Through invasions, migrations, trade and cultural exchange, developments in Central Eurasia have, for millennia, impacted upon the history of both Europe and Asia. For the last three hundred years, Central Eurasia has been the stage upon which great empires clashed. Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Central Eurasia has once again emerged as a region of geopolitical concern with various new international actors involved: the USA, international monetary organisations, strategic alliances, TNCs, NGOs, regional blocks, as well as criminal groups and ethno-religious movements. The new 'centrality' of Central Eurasia brings new security threats to the region's population, to Europe and to the rest of the world. Repressive political regimes and marginalisation of whole groups of the population inflame conflicts that spill across national borders. Migration to Europe, both legal and illegal, the illicit production and trade of drugs are the direct outcome of social-economic destabilisation in Central Eurasia. Territorial disputes, border conflicts and competition for resources among the Central Eurasian ethnicities have become the unfortunate reality. Post-Soviet Central Eurasia, as a direct neighbour to the turbulent Middle East, is a potential playground for extremist movements: radical Islamic groups and terrorist organisations. The contributors to this book, coming from various theoretical schools and presenting innovative interdisciplinary approaches, provide their views on the socio-political challenges confronting the nine Central Eurasian states - Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Mongolia, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia. The book presents scientific discussions on the historical development of Central Eurasia and its sociocultural legacies; Soviet and contemporary state organisation, social transformation and communal structures; the current economic conditions as a precursor to social stability and development; and geo-political arrangements and political changes over the last two decades.

***Winner of the L.H.M. Ling Outstanding First Book Prize 2020*** ***Shortlisted for the Bread and Roses Award 2020*** Since the first atomic bomb exploded over Hiroshima, the history of nuclear warfare has been tangled with the spaces and places of scientific research and weapons testing, armament and disarmament, pacifism and proliferation. Nuclear geography gives us the tools to understand these events, and the extraordinary human cost of nuclear weapons. Disarming Doomsday explores the secret history of nuclear weapons by studying the places they build and tear apart, from Los Alamos to Hiroshima. It looks at the legacy of nuclear imperialism from weapons testing on Christmas Island and across the South Pacific, as well as the lasting harm this has caused to indigenous communities and the soldiers that conducted the tests. For the first time, these complex geographies are tied together. Disarming Doomsday takes us forward, describing how geographers and geotechnology continue to shape nuclear war, and, perhaps, help to prevent it.

This book looks both backward and forward with regard to the European Union's political strategies towards its neighbouring countries. By bringing together the perspectives of critical geopolitics, policy studies and border studies, it presents a comprehensive review of the European Neighbourhood Policy and how it impacts the ongoing construction of the EU's external frontiers.Is the EU committed to promoting integration in a 'wider' European space, or is a "fortress Europe" emerging where the strengthening of internal cohesion is coupled with the militarisation of its external borders? The book aims to problematize this question by showing how the EU's external policies are based on a mixture of openness and closure, inclusion and exclusion, cooperation and securitisation. The European Neighbourhood Policy is a controversial strategy where regionalization and bordering, homogenisations and differentiations, centrifugal and centripetal forces proceed side-by-side, in an explicit attempt to construct a selective, mobile and fragmented border. A specific focus is devoted to the diversity of geo-strategies the EU is pursuing in its neighbouring countries and regions, macro-regional strategies and cross-border cooperation initiatives as new scales of cooperation, and the role of other global players.

Integrated Water Resources Management and Security in the Middle East brings together diverse voices relating to the critical issue of water management in one of the world's most politically volatile areas: the Middle East. The book brings together Palestinian, Israeli, Jordanian and international expert opinions on creating a holistic and comprehensive view of water management challenges and strategies in an area of conflict and resource scarcity. The book takes security studies to the next level beyond military preparedness to address the security implications of the most fundamental of resources, that of water. Indeed, the book delves deeply into the underlying ideological underpinnings of various water regimes and possible opportunities for new decision-making models and regional cooperation. This book serves an important place in the scholarly literature on this topic for its breadth of participants and perspectives and its concrete steps forward.

This volume brings to the fore the spatial dimension of specific places and sites, and assesses how they condition - and are conditioned by - conflict and peace processes. By marrying spatial theories with theories of peace and conflict, the contributors propose a new research agenda to investigate where peace and conflict take place.

This book is a probing reassessment of security prospects for the Asia-Pacific region centred on an analysis of three key notions: hegemonic power, human security and multilateralism. The post-September 11 world is steadily moving towards multipolarity as the hegemon's authority declines. The UN is at a pivotal moment in its history and middle powers like Japan and Australia will no doubt help to shape its future. Furthermore, China's star is rising and the region has to contend with all the ramifications of this complex reality. The book defines human security as a concept that offers the international community a broader philosophical and political purpose and gives substance to the emerging regional and global multilateralism. It poses perhaps the two most intriguing and critical questions of the moment: can civil society and epistemic communities, operating across cultural and civil boundaries, play a more influential role in defining the goals and processes of regional cooperation in Asia Pacific? and can states, multilateral organisations and civil society develop a more effective partnership in pursuit of these goals? This book brings together distinguished scholars and experts on public policy, social ethics, defence, human security and sustainability to consider the future of the Asia-Pacific region and appropriate responses by both states and civil society. It will appeal to scholars and researchers of international relations, politics and Asian studies as well as policymakers in the region.

This volume interrogates the condition of the neoliberal project in the wake of the global crisis and neoliberalism's predicted death in 2007, both in terms of the regulatory structures of finance-led capitalism in Europe and North America, and the impact of new centres of capitalist power on global order.

This book examines India-China relations throughout history as well as in the context of current business cooperation and competition. It also explores geo-political and societal factors, such as religion or class models, that influence and shape bilateral relations, and provides thorough analyses and comparisons of networks between the two countries. This book will appeal to researchers and graduate students interested in India-China relations as well as Chinese and Indian business ties.

In 1979, aged only seven, Monica Macias was transplanted from West Africa to the unfamiliar surroundings of North Korea. She was sent by her father Francisco, the first president of post-Independence Equatorial Guinea, to be educated under the guardianship of his ally, Kim Il Sung. Within months, her father was executed in a military coup; her mother became unreachable. Effectively orphaned, she and two siblings had to make their life in Pyongyang. At military boarding school, Monica learned to mix with older children, speak fluent Korean and handle weapons on training exercises. After university, she went in search of her roots, passing through Beijing, Seoul, Madrid, Guinea, New York and finally London - forced at every step to reckon with damning perceptions of her adoptive homeland. Optimistic yet unflinching, Monica's astonishing and unique story challenges us to see the world through different eyes.

Minority special status arrangements figure prominently in efforts to articulate universality with territorialized difference in many parts of the world. Yet much of what has been written about this important modality of the asymmetrical state has focused exclusively on the liberal democratic West. This book extends the analysis. It offers a structured-focused comparison of the experience of the People's Republic of China, France, and Spain. Case studies on central Tibet, Hong Kong, Corsica, and Catalonia are used to identify the conditions that affect the degree to which special status arrangements enhance stability while improving the citizenship of both minority territorial communities and their more vulnerable residents.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey's pugnacious president, is now the country's longest-serving leader. On his way to the top, he has fought many wars. This book tells the story of those battles against domestic enemies through the lens of the Syrian conflict, which has become part and parcel of Erdogan's fight to remain in power. Turkey expert Gonul Tol traces Erdogan's ideological evolution from a conservative democrat to an Islamist and a Turkish nationalist, and explores how this progression has come to shape his Syria policy, changing the course of the war. She paints a vivid picture of the president's constantly shifting strategy to consolidate his rule, showing that these shifts have transformed Turkey's role in post-uprising Syria from an advocate of democracy, to a power fanning the flames of civil war, to an occupier. From the first days of Erdogan's rule through the failed coup against him, via the Kurdish peace process, the Arab uprisings and the refugee crisis, this compelling, authoritative book tells the story of one man's quest to remain in power-tying together the fates of two countries, and changing them both forever.

This book explores the relationship between land use planning and ethno-religious segregation. It draws on a range of empirical research and case studies to explore the meaning attached to land in contested places, the challenges these present to planners and the possibilities for accommodating differences over the use and development of territory. The author argues that planners have a significant role in the management of these processes and sets out some ideas about how this might be addressed in local and global settings, including the Balkans and Palestine.

Approaches economic sanctions as a form of statecraft in order to study the oft used but not well understood policy from a different perspective. The chapters examine a variety of cases involving the use of economic threats and promises. Their authors come from both academic and policy making fields, as well as different disciplinary backgrounds (political science and economics). They apply different research approaches (case studies, statistical analysis, formal economics) to increase our understanding of the sanction puzzle.

This collection examines how the EU is seen in the two regions that are at the centre of its geopolitical interest. Focusing on Eastern Europe and sub-Saharan Africa, it provides a critical assessment of how their external perceptions relate to EU policy towards them.

In Democracy Reloaded, Cristina Flesher Fominaya tells the story of one of the most influential social movements of recent times: Spain's "Indignados" or "15-M" movement that took to the streets of Spain on May 15, 2011 with the rallying cry "Real Democracy Now! We are not commodities in the hands of bankers and politicians!" Based on access to key participants in the 15-M movement and Podemos and extensive participant observation, Flesher Fominaya tells a provocative and original story of this remarkable movement, its emergence, evolution, and impact. In so doing, she argues that in times of global economic and democratic crisis, movements organized around autonomous network logics can build and sustain strong movements in the absence of formal organizations, strong professionalized leadership, and the ability to attract external resources. Further, she challenges explanations for success that rest on the mobilizing power of social media. Through in-depth analysis of the month long occupation of Madrid's Puerta del Sol, and subsequent 15-M mobilization, Democracy Reloaded shows how the experience of the protest camp revitalized pre-existing networks, forged bonds of solidarity, and gave birth to a new movement that went on to influence public debate and the political agenda, in Spain and beyond.

Upper Silesia, one of Central Europe's most important industrial borderlands, was at the center of heated conflict between Germany and Poland and experienced annexations and border re-drawings in 1922, 1939, and 1945. This transnational history examines these episodes of territorial re-nationalization and their cumulative impacts on the region and nations involved, as well as their use by the Nazi and postwar communist regimes to legitimate violent ethnic cleansing. In their interaction with-and mutual influence on-one another, political and cultural actors from both nations developed a transnational culture of territorial rivalry. Architecture, spaces of memory, films, museums, folklore, language policy, mass rallies, and archeological digs were some of the means they used to give the borderland a "German"/"Polish" face. Representative of the wider politics of twentieth-century Europe, the situation in Upper Silesia played a critical role in the making of history's most violent and uprooting eras, 1939-1950.

The Asia Annual 2011 focuses on the various aspects of democracy in the Asian context. The chapters in this volume reflect diverse perceptions, adopting an interdisciplinary approach, which enhance the discussions and reveal a plethora of opinions and outlooks. The collection of essays has been arranged primarily in terms of 'regions' (in the geopolitical sense). The volume brings together contributions from leading experts and 'area specialists' who offer special insights and critiques on crucial issues and questions related to the central theme of democracy in their respective 'regions/areas' of specialisation. The intention is to submit an inclusive volume concerning the idea of democracy in Asia. It strives to offer an exhaustive analysis that could prove to be valuable for those who are absorbed in Asian studies. The essays contend with wide-ranging debates on varied aspects related to the processes of democracy and democratisation from the Asian geopolitical space and contemplate on problems arising from the pressures associated with movements for democracy. The authors in their accounts also raise crucial questions regarding the viability as well as the consequences of external efforts at stimulating democracy and the setting up of imported models of democracy. The inherent emphasis is on both the intrinsic distinctiveness of the regions as well as the considerable commonalities, which inspire comparative analyses in general and in the context of democracy/democratisation in particular.

This authoritative Handbook presents a comprehensive analysis of the spatial transformation of the state; a pivotal process of globalization. It explores the state as an ongoing project that is always changing, illuminating the new spaces of geopolitics that arise from these political, social, cultural, and environmental negotiations. Drawing together a diverse set of expert contributors, this book showcases compelling scholarship on the changing geographies of the state. Chapters examine the state from a range of theoretical angles and analyse a variety of relevant themes, including feminist geographies, the relationship between state and environment, urbanization, security geographies, nation-building, and geographical political economies. The book considers the state as spatial in both form and outlook, illustrating how it occupies existing and constantly-changing political geographic conditions, and how it is maintained by the practices of categorizing and managing territory. Taking a multidisciplinary approach, this Handbook will be a valuable resource for academics and students across a range of subjects, including human geography, international relations, political science, spatial planning, and urban studies. The key case studies explored will also provide valuable examples for scholars and policy-makers seeking a better understanding of the broad scope of geopolitics in a globalizing world.

Although in hindsight the end of the Cold War seems almost inevitable, almost no one saw it coming and there is little consensus over why it ended. A popular interpretation is that the Soviet Union was unable to compete in terms of power, especially in the area of high technology. Another interpretation gives primacy to the new ideas Gorbachev brought to the Kremlin and to the importance of leaders and domestic considerations. In this volume, prominent experts on Soviet affairs and the Cold War interrogate these competing interpretations in the context of five "turning points" in the end of the Cold War process. Relying on new information gathered in oral history interviews and archival research, the authors draw into doubt triumphal interpretation that rely on a single variable like the superior power of the United States and call attention to the importance of how multiple factors combined and were sequenced historically. The volume closes with chapters drawing lessons from the end of the Cold War for both policy making and theory building.

This book provides an innovative account of how the globalization of production and the emergence of global value chains impacts on trade preferences, lobby strategies and the political influence of EU firms. It sheds new light on the complex EU-China trade relations.

A freshly provocative look at the nexus linking EU security, trans-Turkey energy supply routes to Europe and Turkey's EU membership negotiations, this book argues that Europe's collective energy security prospects have become increasingly tied to Turkey's progress towards joining the EU.