America, Europe, China, and South and East Asia, which are the areas of highest-expected demand, the projected consumption of gas is expected to far outstrip indigenous supplies. Delivering gas from the world's major reserves to the future demand centres will require a major expansion of inter-regional, cross-border gas transport infrastructures. This book investigates the implications of this shift, utilizing historical case studies as well as advanced economic modelling to examine the interplay between economic and political factors in the development of natural gas resources. The contributors aim to shed light on the political challenges which may accompany a shift to a gas-fed world.

On Geopolitics shows how the 'new geopolitics' combines the fields of geography and international relations to create a comprehensive overview of current political developments. Using recent developments in geographical technology as well as traditional theories and methods, Harvey Starr explores themes of spatiality and territoriality as they connect to international affairs. He also examines geopolitical dynamics beyond borders in a world now buffeted by non state actors and subject to intergovernmental institutions and norms. On Geopolitics is a brilliant synthesis of Starr's ongoing work on conflict and co-operation, alliances, opportunity, and willingness, within a geographic framework. At the same time, Starr points the way toward new tools and techniques for the study of globalisation and world politics.

This book presents a challenge to the discipline of international relations (IR) to rethink itself, in the light of both its own modern origins, and the two centuries of world history that have shaped it. By tracking the development of thinking about IR, and the practice of world politics, this book shows how they relate to each other across five time periods from nineteenth-century colonialism, through two world wars, the Cold War and decolonization, to twenty-first-century globalization. It gives equal weight to both the neglected voices and histories of the Global South, and the traditionally dominant perspectives of the West, showing how they have moved from nearly complete separation to the beginnings of significant integration. The authors argue that IR needs to continue this globalizing movement if it is to cope with the rapidly emerging post-Western world order, with its more diffuse distribution of wealth, power and cultural authority.

Climate change is producing profound changes globally. Yet we still know little about how it affects real people in real places on a daily basis because most of our knowledge comes from scientific studies that try to estimate impacts and project future climate scenarios. This book is different, illustrating in vivid detail how people in the Andes have grappled with the effects of climate change and ensuing natural disasters for more than half a century. In Peru's Cordillera Blanca mountain range, global climate change has generated the world's most deadly glacial lake outburst floods and glacier avalanches, killing 25,000 people since 1941. As survivors grieved, they formed community organizations to learn about precarious glacial lakes while they sent priests to the mountains, hoping that God could calm the increasingly hostile landscape. Meanwhile, Peruvian engineers working with miniscule budgets invented innovative strategies to drain dozens of the most unstable lakes that continue forming in the twenty first century.
But adaptation to global climate change was never simply about engineering the Andes to eliminate environmental hazards. Local urban and rural populations, engineers, hydroelectric developers, irrigators, mountaineers, and policymakers all perceived and responded to glacier melting differently-based on their own view of an ideal Andean world. Disaster prevention projects involved debates about economic development, state authority, race relations, class divisions, cultural values, the evolution of science and technology, and shifting views of nature. Over time, the influx of new groups to manage the Andes helped transform glaciated mountains into commodities to consume. Locals lost power in the process and today comprise just one among many stakeholders in the high Andes-and perhaps the least powerful. Climate change transformed a region, triggering catastrophes while simultaneously jumpstarting modernization processes. This book's historical perspective illuminates these trends that would be ignored in any scientific projections about future climate scenarios.

Simon Reich presents an interpretation of the relationship between material (hard) and social (soft) power, with implications for the alternative ways these link and the impact of these linkages on the future of American policy. "Global Norms" offers a new way of understanding both theory and policy in the 21st Century.

An argument for the classical realist approach to world politics An Unwritten Future offers a fresh reassessment of classical realism, an enduring approach to understanding crucial events in the international political arena. Jonathan Kirshner identifies the fundamental flaws of classical realism's would-be successors and shows how this older, more nuanced and sophisticated method for studying world politics better explains the formative events of the past. Kirshner also reveals how this approach is ideally equipped to comprehend the vital questions of the present-such as the implications of China's rise, the ways that social and economic change alter the balance of power and the nature of international conflict, and the consequences of the end of the US-led postwar order for the future of world politics. Laying out realism's core principles, Kirshner discusses the contributions of the perspective's key thinkers, including Thucydides, Hans Morgenthau, and Raymond Aron, among others. He illustrates how a classical realist approach gives new insights into major upheavals of the twentieth century, such as Britain's appeasement of Nazi Germany and America's ruinous involvement in Vietnam. Kirshner also addresses realism's limits and explores contemporary issues, including the ascent of great power challengers, the political implications of globalization, and the diffusion of power in modern world politics. A reexamination of the realist tradition, with a renewed emphasis on the crucial roles played by uncertainty, contingency, and contestation, An Unwritten Future demonstrates how a once-popular school of thought provides invaluable insights into pressing real-world problems.

In its comparison of two major emerging nations, India and Brazil, this book approaches the subject through an innovative theoretical combination of developmental states theory and theories of the changing nature of global capitalism.

Israel and Africa critically examines the ways in which Africa - as a geopolitical entity - is socially manufactured, collectively imagined but also culturally denied in Israeli politics. Its unique exploration of moral geography and its comprehensive, interdisciplinary research on the two countries offers new perspectives on Israeli history and society. Through a genealogical investigation of the relationships between Israel and Africa, this book sheds light on the processes of nationalism, development and modernization, exploring Africa's role as an instrument in the constant re-shaping of Zionism. Through looking at "Israel in Africa" as well as "Africa in Israel", it provides insightful analysis on the demarcation of Israel's ethnic boundaries and identity formation as well as proposing the different practices, from architectural influences to the arms trade, that have formed the geopolitical concept of "Africa". It is through these practices that Israel reproduces its internal racial and ethnic boundaries and spaces, contributing to its geographical imagination as detached not solely from the Middle East but also from its African connections. This book would be of interest to students and scholars of Middle East and Jewish Studies, as well as Post-colonial Studies, Geography and Architectural History.

We live in the era of the knowledge-based economy, and this has major implications for the ways in which states, cities and even supranational political units are spatially planned, governed and developed. In this book, Sami Moisio delves deeply into the links between the knowledge-based economy and geopolitics, examining a wide range of themes, including city geopolitics and the university as a geopolitical site. Overall, this work shows that knowledge-based "economization" can be understood as a geopolitical process that produces territories of wealth, security, power and belonging. This book will prove enlightening to students, researchers and policymakers in the fields of human geography, urban studies, spatial planning, political science and international relations.

During the last twenty years, burgeoning transnational trade, investment and production linkages have emerged in the area between the Indian and Pacific Oceans. The appearance of this area of interdependence and interaction and its potential impact on global order has captured the attention of political leaders, and the concept of the Indo-Pacific region is increasingly appearing in international political discourse. This book explores the emergence of the Indo-Pacific concept in different national settings. Chapters engage with critical theories of international relations, regionalism, geopolitics and geoeconomics in reflecting on the domestic and international drivers and foreign policy debates around the Indo-Pacific concept in Australia, India, the United States, Indonesia and Japan. They evaluate the reasons why the concept of the Indo-Pacific has captured the imaginations of policy makers and policy analysts in these countries and assess the implications of competing interpretations of the Indo-Pacific for conflict and cooperation in the region. A significant contribution to the analysis of the emerging geopolitics of the Indo-Pacific, this book will be of interest to researchers in the field of Asian Studies, International Relations, Regionalism, Foreign Policy Analysis and Geopolitics.

On February 17, 2008, Kosovo declared its independence, becoming the seventh state to emerge from the break-up of the former Yugoslavia. A tiny country of just two million people, 90% of whom are ethnic Albanians, Kosovo is central-geographically, historically, and politically-to the future of the Western Balkans and, in turn, its potential future within the European Union. But the fate of both Kosovo, condemned by Serbian leaders as a "fake state" and the region as a whole, remains uncertain.
In Kosovo: What Everyone Needs to Know(r), Tim Judah provides a straight-forward guide to the complicated place that is Kosovo. Judah, who has spent years covering the region, offers succinct, penetrating answers to a wide range of questions: Why is Kosovo important? Who are the Albanians? Who are the Serbs? Why is Kosovo so important to Serbs? What role does Kosovo play in the region and in the world? Judah reveals how things stand now and presents the history and geopolitical dynamics that have led to it. The most important of these is the question of the right to self-determination, invoked by the Kosovo Albanians, as opposed to right of territorial integrity invoked by the Serbs. For many Serbs, Kosovo's declaration of independence and subsequent recognition has been traumatic, a savage blow to national pride. Albanians, on the other hand, believe their independence rights an historical wrong: the Serbian conquest (Serbs say "liberation") of Kosovo in 1912.
For anyone wishing to understand both the history and possible future of Kosovo at this pivotal moment in its history, this book offers a wealth of insight and information in a uniquely accessible format.
What Everyone Needs to Know(r) is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press

China and India have always been seperated not only by the Himalayas, but also by the impenetrable jungle and remote areas that once stretched across Burma. Now this last great frontier will likely vanish - forests cut down, dirt roads replaced by superhighways, insurgencies ended - leaving China and India exposed to each other as never before. This basic shift in geography is as profound as the opening of the Suez Canal and is taking place just as the centre of the world's economy moves to the East. Thant Myint-U has travelled extensively across this vast territory, where high-speed trains and gleaming shopping malls now sit alongside the last remaining forests and impoverished mountain communities. In Where China Meets India he explores the new strategic centrality of Burma, the country of his ancestry, where Asia's two rising giant powers - China and India - appear to be vying for supremacy. Part travelogue, part history, part investigation, Where China Meets India takes us across the fast-changing Asian frontier, giving us a masterful account of the region's long and rich history and its sudden significance for the rest of the world. Thant Myint-U is the author of The River of Lost Footsteps and has written articles for the New York Times, the Washington Post and the New Statesman. He has worked alongside Kofi Annan at the UN's Department of Political Affairs and currently works as a special consultant to the Burmese government.

This book is a collection of speeches presented at Singapore Perspectives 2019 by current players in international relations and leading academics and opinion shapers on how the post-Cold War world order, with emphasis on the relations between the United States and China, will affect small states like Singapore and countries in Southeast Asia - at local, national, and regional levels.It features speeches by prominent personalities, such as Singapore Minister for Foreign Affairs Dr Vivian Balakrishnan, former Singapore Foreign Minister Mr George Yeo, and former Indonesian Foreign Minister Dr Marty Natalegawa. Each speaker presents a fresh perspective on important developments in the world today.

This thought-provoking and clearly argued text provides a critical geopolitical lens for understanding global environment politics. A subfield of political geography, environmental geopolitics examines how environmental themes are used to support geopolitical arguments and physical realities of power and place. Shannon O'Lear considers common, problematic traits of such familiar but widely misunderstood narratives about human-environment relationships. Mainstream themes about human-environment relationships include narratives about presumed connections between human population trends and resource scarcity; ways in which conflict and violence are linked to resource use or environmental degradation; climate security; and the application of science to solve environmental problems. O'Lear questions these narratives, arguing that the role or meaning of the environment is rarely specified, humans' role in these situations tends to be considered selectively, and little attention is paid to spatial dimensions of human-environment relationships. She shows that how we tend to think about environmental concerns often obscure value judgments and constrain more dynamic approaches to human-environment relationships. Environmental geopolitics demonstrates how we can question familiar assumptions to generate more just and creative approaches to our many relationships with the environment.

This book reveals how the institutional structures of different countries have been changed in different ways by membership in the European Union. In particular, the author shows how European Union membership has affected the relationship between the center and the regions. In studies of Germany and Spain, she indicates how Europeanization has undermined the regions, but then led to cooperation between center and regions to get the most from the European Union.

This book reveals how the institutional structures of different countries have been changed in different ways by membership in the European Union. In particular, the author shows how European Union membership has affected the relationship between the center and the regions. In studies of Germany and Spain, she indicates how Europeanization has undermined the regions, but then led to cooperation between center and regions to get the most from the European Union.