One of Singapore's top diplomats, Bilahari Kausikan was the Institute of Policy Studies' (IPS) 2015/16 S R Nathan Fellow for the Study of Singapore. This book contains edited versions of the five public IPS-Nathan Lectures he gave between January and May 2016, and highlights of his dialogue with the audience.Kausikan gives a frank and dispassionate assessment of the international environment in the post-Cold War era and the geopolitical uncertainties that have emerged. In particular, he analyses the nature of US-China relations, the broad underlying factors in the South China Sea disputes and ASEAN's attempts to maintain order, and the role that human rights and democracy have played in international relations. He concludes by suggesting what Singapore needs to do to cope with the complexities that lie ahead, in this age without definition.The IPS-Nathan Lectures series was launched in 2014 as part of the S R Nathan Fellowship for the Study of Singapore. The S R Nathan Fellow, who is appointed annually, delivers between four and six lectures each year to advance public understanding and discussion of issues of critical national interest.

Palestine Book Awards Lifetime Achievement Winner 2022 'Roy is humanely and professionally committed in ways that are unmatched by any other non-Palestinian scholar' - Edward W. Said Gaza, the centre of Palestinian nationalism and resistance to the occupation, is the linchpin of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the key to its resolution. Since 2005, Israel has deepened the isolation of the territory, severing it almost completely from its most vital connections to the West Bank, Israel and beyond, and has deliberately shattered its economy, transforming Palestinians from a people with political rights into a humanitarian problem. Sara Roy unpacks this process, looking at US foreign policy towards the Palestinians, as well as analysing the trajectory of Israeli policy toward Gaza, which became a series of punitive approaches meant not only to contain the Hamas regime but weaken Gazan society. Roy also reflects on Gaza's ruination from a Jewish perspective and discusses the connections between Gaza's history and her own as a child of Holocaust survivors. This book, a follow up from the renowned Failing Peace, comes from one of the world's most acclaimed writers on the region.

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

In recent decades, women living in border cities have taken on new roles and have become one of the most vulnerable population groups; experiencing the effects of the economic crisis of the early 21st century and the consequent increase in social inequality and violence. This situation is particularly evident for the northern borderlands of Mexico and Morocco. The geopolitical position of these regions is defined by their strong existing asymmetry with their neighbouring countries: the United States, in the case of Mexico, and the Mediterranean European countries, in the case of Morocco. This book contributes to the understanding of current changes in the workplace, in family, in sexuality and sexual violence within the setting of the borderlands, through various studies addressing the manner in which these transformations are interpreted and experienced by women in everyday life and in their individual and collective agency.

Recounting the actors and events of U.S. foreign policy, Zoellick identifies five traditions that have emerged from America's encounters with the world: the importance of North America; the special roles trading, transnational, and technological relations play in defining ties with others; changing attitudes toward alliances and ways of ordering connections among states; the need for public support, especially through Congress; and the belief that American policy should serve a larger purpose. These traditions frame a closing review of post-Cold War presidencies, which Zoellick foresees serving as guideposts for the future. Both a sweeping work of history and an insightful guide to U.S. diplomacy past and present, AMERICA IN THE WORLD serves as an informative companion and practical adviser to readers seeking to understand the strategic and immediate challenges of U.S. foreign policy during an era of transformation.

China leads the world when it comes to investment and influence on the African continent. The extent of Chinese investment in Africa is well known and much has been written about China’s foray into Africa. However, most of the available material has approached this issue by looking at China as the ’New Colonialist’ – more interested in Africa’s vast natural resources than working in partnership for sustained development. Whilst China’s interest in Africa’s resources is evident, it is just half of the story.

China’s foray into Africa goes beyond its appetite for natural resources and into the realm of geo-politics and international political economics. For example, China is all too aware of how it can cultivate Africa’s support on global issues at the United Nations and at other international fora. Breaking free from the binary arguments and analysis which characterize this topic, Professor Abdulai presents a refreshing perspective that China’s foray into Africa can produce win–win outcomes for China and Africa – if Africans really know what they want from China.

Hitherto, each African country has tended to engage China with an individual bucket list; acting in isolation and not as part of a wider continent (indeed Africa and the African Union does not yet have a coordinated policy towards China). For Africa to be able to do that it needs to know where China is coming from, the factors that contributed to its awakening and success, and the benefits and possible pitfalls of this foray, in order to better position itself for a win–win engagement with China.

This book will be a valuable read for policy makers, think-tanks and students of Africa-China studies programmes alike.

Table of Contents

List of Figures

List of Tables

Preface

Acronyms and Abbreviations

Introduction

1 The Sleeping Giant has Awoken: China’s New Great Leap Forward

2 Some of the Factors that Contributed to China’s Awakening

3 China’s Entry into the World Trade Organisation (WTO)

4 Why is China Interested in Africa?

5 China’s Foray into Africa: The Benefits

6 China’s Foray into Africa: The Criticisms

7 Africa and Millions of Chinese Migrants

8 How African Countries Can Position Themselves to Benefit from China’s Foray into Africa

9 China’s Foray into Africa: Impact on Interests of External Players?

10 China and Africa: The Way Forward and Prospects for the Future

Conclusion: China and Africa: Looking Backward to Move Forward

Bibliography

Internet Resources

Index /

Written by one of the world's leading political geographers, this fully revised and updated textbook examines the dramatic changes wrought by ideological, economic, socio-cultural and demographic changes unleashed since the end of the Cold War. Saul Cohen considers these forces in the context of their human and physical settings, and explores their geographical influence on foreign policy and international relations.

This volume provides a unique look at the changes in the way Chinese foreign and security policy is made during the reform era, and the implications of those changes for China's future behavior on the international stage. Bringing together the contributions of more than a dozen scholars who undertook extensive field research in the People's Republic of China, South Korea, and Taiwan, the book is the most comprehensive, in-depth, and rigorous account of how Chinese foreign and security policy is formulated and implemented.
Since the reform era began in the late 1970s, a new and ever-changing mix of forces has been reshaping Chinese foreign and national security policy-making institutions and processes. This volume examines those forces: bureaucratic politics and evolving organizations, changing elite views and skills, an altered domestic agenda, increasingly diverse social forces and public opinion, and the growing complexity of the international system itself, including globalization and multilateral regimes. The analysis goes one step further to look at specific foreign and security policy issues and relationships, including case studies dealing with Korea, Taiwan, the World Trade Organization, and arms control.
The volume addresses itself to policy-makers in both the public and private sectors, as well as scholars of China and international relations. It concludes that China's foreign and national security policy making, as well as its behavior abroad, is largely shaped by the forces of globalization, decentralization, pluralization, and professionalization. But the book also shows how the enduring power of Chinese decision makers and their national interest focus also mould China's behavior, notably in crises and in major strategic decisions. Looking to the future, the book suggests that the forces of change in the Chinese system offer the possibility, though not the certainty, that China may increasingly fit more comfortably into the international system in the years ahead, though not without frictions and mishaps.

This book provides a new point of departure for thinking critically and creatively about international borders and the perceived need to defend them, adopting an innovative 'preferred future' methodology. The authors critically examine a range of 'border domains' including law, citizenship, governance, morality, security, economy, culture and civil society, which provide the means and justification for contemporary border controls, and identify early signs that the dynamics of sovereignty and borders are being fundamentally transformed under conditions of neoliberal globalization. The goal is to locate potential pathways towards the preferred future of relaxed borders, and provide a foundation for a progressive politics dedicated to moving beyond mere critique of the harm and inequity of border controls and capable of envisaging a differently bordered world. This book will be of considerable interest to students of border studies, migration, criminology, peacemaking, critical security studies and IR in general.

Following the financial crisis and subsequent impacts of economic slowdown and austerity, the emergence of new local governance models and innovation is a very timely issue. The same goes for identifying new types of funding schemes and fiscal models prompted by austerity with the reduction in financial resources for local governments. This book offers a broad perspective on some of the organizational and financial problems faced by cities and local governments across Europe and analyses the reactions and reforms implemented to address current economic and public finance conditions. The geographical coverage of the case studies, multidisciplinary background of the contributing authors and focus on a multiplicity of issues and challenges that confront local governments, not just financial issues as is often the case, means this book is relevant to a wide readership. The book is written for post-graduate students, advanced undergraduates, and researchers in the multidisciplinary field of local government studies (Public Administration, Geography, Political Science, Law, Economy and Sociology), as well as practitioners working in local government institutions.

Bringing together interconnected discussions to make explicit the complexity of the Arctic region, this book offers a legal discussion of the ongoing territorial disputes and challenges in order to frame their impact into the viability of different governance strategies that are available at the national, regional and international level. One of the intrinsic features of the region is the difficulty in the determination of boundaries, responsibilities and interests. Against this background, sovereignty issues are intertwined with environmental and geopolitical issues that ultimately affect global strategic balances and international trade and, at the same time, influence national approaches to basic rights and organizational schemes regarding the protection of indigenous peoples and inhabitants of the region. This perspective lays the ground for further discussion, revolving around the main clusters of governance (focusing on the Arctic Council and the European Union, with the particular roles and interest of Arctic and non-Arctic states, and the impact on indigenous populations), environment (including the relevance of national regulatory schemes, and the intertwinement with concerns related to energy, or migration), strategy (concentrating in geopolitical realities and challenges analysed from different perspectives and focusing on different actors, and covering security and climate change related challenges). This collection provides an avenue for parallel and converging research of complex realities from different disciplines, through the expertise of scholars from different latitudes.

Frontiers are "wild." The frontier is a zone of interaction between distinct polities, peoples, languages, ecosystems and economies, but how do these frontier spaces develop? If the frontier is shaped by the policing of borders by the modern-nation state, then what kind of zones, regions or cultural areas are created around borders? This book provides 16 different case studies of frontiers in Asia and Latin America by interdisciplinary scholars, charting the first steps toward a transnational and transcontinental history of social development in the borderlands of two continents. Transnationalism provides a shared focus for the contributions, drawing upon diverse theoretical perspectives to examine the place-making projects of nation states. Through the lenses of different scales and time frames, the contributors examine the social processes of frontier life, and how the frontiers have been created through the exertions of nation-states to control marginal or borderland peoples. The most significant cases of industrialization, resource extraction and colonization projects in Asia and Latin America are examined in this book reveal the incompleteness of frontiers as modernist spatial projects, but also their creativity - as sources of new social patterns, new human adaptations, and new cultural outlooks and ways of confronting power and privilege. The incompleteness of frontiers does not detract from their power to move ideas, peoples and practices across borders both territorial and conceptual. In bringing together Asian and Latin American cases of frontier-making, this book points toward a comparativist and cosmopolitan approach in the study of statecraft and modernity. For scholars of Latin America and/or Asia, it brings together historical themes and geographic foci, providing studies accessible to researchers in anthropology, geography, history, politics, cultural studies and other fields of the human sciences.

In the second half of the twentieth century France played the greatest role - even greater than Germany's - in shaping what eventually became the European Union. By the early twenty-first century, however, in a hugely transformed Europe, this era had patently come to an end. This comprehensive history shows how France coupled the pursuit of power and the furtherance of European integration over a sixty-year period, from the close of the Second World War to the hesitation caused by the French electorate's referendum rejection of the European Union's constitutional treaty in 2005. Michael Sutton is Director of Studies in Politics and International Relations at Aston University. He has written regularly on France for The Economist Intelligence Unit - part of The Economist newspaper group - since 1985, and worked in Brussels from 1973 to 1993 monitoring European Community developments. He is also a specialist in twentieth-century French political thought and philosophy.

In Between The Seas, Deborah Paci takes a comparative view of insularity in island identities through case studies of islands in the Baltic and Mediterranean Seas. These case studies include, in the Baltic case, Gotland, Saaremaa and Hiiumaa; and in the Mediterranean case, Sicily, Sardinia, Malta and Corsica. Examining multiple sites of these islands' identities such as history, environmental concerns and governance systems, this study provides a historical perspective into the relations between islands and the larger geopolitical regions around them as well as historicizing "insularist" rhetoric deployed by pro-independence groups within them. Paci examines the changing role and increasing political importance of islands in the European Union against the history of island insularity and offers a significant contribution to the wider field of island studies.

This edited collection surveys how non-Western states have responded to the threats of domestic and international terrorism in ways consistent with and reflective of their broad historical, political, cultural and religious traditions. It presents a series of eighteen case studies of counterterrorism theory and practice in the non-Western world, including countries such as China, Japan, India, Pakistan, Egypt and Brazil. These case studies, written by country experts and drawing on original language sources, demonstrate the diversity of counter-terrorism theory and practice and illustrate how the world 'sees' and responds to terrorism is different from the way that the United States, the United Kingdom and many European governments do. This volume - the first ever comprehensive account of counter-terrorism in the non-Western world - will be of interest to students, scholars, students and policymakers responsible for developing counter-terrorism policy. -- .

What can unfold from an engagement of feminist issues, concerns and practices with the geopolitical? How does feminism allow for a reconfiguration of how these two elements, the geo- and the -political, are understood and related? What kinds of objects can be located and put into motion? What kinds of relations can be drawn between these? What kinds of practice become valued? And, what is glossed or rendered absent in the process? In this thought-provoking and original contribution, Deborah P. Dixon cautions against the exhaustion of feminist geopolitics as a critique of both a classical and a critical geopolitics, and points instead to how feminist imaginaries of Self, Other and Earth allow for all manner of work to be undertaken. Importantly, one of the things they provide for is a reservoir of concerns, thoughts and practices that can be reappropriated to flesh out what a feminist geopolitics can be. While providing a much-needed, sustained interjection that draws out achievements to date, the book thus gestures forward to productive lines of inquiry and method. Grounded via a series of globally diverse case studies that traverse time as well as space, Feminist Geopolitics feels for the borders of geopolitical thought and practice by navigating four complex and corporeally-aware objects of analysis, namely flesh, bone, touch and abhorrence.

Leading academics from around the world, who specialize in analysing maritime strategic issues, deliberate the impact of the American 'pivot' or 're-balance' strategy, and the 'Air-Sea Battle' operational concept, on the maritime power and posture of a number of selected states. Intending to strengthen US economic, diplomatic, and security engagement throughout the Asia-Pacific, both bilaterally and multilaterally, the re-balance stands out as one of the Obama administration's most far-sighted and ambitious foreign policy initiatives.

This book explores domestic opposition to formal US military bases in Latin America, and provides evidence of a growing network of informal and secretive base-like arrangements that supports US military operations in the Latin American Region.

European External Action provides a critical assessment of the practice of EU diplomacy in a key site of Africa-European relations and the global development industry - the Kenyan capital of Nairobi. It analyses how the EU positions itself through its newly established diplomatic corps, the European External Action Service (EEAS), and how it is perceived as a collective geopolitical actor by its external cooperation partners. Going beyond existing studies on EU policy making in Brussels and African-European relations more generally, this book explores in a novel way the conduct of external relations and perceptions of the EU - abroad. Based on institutional ethnography within the EU Delegation in Nairobi and research affiliation with the University of Nairobi, as well as interviews with leading individuals of Kenyan-European interaction, it analyses the practices, processes and perceptions through which EU diplomacy is enacted and realised in a strategic node of global North-South relations. In light of the EU's claim as a key partner for developing countries and its ambition to be a major player in global politics, European External Action thereby speaks not only to wider debates on the EU's role as a global and development actor, but also provides new insights in the internal dynamics and the making of external agency in and through EU diplomacy.

Experimenting with new ways of looking at the contexts, subjects, processes and multiple political stances that make up life at the margins, this book provides a novel source for a critical rethinking of marginalisation. Drawing on post-colonialism and critical assemblage thinking, the rich ethnographic works presented in the book trace the assemblage of marginality in multiple case-studies encompassing the Global North and South. These works are united by the approach developed in the book, characterised by the refusal of a priori definitions and by a post-human and grounded take on the assemblage of life. The result is a nuanced attention to the potential expressed by everyday articulations and a commitment to produce a processual, vitalist and non-normative cultural politics of the margins. The reader will find in this book unique challenges to accepted and authoritative thinking, and provides new insights into researching life at the margins.

This book explores and maps the relationship between borders, security and global governance. Theoretically, the book seeks to establish to what degree, and in what ways, traditional notions of borders, security and (global) governance are being eroded, undermined and contested in the context of a globalising world. Borders are increasingly being re-conceptualised to account for connectivity as well as divisions at the same time as focus is shifting from permanence to permeability. The ambivalence ascribed to bordering processes is at heart a security concern; borders are not only entwined with state formation but are also attempts at governing securities, identities and histories. Proceeding from a critical rendering of statist conceptualisations of borders, security and governance, the book not only emphasises the politics of borders, mobility and re-locations, but also provides a shared groundwork for interrogating the spatial conditions for bordering and border work as manifestations of a continuously deferred becoming rather than being. A principal contribution of the volume is its scrutiny of how borders are enacted and perceived in and through the everyday, and of how such production and construal can make sense as acts of resistance to various forms of governing. Such a focus reveals the necessity of investigating how governing from afar affects the possibilities and tendencies to securitise as well as desecuritise, within as well as beyond elite settings. This book will be of much interest to students of border studies, human geography, governmentality, global governance and IR/critical security studies.

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

Numerous scholars have noticed that certain political institutions, including federalism, majoritarian electoral systems, and presidentialism, are linked to lower levels of income redistribution. This book offers a political geography explanation for those observed patterns. Each of these institutions is strongly shaped by geography and provides incentives for politicians to target their appeals and government resources to localities. Territorialized institutions also shape citizens' preferences in ways that can undermine the national coalition in favor of redistribution. Moreover, territorial institutions increase the number of veto points in which anti-redistributive actors can constrain reform efforts. These theoretical connections between the politics of place and redistributive outcomes are explored in theory, empirical analysis, and case studies of the USA, Germany, and Argentina.

Jawaharlal Nehru, India's first Prime Minister and Minister of External Affairs from 1947 to 1964, set the framework of foreign policy which has remained India's reference point until the present. One of the most significant leaders of the twentieth century, Nehru came to power in the early years of the Cold War, determined to assert independent India's influence and interests in Asia and beyond. Drawing on the Nehru Papers, Francine Frankel's When Nehru Looked East reinterprets the doctrine of non-alignment with which Nehru is most closely identified to reveal its strategic purpose. Analyzing India-US and India-China relations during this period, Frankel explains how these parties came to distrust each other. From the outset, Nehru's vision of India's destiny as a great power collided with that of the US as leader and protector of the free world. He considered the US a rival in South and Southeast Asia and the Middle East and carried out an active diplomacy to dissuade newly independent nations from joining US-led anti-communist mutual security alliances and instead follow India's example of non-alignment. He did not see a threat from the Soviet Union and believed, despite the dispute with China over the northern border, that India's approach would bring India and China together as advocates of Asianism to counter American penetration in the region. This historic miscalculation, manifested in the 1962 China-India War, overthrew the pillars of Nehru's foreign policy. Frankel provides the most authoritative account yet of the origins of India-US suspicions and India-China rivalries. Outlasting the Cold War, Nehru's worldview lived on in the mindset of successor generations, making it difficult for the US and India to form a strategic partnership and establish a natural balance in Asia.