In the globalized Arctic there has been a transformation from military security to human security. Climate change, the utilization of Arctic resources and other global challenges have caused the Arctic 'paradox' and a need to redefine security.

In a completely new approach to borders and border crossing, this volume suggests a re-conceptualization of the nation in Southeast Asia. Choosing an actor approach, the individual chapters in this volume capture the narratives of minorities, migrants and refugees who inhabit and cross borders as part of their everyday life. They show that people are not only constrained by borders; the crossing of borders also opens up new options of agency. Making active use of these, border-crossing actors construct their own live projects on the border in multiple ways against the original intention of the nation-state. Based on their intimate knowledge of the interaction of communities, anthropologists from Europe, the USA, Japan and Southeast Asia provide a vivid picture of the effects of state policies at the borders on these communities.

Since the late 1980s, critical geopolitics has gone from being a radical critical perspective on the disciplines of political geography and international relations theory to becoming a recognised area of research in its own right. Influenced by poststructuralist concerns with the politics of representation, critical geopolitics considers the ways in which the use of particular discourses shape political practices. Initially critical geopolitics analysed the practical geopolitical language of the elites and intellectuals of statecraft. Subsequent iterations have considered the role that popular representations of the international political world play. As critical geopolitics has become a more established part of political geography it has attracted ever more critique: from feminists for its apparent blindness to the embodied effects of geopolitical praxis and from those who have been uncomfortable about its textual focus, while others have challenged critical geopolitics to address alternative, resistant forms of geopolitical practice. Again, critical geopolitics has been reworked to incorporate these challenges and the latest iterations have encompassed normative agendas, non-representational theory, emotional geographies and affect. It is against the vibrant backdrop of this intellectual development of critical geopolitics as a subdiscipline that this Companion is set. Bringing together leading researchers associated with the different forms of critical geopolitics, this volume produces an overview of its achievements, limitations, and areas of new and potential future development. The Companion is designed to serve as a key resource for an interdisciplinary group of scholars and practitioners interested in the spatiality of politics.

The European region - especially given the existence of the European Union (EU) - necessarily encompasses multiple levels of public diplomacy: subnational, national, transnational, and supranational. But do the various aspects of Europe's multi-leveled public diplomacy form a coherent overall image, or do they work against each other to some extent? European Public Diplomacy: Soft Power at Work pushes the literature on public diplomacy forward through a multifaceted exploration of the European case. In so doing, it fills an important gap in the international relations literature on the mechanisms behind soft power.

This book offers a critical reassessment of the "Asian values" debate, which dominated the human rights discourse in the late 1990s, and a reappraisal of the human rights situation in Asia since then. In this book Asian and non-Asian scholars contextualize the "Asian values" debate and examine in what ways the issues raised then continue to trouble Asian societies. Human rights are seen both in the context of political developments in individual Asian countries as well as in relation to global issues such as the Global War on Terror. The book challenges the reader to critically examine human rights rhetoric and practice both in Asia and globally.

For four decades Saudi Arabia and Iran have vied for influence in the Muslim world. At the heart of this ongoing Cold War between Riyadh and Tehran lie the Sunni-Shia divide, and the two countries' intertwined histories. Saudis see this as a conflict between Sunni and Shia; Iran's ruling clerics view it as one between their own Islamic Republic and an illegitimate monarchy. This foundational schism has played out in a geopolitical competition for dominance in the region: Iran has expanded its influence in Syria, Iraq and Lebanon, while Saudi Arabia's hyperactive crown prince, Muhammad bin Salman, has intervened in Yemen, isolated Qatar and destabilised Lebanon. Dilip Hiro examines the toxic rivalry between the two countries, tracing its roots and asking whether this Islamic Cold War is likely to end any time soon.

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.

Blending theory and case studies, this volume explores a vitally important and topical aspect of developmentalism, which remains a focal point for scholarly and policy debates around democracy and social development in the global political economy. Includes case studies from China, Vietnam, India, Brazil, Uganda, South Korea, Ireland, Australia.

Adopting a people-centred perspective to globalization, the authors explore complex, counterintuitive and even unintended forms and consequences of bottom-up politics, going beyond simplistic understandings of ordinary people as either victims or beneficiaries of globalization.

When and why do powerful countries seek to enact major changes to international order, the broad set of rules that guide behavior in world politics? This question is particularly important today given the Trump administration's clear disregard for the reigning liberal international order in the United States. Across the globe, there is also uncertainty over what China might seek to replace that order with as it continues to amass power and influence. Together, these developments mean that what motivates great powers to shape and change order will remain at the forefront of debates over the future of world politics. Prior studies have focused on how the origins of international orders have been consensus-driven and inclusive. By contrast, Kyle Lascurettes argues in Orders of Exclusion that the propelling motivation for great power order building has typically been exclusionary. Dominant powers pursue fundamental changes to order when they perceive a major new threat on the horizon. Moreover, they do so for the purpose of targeting this perceived threat, be it another powerful state or a foreboding ideological movement. The goal of order building, then, is blocking that threatening entity from amassing further influence, a motive Lascurettes illustrates at work across more than three hundred years of international history. Far from falling outside of the bounds of traditional statecraft, order building is the continuation of power politics by other means.

Contemporary international migration makes border controls, bounded citizenship, and sovereign jurisdictions appear increasingly outdated. These policy tools are poor responses to a world characterized by cross-border mobility, transnational interconnections and global diaspora. Are there viable alternatives to this system of territorial and exclusive states?This book takes a historical trajectory, exploring governments' use of different territorial strategies to manage migration at specific moments during the evolution of the international system, from centralization in Renaissance Italy and expansion under the British Empire to the integration of the European Union. Vigneswaran shows how under each of these regimes, political thinkers and rulers draw upon a 'mental map' - a specific way of imagining political space - to devise their systems of jurisdiction, belonging and immigration control. Using evidence of territorial variation and reform, this book looks to the future of migration regimes beyond the territorially exclusive state.

There is great power in the use of words: words create most of what we consider to be real and true. Framing our words and narratives is thus a tool of power - but a power that also comes with limitations. This intriguing issue is the topic of Framing the Threat, an investigation of the relationship between language and security and of how discourse creates the scope of possibility for political action. In particular, the book scrutinizes and compares the security narratives of the former US presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama. It shows how their framings of identity, i.e., of the American 'self' and the enemy 'other' facilitated a certain construction of threat that shaped the presidents' detention and interrogation policies. By defining what was necessary in the name of national security, Bush's narrative justified the operation of the detention center at Guantanamo Bay and rendered the mistreatment of detainees possible - a situation that would have otherwise been illegal. Bush's framings therefore enabled legal limits to be pushed and made the violation of rules appear legitimate. Obama, in contrast, constructed a threat scenario that required an end to rule violations, and the closure of Guantanamo for security reasons. According to this narrative, a return to the rule of law was imperative if the American people were to be kept safe. However, Obama's framing was continually challenged, and it was never able to dominate public discourse. Consequently, Framing the Threat argues Obama was unable to implement the policy changes he had announced.

'Defying the Dragon' tells a remarkable story of audacity: of how the people of Hong Kong challenged the PRC's authority, just as its president reached the height of his powers. Is Xi's China as unshakeable as it seems? What are its real interests in Hong Kong? Why are Beijing's time-honoured means of control no longer working there? And where does this leave Hongkongers themselves? Stephen Vines has lived in Hong Kong for over three decades. His book shrewdly unpacks the Hong Kong-China relationship and its wider significance-right up to the astonishing convergence of political turmoil and international crisis with Covid-19 and the 2020 crackdown. Vividly describing the uprising from street level, Vines explains how and why it unfolded, and its global repercussions. Now, the international community is reassessing relations with Beijing, just as Hong Kong's rebellion and China's handling of the pandemic have exposed the regime's weakness. In a crisis that has become existential all round, what lies ahead for Hong Kong, China and the world?

What makes large, multi-ethnic states hang together? At a time when ethnic and religious conflict has gained global prominence, the territorial organization of states is a critical area of study.

Exploring how multi-ethnic and geographically dispersed states grapple with questions of territorial administration and change, this book argues that territorial change is a result of ongoing negotiations between states and societies where mutual and overlapping interests can often emerge. It focuses on the changing dynamics of central-local relations in Indonesia. Since the fall of Suharto s New Order government, new provinces have been sprouting up throughout the Indonesian archipelago. After decades of stability, this sudden change in Indonesia s territorial structure is puzzling. The author analyses this "provincial proliferation," which is driven by multilevel alliances across different territorial administrative levels, or territorial coalitions. He demonstrates that national level institutional changes including decentralization and democratization explain the timing of the phenomenon. Variations also occur based on historical, cultural, and political contexts at the regional level. The concept of territorial coalitions challenges the dichotomy between centre and periphery that is common in other studies of central-local relations.

This book will be of interest to scholars in the fields of comparative politics, political geography, history and Asian and Southeast Asian politics.

This book examines how national public discourses in Western Europe have transnationalized over the past two decades and what this means for the legitimacy of the European Union.The emergence of a European public sphere is a hot topic in academic as well as political debates across Europe. This book provides the only longitudinal study of the transnationalization and Europeanization of public spheres to date (covering the period 1982-2005). It moves the research frontier forward in a number of ways: by thoroughly inspecting the normative expectations directed at the news media (which are often left implicit in other studies), by employing comprehensive multidimensional measures of the transnationalization of public discourses, by combining quantitative and qualitative methods of media content analysis, and by explaining patterns and trends of Europeanization rather than only describing them.

Kurdistan exists as a cultural and political concept on many levels of discourse. Despite Kurdistan's divisions, lack of definition and the absence of a unified struggle for a Kurdish state, the concept survives the reality as a powerful mixture of myths, reality and ambition. This thesis analyses geographical and historical factors, which have shaped Kurdish conceptions of their identity. Historically, Kurdistan existed in the heart of an ethnically and geographically complex region, a marginal buffer zone between rival regional and colonial powers. Kurdistan's location was the key to its political and cultural developments. Many resultant features were to militate against the formation of a Kurdish state.

Americans and Europeans perceive threat differently. Americans remain more religious than Europeans and generally still believe their nation is providentially blessed. American security culture is relatively stable and includes the deeply held belief that existential threat in the world emanates from the work of evil-doers. The US must therefore sometimes intervene militarily against evil. The European Union (EU) security culture model differs from traditional European iterations and from the American variant. The concept of threat as evil lost salience as Western Europe became more secularist. Threats became problems to manage and resolve. The upsurge in anti-immigrant and anti-foreigner sentiment in the midst of economic crisis undermines this model.

Over the past two decades or so, medieval geopolitics have come to occupy an increasingly prominent place in the collective imagination and writings of International Relations scholars. Although these accounts differ significantly in terms of their respective analytical assumptions, theoretical concerns and scholarly contributions, they share at least one common arguably, defining element: a belief that a careful study of medieval geopolitics can help resolve a number of important debates surrounding the nature and dynamics of "international" relations. There are however three generic weaknesses characterizing the extant literature: a general failure to examine the existing historiography of medieval geopolitics, an inadequate account of the material and ideational forces that create patterns of violent conflict in medieval Latin Christendom, and a failure to take seriously the role of "religion" in the geopolitical relations of medieval Latin Christendom.

This book seeks to address these shortcomings by providing a theoretically guided and historically sensitive account of the geopolitical relations of medieval Latin Christendom. It does this by developing a theoretically informed picture of medieval geopolitics, theorizing the medieval-to-modern transition in a new and fruitful way, and suggesting ways in which a systematic analysis of medieval geopolitical relations can actually help to illuminate a range of contemporary geopolitical phenomena. Finally, it develops an historically sensitive conceptual framework for understanding geopolitical conflict and war more generally.

The Scourging of Iraq describes the impact of the 1991 Gulf War and subsequent economic sanctions on the Iraqi people. Evidence is presented to show that food and medicine are being denied to the civilian population, and that this involves a gross violation of the 1977 Protocol 1 addition to the 1949 Geneva Convention, which includes the words: 'Starvation of civilians as a method of warfare is prohibited'. Sanctions are considered in a historical, political and legal context, with particular attention to how the economic blockade may be seen as a criminal violation of UN resolutions and the UN Genocide Convention.

Geopolitics is not dead, but nor does it involve the same old logic of a world determined by physical geography in a competition between Great Powers. Hidden Geopolitics recaptures the term to explore how the geography of power works both globally and nationally to structure and govern the workings of the global political economy. Globalization, far from its antithesis, is tightly wound up in the assumptions and practices of geopolitics, relating to the scope of regulatory authority, state sponsorship, and the political power of businesses to operate worldwide. Agnew shows how this "hidden" geopolitics and globalization have been vitally connected. He focuses on three moments: the origins of contemporary globalization in the policies pursued by successive US governments and allies after 1945 and its continued relevance even as the US role in the world changes; the close connection between geopolitical history and status of different countries and their relative capacities to exploit the possibilities and limit the costs of globalization; and new regulatory and standard-setting agencies which emerged under the sponsorship of major geopolitical powers but have grown in power and authority as the dominant states have become limited in their ability to manage the explosion of transnational transactions on their own. Agnew argues that it is time to move on from the narrow inter-imperial cast of geopolitics and the foolish policy advice it produces. The old perspective on geopolitics has taken on new life with the rise of national-populist movements in Europe and the United States and the reinvigoration of territorial-authoritarian regimes in Russia and China. Notwithstanding this trend, we must see the contemporary world through the lens of these complex, "hidden" geopolitical underpinnings that Agnew seeks to expose.

War creates brutal landscapes of control and domination that embed historical differences, creating physical legacies of inequality and denial. "Contested Spaces" is a global study of sites of conflict, places of loss, fear, resistance and pilgrimage where the materiality of violence forcibly brings the past into the present. The collection draws together scholars from cultural history, cultural geography, art history, architecture, archaeology, media studies, international relations and American studies to examine a series of internationally significant sites and how they are inhabited, represented, witnessed and visited.