China's Political Worldview and Chinese Exceptionalism: International Order and Global Leadership uses the notion of "Chinese exceptionalism" as a framework to analyze China's international politics and foreign policy. This book argues that China's approach to international relations is best understood in the context of these claims to exceptionalism and China's broader political world view. In doing so, it fosters a more comprehensive understanding of China's actions within the realms of foreign policy and international politics, and in the context of the preferred world order, norms and rules that the country seeks to promote.

In the aftermath of popular uprisings that unleashed the quest for freedom, Arab governments scrambled to limit sectarian divisions, though much of these efforts came to naught. Regrettably, weak governments fell into carefully laid traps, aimed to divide and rule. Protracted wars further destroyed Arab wealth and cohesiveness, and Sunni communities saw their power bases marginalised. On cue, and predicted by some commentators, extremist movements like the so-called Islamic State emerged, targeting Sunnis with extreme violence. In 2014 Nabil Khalife, an established Lebanese thinker, published a widely praised thesis that identified the root causes of renewed sectarian tensions at a time when confrontations polarised awakened Arab societies. Based on an extensive discussion of the 1979 Iranian Revolution that toppled the Shah, Khalife advanced the notion that the revolution was not Islamic but an Iranian-Shiah rebellion that ended the Pahlavi military monarchy, and that the post-2011 SunniShiah struggle was planned by leading Western powers, including Russia, to preserve Israel and impose the latters acceptance in the Middle East as a natural element. In this translation of Istihdaf Ahl al-Sunna [Targeting Sunnis], Joseph A Kechichian analyses the fundamental questions raised by the author to better place the current sectarian collision in a geo-strategic global perspective. Based on the books avowals of how the worlds three monotheistic religions perceive each other and Political Sunnism, Kechichian assesses Henry Kissingers famous appellation of the Middle World that houses significant and indispensable oil resources, and why that allegedly makes it -- Political Sunnism -- dangerous. In a comprehensive introduction to the translation, he describes various initiatives that led global powers to check the undeniable force of Political Sunnism.

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.

This book represents an update of a well-received volume published in 1989, "Caribbean in World Affairs." Given the broad changes that have occurred in the world since the fall of the Berlin Wall, and taking into account requests for a second edition from Caribbean scholars and policymakers in recent years, the author has written this new edition with the same aim as the original: to provide a comprehensive and theoretically-grounded account of diplomatic developments in these microstates. The author provides a lasting analysis of small state behavior, noting the recent renewal of interest in small states in both the global north and south. The new material includes attention to the changed global setting, updated theoretical developments in foreign policy, and the inclusion of Haiti and Suriname, newer members of Caricom.

This book is a compilation of essays on several themes intended to provoke thought on and promote understanding about everyday political and social life on an island facing constant geopolitical and domestic political challenges. The themes of this books are: 4/21 Terror Attack and National Security; China, Belt and Road Initiative and Sri Lankan Foreign Policy; Geopolitics; Sustaining Democracy and Facing a Pandemic; and Domestic Political Stability, Leadership and Economic Crime. Most essays have captured the domestic viewpoint from which to begin drawing a wider picture of the global geopolitical tapestry. The chapters enframe a variety of domestic political incidents, conflicts of various actors, and the conundrum of an island in the Indian Ocean, stuck in the triangular maritime power dynamics among the United States, China, and India. They also examine the influences from foreign nations towards Sri Lanka's foreign policy and the dynamics of security challenges in the larger geosphere and marine sphere of South Asia and the Indian Ocean respectively. The chapters offer the reader an Olympian viewpoint of the challenges Sri Lanka faces, attempting to find connections and patterns towards greater external geopolitical influence and how it impacts domestic politics.

Established in 2003, the Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park encompasses land in Mozambique, South Africa, and Zimbabwe. Prioritizing wildlife over people, it paved the way for human rights abuses by park rangers, increased human-wildlife conflict, and the forced resettlement of up to 6,000 Mozambicans. Pushing wildlife conservation without consideration for its deeply problematic local consequences is at the heart of The Challenges of Transfrontier Conservation in Southern Africa: The Park Came After Us.

A spy story like no other. Private spies are the invisible force that shapes our modern world: they influence our elections, effect government policies and shape the fortunes of companies. More deviously, they are also peering into our personal lives as never before, using off-the shelf technology to listen to our phone calls, monitor our emails and decide what we see on social media. Spooked takes us on a journey into a secret billion-dollar industry in which information is currency and loyalties are for sale. An industry so tentacular it reaches from Saddam Hussein to an 80s-era Trump, from the Steele dossier written by a British ex-spy to Russian oligarchs sitting pretty in Mayfair mansions, from the devious tactics of Harvey Weinstein to the growing role of corporate spies in politics and the threat to future elections. Spooked reads like the best kind of spy story: a gripping tale packed with twists and turns, uncovering a secret side of our modern world.

Although many observers argue that US-Russia relations are a simple reflection of elites' political and economic preferences in both countries, these preferences tend to arise from pre-existing belief systems that are deeply rooted in the public and accentuated by mass media. In Dark Double, Andrei P. Tsygankov focuses on the driving power of values and media, in addition to political and economic interests, in structuring US-Russia relations. By analyzing mainstream US newspapers and other media sources, Tsygankov identifies five media narratives involving Russia since the Cold War's end and studies them through a framework of three inter-related factors: historic and cultural differences between the two countries, inter-state competition, and polarizing domestic politics. He shows how Americans' negative views toward Russia draw from a deep wellspring of suspicion and are further enhanced by a biased media that regularly exploits such negativity, Russia's centralization of power and anti-American attitudes. Given the intensity of our current impasse with Russia, Dark Double represents an important intervention that forces us to think about the sources of conflict in a new way.

How does a newsroom, made up of young journalists, change overnight into a war zone? How do you do your job as a correspondent when the conflict is literally on your doorstep? Reporting the facts as closely as possible is in itself a form of resistance, especially for this editorial staff, at least one of whose members has decided to abandon the pen and don the uniform. One was covering the business world in Ukraine, another was reporting on entertainment, a third was dealing with geopolitics, when suddenly the Russian army crossed the border. Staying is the choice they all made: to face the uncertainty of living and working in an active war zone head on. The power cuts, threat to life, concern for family members, trips to and from shelters while their city or town is subjected to lethal attacks - despite it all, they keep informing. In War Diary of the Ukrainian Resistance, written on the spot, day by day, the journalists of The Kyiv Independent share their work on the war that is ravaging their country. Combining articles published during the conflict with personal accounts, they give us an unprecedented inside look at the reality of the Russian invasion and its consequences on the lives of Ukrainians. Their names are Olga, Daryna, Illia, Jakub, Toma, Anna, Igor, Oleg, Natalia, Artur, Daria, Asami, Thaisa, Dylan, Sergiy, Alexander ... Their lives will never be the same again. Nor will ours.

Mexican Americans are unique in the panoply of American ethno-racial groups in that they are the descendants of the largest and longest lasting immigration stream in US history. Today, there are approximately 24 million Americans of Mexican descent living in the United States, many of whose families have been in the US for several generations. In Durable Ethnicity, Edward Telles and Christina A. Sue examine the meanings behind being both American and ethnically Mexican for contemporary Mexican Americans. Rooted in a large-scale longitudinal and representative survey of Mexican Americans living in San Antonio and Los Angeles across 35 years, Telles and Sue draw on 70 in-depth interviews and over 1,500 surveys to examine how Mexicans Americans construct their identities and attitudes related to ethnicity, nationality, language, and immigration. In doing so, they highlight the primacy of their American identities and variation in their ethnic identities, showing that their experiences range on a continuum from symbolic to consequential ethnicity, even into the fourth generation. Durable Ethnicity offers a comprehensive exploration into how, when, and why ethnicity matters for multiple generations of Mexican Americans, arguing that their experiences are influenced by an ethnic core, a set of structural and institutional forces that promote and sustain ethnicity.

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.

To understand the historical complexity of the Pakistan-Afghanistan borderland, this book brings together some of the foremost thinkers of this borderland and seeks to approach its various problematic dimensions. This book presents an overview of the geopolitics of the Pakistan-Afghanistan borderland and approaches the topic from different methods and perspectives. It focuses on some of the least debated dimensions of this borderland, for instance, the status of women in the tribal-border culture, the legal status of aliens in the making of the border, material and immaterial manifestations of the border, political aesthetics of the border, and the identity crisis on the border. Given the fact that its authors come from diverse backgrounds, academic and geographic, they make an enriching contribution. Employing their expertise in different theories and methods, they focus on local memories, literature, and wisdom to understand the border. This book seeks to give voice to the plight of local tribal people, their culture, and land on an advanced academic level and makes it legible for the international audience. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of the journal Geopolitics.

This comprehensive volume observes how, after 25 years of transition and uncertainty in the countries that constituted the former Soviet Union, their political geographies remain in a state of flux. The authors explore the fluid relationship between Russia, by far the dominant economic and military power in the region, and the other former republics. They also examine new developments towards economic blocs, such as membership in the European Union or the competing Eurasian Economic Union, as well as new security arrangements in the form of military cooperation and alliance structures. This book reflects the broad range of changes across this important world region by engaging in insightful analysis of current developments in Central Asia, Ukraine, Russia, the Caucasus, and separatist regions. The authors explore new state alliances and the evolving cultural and geopolitical orientations of former Soviet citizens. Some chapters also examine the dynamics of wars that have occurred in the post-Soviet space, as well as how local political developments are reflected in electoral preferences and struggles over control of public spaces. The chapters in this book were originally published in the journal Eurasian Geography and Economics.

This book examines the development of China's national ambitions under its current leader Xi Jinping and the dilemma they present for the United States and also Japan. It emphasises the importance of geopolitics, that is the way national strategies and policies are shaped and in some cases determined by geographic location. Focusing especially on China's national rejuvenation and its rapidly growing military capability and navy, and on the likely impact on the region of China regaining the status and influence it enjoyed in dynastic times, the book highlights the hard choices faced by the United States as it seeks to protect its geopolitical position in the Western Pacific, particularly in the South China Sea, the Korean Peninsula and the Taiwan straits. How far should the United States confront China or accommodate China, possibly at the risk of undermining its geopolitical position and its alliance relationships with Japan, Australia and South Korea? The book also discusses the degree to which issues of institution building and economic interdependence can overcome or constrain geopolitical calculations.

Cuba, Africa, and Apartheid's End: Africa's Children Return! examines the history and impressive dimensions of the Cuban Revolution's solidarity with Africa. Cuba's role in the southern African national liberation and anti-colonial struggle was the largest and most consequential manifestation of the island's commitment to Africa. A key moment was the 1987-1988 battle of Cuito Cuanavale, which involved Cuba and Angola on one side, and South Africa and its allies on the other. Cuito Cuanavale contributed the end of apartheid and has assumed legendary status within the Cuban Revolution and the southern African liberation movement.

Can China peacefully attain great power status in the twenty-first century? Adopting a constructivist approach, the book argues that China's prospects for achieving great power status peacefully depend more on Chinese and international perceptions of China's rise/development than on concrete measures of power or economic benefits, because power considerations and economic self-interest reflect shifting perceptions that have their roots in factors, such as historical experience and national image. Incorporating historical perceptions, survey data and general analysis, the book explores Chinese foreign policies in international organizations, international trade, security relations and as a model for global governance, plus the reactions to those policies within the context of China's relations with Asian neighbours (India, Japan and the states of South-east Asia), existing international powers (the European Union, Russia and the United States), and emergent trading partners (Africa), representing a wider number of diverse states than are included in most books. -- .

Hong Kong is in turmoil, with a new generation of young and politically active citizens shaking the regime. From the Umbrella Movement in 2014 to the defeat of the Extradition Bill and beyond, the protestors' demands have become more radical, and their actions more drastic. Their bravery emboldened the labor movement and launched the first successful political strike in half a century, followed by the broadening of the democratic movement as a whole. The book also sets the new protest movements within the context of the colonization, revolution and modernization of China. Au Loong-Yu explores Hong Kong's unique position in this history and the reaction the protests have generated on the Mainland. But the new generation's aspiration goes far beyond the political. It is a generation that strongly associates itself with a Hong Kong identity, with inclusivity and openness. Looking deeper into the roots and intricacies of the movement, the role of 'Western Values' vs 'Communism' and 'Hong Kongness' vs 'Chineseness', the cultural and political battles are understood through a broader geopolitical history. For good or for bad, Hong Kong has become one of the battle fields of the great historic contest between the US, the UK and China.

Sport can be a vehicle for the expression of identity, and also a factor in the shaping of identity. This book explores the complex interrelationships between nations, regions and states in the landscape of contemporary international sport, with a particular focus on identity. Exploring important themes such as the geopolitics of sports events, contested identities, and ownership of sport and its impact on sporting cultures, the book presents contemporary and historical cases from around the world, including football in a divided Ireland; sport and the anti-Apartheid movement; Chinese sporting nationalism and soft power; and the role of sport media in the shaping of Catalan identity. This is an important resource for students and researchers working in Sports Studies, Sports Journalism, Sports Management Studies, Sports Marketing, Football Studies, Sport and Identity Studies, Sociology of Sport Studies, and Cultural Studies.

The last decade has seen a far-reaching revolution in the oil industry, both in the US and globally. By some measures, America is on pace to become the world's biggest oil producer, an outcome that was inconceivable just a few years ago. But what does this shift really mean for American and global security? In Myths of the Oil Boom, Steve A. Yetiv, an award-winning expert on the geopolitics of oil, takes stock of our new era of heightened petroleum production and sets out to demolish both the old myths and misconceptions about oil and the new ones that are quickly proliferating. As he explains, increased production in the US will not lead to a major reduction in longer term oil prices, even if it has contributed to their precipitous fall in the short run. America will not intervene less in the Persian Gulf just because it is producing more oil domestically. Saudi Arabia is less willing or able to play global gas pump to the world economy than in the past. Building an electric car industry does not mean that consumers will buy in, but neither is it true that a broad shift toward eco-friendly cars will have very little impact on greenhouse gas emissions. Most importantly, raising the level of domestic production will never solve America's energy and strategic problems, and it may in fact worsen climate change unless it is accompanied by a serious national and global strategy to decrease oil consumption. While Yetiv takes on these and a number of other misconceptions in this panoramic account, this is not just an exercise in myth-busting; it's also a comprehensive overview of the global geopolitics of oil and America's energy future, cross-cutting some of the biggest economic and security issues in world affairs. Accessibly written and sharply argued, Myths of the Oil Boom will reframe our understanding of the most politicized commodity in the world.

This book initiates a critical discussion on the varieties of global anti-fascism and explores the cultural, political and practical articulations of anti-fascism around the world. This volume brings together a group of leading scholars on the history of anti-fascism to provide a comprehensive analysis of anti-fascism from a transnational and global perspective and to reveal the abundance and complexity of anti-fascist ideas, movements and practices. Through a number of interlinked case studies, they examine how different forms of global anti-fascisms were embedded in various national and local contexts during the interwar period and investigate the interrelations between local articulations and the global movement. Contributions also explore the actions and impact of African, Asian, Latin American, Caribbean, and Middle Eastern anti-fascist voices that have often been ignored or rendered peripheral in international histories of anti-fascism. Aimed at a postgraduate student audience, this book will be useful for modules on the extreme right, political history, political thought, political ideologies, political parties, social movements, political regimes, global politics, world history and sociology. Chapters 5 and 10 of this book are freely available as downloadable Open Access PDFs under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license at https://tandfbis.s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/rt-files/docs/Open+Access+Chapters/9780429058356_oachapter5.pdf and https://tandfbis.s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/rt-files/docs/Open+Access+Chapters/9780429058356_oachapter10.pdf

This book presents an alternative roadmap for a world characterised by geopolitical uncertainty. The surging expectations about a future world of democratic values and high economic growth, born out of superpower bonhomie at the end of the Cold War, did not lead to the promised outcomes. Instead we are faced with deeply destabilising challenges, like climate change, widespread state fragility, terrorism, arms race, disruptive newer technologies, global economic volatility, and ineffectiveness of multilateral institutions, old and new. The volume: surveys the intellectual discourse, the attempts to redesign the global institutions, and the geopolitical trends since the end of the Cold War for an understanding of the contemporary geopolitics, analyses the characteristics of the contemporary geopolitics, the seeming intractability of the global challenges, and the ongoing discourse about preventing their further deterioration, foregrounds the Gandhian praxis and IR theory for managing power transitions anchored in non-violent mobilisation of empowered masses, ensuring institutional resilience, and illustrates them through ongoing conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, outlines an approach, based on the Gandhian experience of managing political change, towards conflict, geopolitical uncertainties, and institutional ineffectiveness for securing a better future globally, including South Asia. Accessibly written, this volume will be indispensable for foreign policy experts, government think tanks, and career bureaucrats. It will also be essential for scholars and researchers of international relations, foreign policy, politics, and governance and public policy.

This book presents an alternative roadmap for a world characterised by geopolitical uncertainty. The surging expectations about a future world of democratic values and high economic growth, born out of superpower bonhomie at the end of the Cold War, did not lead to the promised outcomes. Instead we are faced with deeply destabilising challenges, like climate change, widespread state fragility, terrorism, arms race, disruptive newer technologies, global economic volatility, and ineffectiveness of multilateral institutions, old and new. The volume: surveys the intellectual discourse, the attempts to redesign the global institutions, and the geopolitical trends since the end of the Cold War for an understanding of the contemporary geopolitics, analyses the characteristics of the contemporary geopolitics, the seeming intractability of the global challenges, and the ongoing discourse about preventing their further deterioration, foregrounds the Gandhian praxis and IR theory for managing power transitions anchored in non-violent mobilisation of empowered masses, ensuring institutional resilience, and illustrates them through ongoing conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, outlines an approach, based on the Gandhian experience of managing political change, towards conflict, geopolitical uncertainties, and institutional ineffectiveness for securing a better future globally, including South Asia. Accessibly written, this volume will be indispensable for foreign policy experts, government think tanks, and career bureaucrats. It will also be essential for scholars and researchers of international relations, foreign policy, politics, and governance and public policy.