This book provides an explanation of Chinese policy towards the South China Sea, and argues that this has been sculpted by the changing dynamics of the law of the sea in conjunction with regional geopolitical flux. The past few decades have witnessed a bifurcated trend in China's management of territorial disputes. Over the years, while China gradually calmed and settled most land-border disputes with its neighbors, disputes on the ocean frontier continued to simmer in a seething cauldron. China's Policy towards the South China Sea attributes the distinctive path of China's approach to maritime disputes to a unique factor - the law of the sea (LOS) as the "rules of the road" in the ocean. By deconstructing the concept of "sovereignty" and treating the LOS as an evolving regime, the book examines how the changing dynamics of the LOS regime have complicated and reshaped the nature and content of sovereign disputes in the ocean regime as well as the options of settlement. Applying the findings to the South China Sea case, the author traces the learning curve on which China has embarked to comprehend the complexity of the dispute accordingly and finds that it is the dynamic interaction of the law of the sea regime and the geopolitical conditions that has driven the evolution of China's South China Sea policy. This book will be of great interest to students of Chinese and Asian politics, international law, international relations and security studies.

Lying on the political fault line between East and West for the past seventy-five years, the significance of Hungary in geopolitical terms has far outweighed the modest size of its population. This book charts the main events of these tumultuous decades including the 1956 Uprising, the end of Hungarian communism, entry into the European Union and the rise to power of Viktor Orban and the national-conservative ruling party Fidesz.

'I'm a fairly calm fellow; I don't usually get het up about things. But I was, let's say, concerned when I tuned into the Moscow Echo radio station and heard that the Kremlin had put a price on my head. The announcement didn't quite say 'dead or alive'. But it came close...' Mikhail Khodorkovsky, March 2021 Mikhail Khodorkovsky has seen behind the mask of Vladimir Putin. Once an oil tycoon and the richest man in Russia, Khodorkovsky spoke out against the corruption of Putin's regime - and was punished by the Kremlin, stripped of his entire wealth and jailed for over ten years. Now freed, working as a pro-democracy campaigner in enforced exile, Khodorkovsky brings us the insider's battle to save his country's soul. Offering an urgent analysis of what has gone wrong with Putin, The Russia Conundrum maps the country's rise and fall against Khodorkovsky's own journey, from Soviet youth to international oil executive, powerful insider to political dissident, and now a high-profile voice seeking to reconcile East and West. With unparalleled insight, written with Sunday Times bestselling author Martin Sixsmith, The Russia Conundrum exposes the desires and damning truths of Putin's Russia, and provides an answer to the West on how it must challenge the Kremlin - in order to pave the way for a better future.

In Global Political Economy and the Modern State System Tobias ten-Brink contributes to an understanding of the modern state system, its conflicts and its transformation. In contrast to the political attractiveness of optimistic theoretical approaches to globalisation, this book demonstrates how an analytical approach rooted in Global Political Economy (GPE) helps to explain both the tendencies towards integration and towards rivalry in international relations.

Democracy in the twenty-first century faces a number of major challenges, populism, neoliberalism and globalisation being three of the most prominent. This book examines such challenges by investigating how the conditions of democratic statehood have been altered at several key historical intervals since 1945. It demonstrates that the formal mechanisms of democratic statehood, such as elections, have always been complemented by civic, cultural, educational, socio-economic and constitutional institutions that mediate between citizens and state authority. Rearticulating critical theory with a contemporary focus, the book shows why a sociological approach is urgently needed to address conceptual deficits and explain how the formal mechanisms of democratic statehood need to be complemented and updated in new ways today. -- .

Urban and regional development in the Baltic States and other Central and Eastern European countries has experienced rapid changes since their re-independence at the beginning of the 1990s. Meanwhile, urban and regional planning institutions and organizational cultures in the Baltic States have only changed rather incrementally, despite various national and European pressures for reform. As a consequence, the effects of European cohesion and structural policy measures have been quite modest, and the ability of the planning systems in the Baltic states to manage contemporary trends in urban and regional development has become increasingly limited. This book focuses on these issues and tensions of spatial planning and development in the Baltic States and their distinctiveness compared to other European countries. It provides an overview of the historical and cultural context of spatial development, a discussion of the processes of Europeanization of spatial planning in the specific context of the Baltic States, and an analysis of whether these processes may be leading to policy convergence in the region. This book was published as a special issue of European Planning Studies.

The invention of the nation-state was the crowning achievement of the Sykes-Picot Agreement between the United Kingdom and France in 1916. As a geostrategic move to divide, defeat, and dismantle the Ottoman Empire during World War I, it was a great success and the modern colonial borders of the Arab nation-states eventually emerged in the course of World War II. Today, as nations are reconceiving their own postcolonial interpolated histories, Arab and Muslim states are becoming total states on the model of ISIS with Iran, Syria, Turkey and Egypt, among others, violently manufacturing their legitimacy. And yet simultaneously, examples such as the Nobel Peace Prize winning formation of a civil society 'Quartet' in Tunisia allude to a growing transnational public sphere across the Arab and Muslim world. In The Emperor is Naked, Hamid Dabashi boldly argues that the category of nation-state has failed to produce a legitimate and enduring unit of post-colonial polity. Considering what this liberation of nations and denial of legitimacy to ruling states will actually unfurl, Dabashi asks: What will replace the nation-state, what are the implications of this deconstruction on global politics and, crucially, what is the meaning of the post-colonial subject within this moment?

A unique analysis that assesses how we can determine which country will be the next world leader. Will China surpass the United States as the world's leader? In American Global Pre-eminence, William R. Thompson argues that the answer depends on leads in technological innovation, energy, and global reach. These are the forces that influence the hierarchy of global power-a system which began emerging a thousand years ago and started becoming more evident after the 1490s, especially after Dutch activities in the seventeenth century and British operations in the nineteenth century. The US followed in this fashion after 1945. Yet leads do not last forever. Ironically, as it becomes clearer how technological innovation, military force, and energy power interact, the processes under scrutiny may themselves be fundamentally transforming. Thus, Thompson contends, the real policy question is not whether the US is ahead or behind China but, rather, whether it will remain possible for a single state to lead the global system. As technological innovation, energy consumption, and global reach capability grow less concentrated, the prospects for systemic leadership shrink-even as global problems become more complex and acute. With a sweeping analysis of global power, Thompson provides a foundation for understanding the realities and possibilities of lead states past, present, and future.

This volume examines the various aspects of territorial separatism, focusing on how and why separatist movements arise. Featuring essays by leading scholars from different disciplinary perspectives, the book aims to situate the question of separatism within the broader socio-political context of the international system, arguing that a set of historical events as well as local, regional, and global dynamics have converged to provide the catalysts that often trigger separatist conflicts. In addition, the book marks progress towards a new conceptual framework for the study of territorial separatism, by linking the survival of communities in international politics with the effective control of territory and the consequent creation of new polities. Separatist conflicts challenge conventional wisdom concerning conflict resolution within the context of international relations by unpacking a number of questions with regard to conflict transformation. Through the use of case studies, including Cyprus, the Rakhine state in Myanmar, the Shia separatism in Iraq, the Uighurs in China and the case of East Timor, the volume addresses key issues including the role of democracy, international law, intervention, post-conflict peacebuilding and the creation of new political entities. The book will be of much interest to students of Intra-StateConflict, Conflict Resolution, International Law, Security Studies and International Relations.

This volume, originally published in 1968, is in two parts. The first covers various geographical aspects of the internal structure and the external relationships of states and introduces some of the concepts which are examined in specific regional context in the case studies in Part 2.

Using the examples of the Ottoman Empire, Spain, Austria, France and Germany, this book describes the principal geopolitical features of the expansionist state. It then presents a model of the operation of the expansionist process over space and time. It goes on to apply the geopolitical characteristics of the model to the period after 1945 in order to assess the extent to which the Soviet Union might be considered as being an expansionist state, either actually or potentially. This latter question is obviously once more extremely relevant with the current events in Ukraine.

Global governance now provides people with recourse for harm through International Grievance Mechanisms, such as the Independent Accountability Mechanisms of the Multilateral Development Banks. Yet little is known about how such mechanisms work. This Element examines how IGMs provide recourse for infringements of three procedural environmental rights: access to information, access to participation, and access to justice in environmental matters, as well as environmental protections drawn from the United Nations Guiding Principles and the World Bank's protection standards. A content analysis of 394 original IAM claims details how people invoke these rights. The sections then unpack how the IAMs provide community engagement through 'problem solving', and 'compliance investigations' that identify whether the harm resulted from the MDBs. Using a database of all known submissions to the IAMs (1,052 claims from 1994 to mid-2019), this Element demonstrate how the IAMs enable people to air their grievances, without necessarily solving their problems.

This book tells the story of an unprecedented experiment in public participation: the government-sponsored debate on the possible commercialization of 'GM' crops in the UK. Giving a unique and systematic account of the debate process, this revealing volume sets it within its political and intellectual contexts, and examines the practical implications for future public engagement initiatives.

The authors, an experienced team of researchers, produce a conceptually-informed and empirically-based evaluation of the debate, drawing upon detailed observation of both public and behind-the-scenes aspects of the process, the views of participants in debate events, a major MORI-administered survey of public views, and details of media coverage.

With innovative methodological work on the evaluation of public engagement and deliberative processes, the authors analyze the design, implementation and effectiveness of the debate process, and provide a critique of its official findings.

The book will undoubtedly be of interest to a wide readership, and will be an invaluable resource for researchers, policy-makers and students concerned with cross-disciplinary aspects of risk, decision-making, public engagement, and governance of technology.

Throughout history, maps have been a powerful tool in the constitutive imaginary of governments seeking to define or contest the limits of their political reach. Today, new digital technologies have become central to mapping as a way of formulating alternative political visions. Mapping can also help marginalised communities to construct speculative designs using participatory practices. Mapping and Politics in the Digital Age explores how the development of new digital technologies and mapping practices are transforming global politics, power, and cooperation. The book brings together authors from across political and social theory, geography, media studies and anthropology to explore mapping and politics across three sections. Contestations introduces the reader to contemporary developments within mapping and explores the politics of mapping as a form of knowledge and contestation. Governance analyses mapping as a set of institutional practices, providing key methodological frames for understanding global governance in the realms of urban politics, refugee control, health crises and humanitarian interventions and new techniques of biometric regulation and autonomic computation. Imaginaries provides examples of future-oriented analytical frameworks, highlighting the transformation of mapping in an age of digital technologies of control and regulation. In a world conceived as without borders and fixed relations, new forms of mapping stress the need to rethink assumptions of power and knowledge. This book provides a sophisticated and nuanced analysis of the role ofmapping in contemporary global governance, and will be of interest to students and researchers working within politics, geography, sociology, media, and digital culture and technology.

**THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER | BBC RADIO 4 BOOK OF THE WEEK** Preventable tells the extraordinary story of COVID-19 and how global politics shape our health - from a world-leading expert and the pandemic's go-to science communicator Professor Devi Sridhar has risen to prominence for her vital roles in communicating science to the public and speaking truth to power. In Preventable she highlights lessons learned from outbreaks past and present in a narrative that traces the COVID-19 pandemic - including her personal experience as a scientist - and sets out a vision for how we can better protect ourselves from the inevitable health crises to come. In gripping and heartfelt prose, Sridhar exposes the varied realities of those affected (from the jailed doctor in Wuhan who sounded the alarm, and the bored passengers marooned on the Diamond Princess cruise ship, to the daily nightmares of exhausted healthcare workers), and puts you in the room with key decision makers at crucial moments (from over-confident heads of states and their hesitant scientific advisors, to the beleaguered leaders of global health organisations). Sridhar vibrantly conveys the twists and turns of a plot that saw: deadlier variants emerge (contrary to the predictions of social media pundits who argued it would mutate to a milder form); the Pyrrhic victory in many countries of the false narrative of health versus the economy (those countries which controlled the virus, like Taiwan and Denmark, had a steadier recovery); countries with weak health systems like Senegal and Vietnam fare better than countries like the US and UK (which were consistently ranked as the most prepared); and the quickest development of game-changing vaccines in history (and their unfair distribution). Combining science, politics, ethics and economics, this definitive book dissects the global structures that determine our fate, and reveals the deep-seated economic and social inequalities at their heart - it will challenge, outrage and inspire. 'A brutally compelling reminder that if voices like Devi's had been listened to, so many more could have lived' OWEN JONES 'One of the most brilliant scientists in the world who has been proven consistently right in this crisis' PIERS MORGAN 'Excellent . . . Fair, clear and compelling' NICOLA STURGEON 'Those who have found Professor Devi Sridhar's expertise and calm advice invaluable since the arrival of Covid-19 will be glad to know that she has written Preventable' RACHEL COOKE, Guardian, Non-fiction to look out for in 2022

This journey to the edge of Europe mixes history, travelogue and oral testimony to spellbinding and revelatory effect. Few countries have suffered more from the convulsions and bloodshed of twentieth-century Europe than those in the eastern Baltic. Small nations such as the Baltic States of Latvia and Estonia found themselves caught between the giants of Germany and Russia, on a route across which armies surged or retreated. Subjected to foreign domination and conquest since the Northern crusades in the twelfth century, these lands faced frequent devastation as Germans, Russians and Swedish colonisers asserted control of the territory, religion, government, culture and inhabitants. The Glass Wall features an extraordinary cast of characters - contemporary and historical, foreign and indigenous - who have lived and fought in the Baltic and made the atmosphere of what was often thought to be western Europe's furthest redoubt. Too often it has seemed to be the destiny of this region to be the front line of other people's wars. By telling the stories of warriors and victims, of philosophers and Baltic Barons, of poets and artists, of rebels and emperors, and others who lived through years of turmoil and violence, Max Egremont reveals a fascinating part of Europe, on a frontier whose limits may still be in doubt. 'Fascinating . . . a rich, nuanced account of life on "the Baltic frontier"' - The Times 'Excellent' - Daily Mail 'Extraordinary' - Literary Review 'Exemplary' - Economist

This book surveys 'thrift' through its moral, religious, ethical, political, spiritual and philosophical expressions, focussing in on key moments such as the early Puritans and Post-war rationing, and key characters such as Benjamin Franklin, Samuel Smiles and Henry Thoreau. The relationships between thrift and frugality, mindfulness, sustainability, and alternative consumption practices are explained, and connections made between myriad conceptions of thrift and contemporary concerns for how consumer cultures impact scarce resources, wealth distribution, and the Anthropocene. Ultimately, the book returns the reader to an understanding of thrift as it was originally used - to 'thrive' - and attempts to re-cast thrift in more collective, economically egalitarian terms, reclaiming it as a genuinely resistant practice. -- .

In Pursuit of English traces how the English language became an object of heated pursuit amid South Korea's rapid neoliberalization, creating the so-called "English fever" of the 1990s and 2000s. Joseph Sung-Yul Park demonstrates that English gained prominence not because of the language's supposed economic value, but because of the anxieties, insecurities, and moral desire instilled by neoliberal Korean society. Park shows how English came to be seen as an index of an ideal neoliberal subject who willingly engages in constant self-management and self-development in response to the changing conditions of the global economy. Bringing together ethnographically-oriented perspectives on subjectivity, critical analysis of conditions of contemporary capitalism, theories of neoliberal governmentality, and sociolinguistic and linguistic anthropological frameworks of metapragmatic analysis, In Pursuit of English develops an innovative new direction for research at the intersection language and political economy, challenging researchers to consider subjectivity as the key for understanding the place of language in neoliberalism.

China is building a New Silk Road that runs through the heartland of the Muslim world, promising it will create integrated economies and stronger ties across Eurasia and Africa. Robert R. Bianchi argues that while China has the financial and technical resources to accomplish its infrastructure goals, it is woefully unprepared to deal with the social and political demands of its partner countries' citizens. China and the Islamic World explores how China's leaders and citizens are learning-through their relationships with Pakistan, Turkey, Indonesia, Iran, Nigeria and Egypt-that they have to respect and adjust to the aspirations of ordinary people throughout the Islamic world, not just cater to the narrow band of government and business elites. Bianchi demonstrates that turbulent countries along the New Silk Road are likely to transform Chinese society at least as much as China changes them. This realization will be deeply unsettling for China's authoritarian rulers, who desperately want to monopolize power domestically. The party and state bosses have responded to challenges with a contradictory blend of flexibility abroad and rigidity at home, compromising with popular demands in one country after another while refusing to negotiate many of the same issues with their own citizens. This book shows how China faces a growing struggle to maintain their double-sided statecraft as it becomes apparent that the New Silk Road is not a one way street.

Retrofitting Leninism explains, through the lens of China, how open governance and modern information technology come together to sustain a tightly controlled but socially responsive system of authoritarianism. When closed authoritarian regimes reform and open up, they often fail, most eventually breakdown. The People's Republic of China stands as a notable exception. How has the ruling Chinese Communist Party maintained power throughout decades of reform and rapid development? Drawing inspiration from the CCP's Leninist origins, Dimitar Gueorguiev offers a novel and empirically grounded explanation. The key to the CCP's staying power, he argues, is its ability to integrate authoritarian control with social inclusion - a combination that is being facilitated by modern telecommunications technology. Relying on statistical data, media reports, and a series of original opinion polls, Gueorguiev explores how public input feeds into political oversight and policy planning. To unpack how public preferences are acquired, processed, and prioritized, he analyses bottom-up representation and coordination in local Chinese legislatures. Finally, to evaluate the impact of inclusion, he shows that public engagement contributes to both policy stability and public satisfaction. Although public inclusion is instrumental to the CCP's hold on power, Gueorguiev underscores that "inclusive authoritarianism" greatly depends on the voluntary participation of Chinese citizens, which is far from guaranteed. A trenchant exploration of the Leninist model today, Retrofitting Leninism will reshape our understanding of the authoritarian approach to government and its prospects for the future.

Nusantaria - often referred to as 'Maritime Southeast Asia' - is the world's largest archipelago and has, for centuries, been a vital cultural and trading hub. Nusantara, a Sanskrit, then Malay, word referring to an island realm, is here adapted to become Nusantaria - denoting a slightly wider world but one with a single linguistic, cultural and trading base. Nusantaria encompasses the lands and shores created by the melting of the ice following the last Ice Age. These have long been primarily the domain of the Austronesian-speaking peoples and their seafaring traditions. The surrounding waters have always been uniquely important as a corridor connecting East Asia to India, the Middle East, Europe and Africa. In this book, Philip Bowring provides a history of the world's largest and most important archipelago and its adjacent coasts. He tells the story of the peoples and lands located at this crucial maritime and cultural crossroads, from its birth following the last Ice Age to today.

Vladimir Putin has a master plan to destroy Europe, divide NATO, reclaim Russian influence in the world, and most of all to marginalize the United States and the West in order to achieve regional hegemony and global power. Putin's unified strategy and vision for Europe has not been thoroughly discussed or articulated in any meaningful way until now. Putin's Master Plan is the first comprehensive attempt to systematically explain Putin's global strategy, which could inevitably and inexorably lead to the breakup of the NATO alliance, and potentially to war with the West. Currently, the West has no strategy, no plan, and no tactics to confront Putin's master plan other than imposing limited economic sanctions, which have done little to deter Putin's aggression--and may well have encouraged and facilitated it. The viewpoint taken here is not just alarmism, but an accurate and, for the first time, clear and sober portrayal of a frightening situation that, more and more, serious observers of European and Russian politics are openly recognizing and acknowledging. Putin's Master Plan makes the case that it is essential to wake up to Putin's strategy to destroy Europe, divide NATO, and build a new empire in the former Soviet Union. Russia has demonstrated an extraordinary level of aggression, most boldly in its outright invasions of Georgia and Ukraine. American weakness and a divided Europe have left Russia's terrified neighbors without an alternative to Russian domination, and even once-stalwart American allies such as the Republic of Georgia are on the brink of becoming part of Putin's new empire in Europe. Putin has made it clear that he sees NATO expansion as a fundamental threat to Russian nationhood, and he is systematically challenging the NATO Alliance as well as the United States. So far, he is winning.

How can we know a country, such as the United States or China, is revisionist, that is, whether it intends to upset the international order? What motivates states to act the way they do? Contesting Revisionism focuses on a particular kind of motivation inclining a state to challenge the existing norms, rules, and institutions of international order: revisionism. The authors offer a critique of the existing discourse on revisionism and investigate the origin and evolution of the foreign policy orientations of revisionist states in the past. Furthermore, they introduce an ensemble of indicators to discern and compare the extent of revisionist tendencies on the part of contemporary China and the United States. Questioning the facile assumption that past episodes will repeat in the future, they argue that "hard" revisionism relying on war and conquest is less viable and likely in today's world. Instead, "soft" revisionism seeking to promote institutional change is more relevant and likely. Focusing on contemporary Sino-American relations, they conclude that much of the current discourse based on power transition theory is problematic. A dominant power is not inevitably committed to the defense of international order, nor does a rising power always have a revisionist agenda to challenge this order. The transformation of international order does not necessarily require a power transition between China and the US., nor does a possible power transition necessarily augur war. After developing the concept of revisionism both theoretically and empirically, they conclude with a series of policy recommendations for enhancing international stability and diminishing tension in Sino-American relations.

A novel analysis that combines traditional theories on anti-Semitism with evidence from 76 nations to explain the determinants that drive discrimination against Jews. Why Do People Discriminate against Jews? provides a data-rich analysis of the causes of discrimination against Jews across the globe. Using the tools of comparative political science, Jonathan Fox and Lev Topor examine the causes of both government-based and societal discrimination against Jews in 76 countries. As they stress, anti-Semitism is an attitude, but discrimination is an action. In examining anti-Jewish discrimination, they combine ideas and theories from classic studies of anti-Semitism with social science theories on the causes of discrimination. On the one hand, conspiracy theories, a major topic in the anti-Semitism literature, are relatively unexplored in the social science literature as a potential instigator of discrimination. On the other, social science theories developed to explain how governments justify discrimination against Muslims are rarely formally applied to the processes that lead to discrimination against Jews. Fox and Topor conclude by identifying three potential causes of discrimination: religious causes, anti-Zionism, and belief in conspiracy theories about Jewish power and world domination. They conclude that while all three influence discrimination against Jews, belief in conspiracy theories is the strongest determinant. The most rigorous and geographically wide-ranging analysis of discrimination against Jews to date, this book reshapes our understanding of the persecution of religious minorities in general and the Jewish people in particular.