A Companion to Border Studies introduces an exciting and expanding field of interdisciplinary research, through the writing of an international array of scholars, from diverse perspectives that include anthropology, development studies, geography, history, political science and sociology. * Explores how nations and cultural identities are being transformed by their dynamic, shifting borders where mobility is sometimes facilitated, other times impeded or prevented * Offers an array of international views which together form an authoritative guide for students, instructors and researchers * Reflects recent significant growth in the importance of understanding the distinctive characteristics of borders and frontiers, including cross-border cooperation, security and controls, migration and population displacements, hybridity, and transnationalism

The Vietnam War is one of the defining conflicts of the twentieth century: not only did it divide American society at every level; the conflict also represented a key shift in Asian anti-colonialism and shaped the course of the Cold War. Despite its political and social importance, popular memory of the war is dominated by myths and stereotypes. In this incisive new text, John Dumbrell debunks popular assumptions about the war and reassesses the key political, military and historical controversies associated with one of the most contentious and divisive wars of recent times. Drawing upon an extensive range of newly accessible sources, Rethinking the Vietnam War assesses all aspects of the conflict - ranging across domestic electoral politics in the USA to the divided communist leadership in Hanoi and grassroots antiwar movements around the world. The book charts the full course of the war - from the origins of American involvement, the growing internationalization of the conflict and the swing year of 1968 to bitter twists in Sino-Soviet rivalry and the eventual withdrawal of American forces. Situating the conflict within an international context, John Dumbrell also considers competing interpretations of the war and points the way to the resolution of debates which have divided international opinion for decades.

This study addresses the many initiatives to decrease industrial pollution emitting from the Pechenganikel plant in the northwestern corner of Russia during the final years of the Soviet Union, and examines the wider implications for the state of pollution control in the Arctic today. By examining the efforts of Soviet industry and government agencies, Finnish and Swedish officials, and Norwegian environmental authorities to curb industrial pollution in the region, this book offers an environmental history of the Arctic as well as a transnational, geopolitical history.

There is widespread agreement that climate change is a serious problem. If we fail to regulate greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming, or use alternative strategies for addressing the problem, the damages could be significant, and perhaps catastrophic. After several international meetings in which nation-states have tried unsuccessfully to address the climate change problem, there is a sense of frustration and urgency: frustration at the slow pace at which countries are moving toward an international agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions; urgency because of the growing evidence that climate change is a serious problem that should be addressed globally and quickly. This book takes a close look at the fundamental political and economic processes driving climate change policy. It identifies institutional arrangements and policies that are needed to design more effective climate change policy. It also examines ethical and distributional arguments that are critical in understanding and framing the climate debate. The book is built around a conference honouring Tom Schelling that took place at the Sustainable Consumption Institute at The University of Manchester. Each chapter represents a significant contribution to the literature on the political economy of climate change.

Why our democracies need urgent reform, before it's too late A generation after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the world is once again on the edge of chaos. Demonstrations have broken out from Belgium to Brazil led by angry citizens demanding a greater say in their political and economic future, better education, heathcare and living standards. The bottom line of this outrage is the same; people are demanding their governments do more to improve their lives faster, something which policymakers are unable to deliver under conditions of anaemic growth. Rising income inequality and a stagnant economy are threats to both the developed and the developing world, and leaders can no longer afford to ignore this gathering storm. In Edge of Chaos, Dambisa Moyo sets out the new political and economic challenges facing the world, and the specific, radical solutions needed to resolve these issues and reignite global growth. Dambisa enumerates the four headwinds of demographics, inequality, commodity scarcity and technological innovation that are driving social and economic unrest, and argues for a fundamental retooling of democratic capitalism to address current problems and deliver better outcomes in the future. In the twenty-first century, a crisis in one country can quickly become our own, and fragile economies produce a fragile international community. Edge of Chaos is a warning for advanced and emerging nations alike: we must reverse the dramatic erosion in growth, or face the consequences of a fragmented and unstable global future.

The reinvigorated debate on imperialism in the last two decades focuses on the means by which Euro-American capital is currently spread around the globe and the different ways it pillages the wealth of the developing countries. The Economic Partnership Agreements being foisted on the African, Caribbean and Pacific countries by the European Union, however, has been under the radar of the debate on imperialism. This book draws on the experiences of the Caribbean Forum-EU EPA to fill that void by bringing into focus the economic partnership agreement as a conduit of European imperialism. "Critical Global Studies," vol. 1

Central Asia has become the battleground for the major struggles of the 21st century: radical Islam versus secularism, authoritarianism versus identity politics, Eastern versus Western control of resources, and the American 'War on Terror'. Nowhere are these conflicts more starkly illustrated than in the case of Tajikistan. Embedded in the oil-rich Central Asian region, and bordering war-torn Afghanistan, Tajikistan occupies a geo-strategically pivotal position. It is also a major transit hub for the smuggling of opium, which eventually ends up in the hands of heroin dealers in Western cities. In this timely book, Lena Jonson examines Tajkistan's search for a foreign policy in the post 9/11 environment. She shows the internal contradictions of a country in every sense at the crossroads, reconciling its bloody past with an uncertain future She assesses the impact of regional developments on the reform movement in Tajikistan, and in turn examines how changes in Tajik society (which is the only Central Asian country to have a legal Islamist party) might affect the region. The destiny of Tajikistan is intimately connected with that of Central Asia, and this thorough and penetrating book is essential reading for anyone seeking to make sense of this strategically vital region at a moment of transition.

As David Vine demonstrates, the overseas bases raise geopolitical tensions and provoke widespread antipathy towards the United States. They also undermine American democratic ideals, pushing the U.S. into partnerships with dictators and perpetuating a system of second-class citizenship in territories like Guam. They breed sexual violence, destroy the environment, and damage local economies. And their financial cost is staggering: though the Pentagon underplays the numbers, Vine's accounting proves that the bill approaches $100 billion per year. For many decades, the need for overseas bases has been a quasi-religious dictum of U.S. foreign policy. But in recent years, a bipartisan coalition has finally started to question this conventional wisdom. With the U.S. withdrawing from Afghanistan and ending thirteen years of war, there is no better time to re-examine the tenets of our military strategy. Base Nation is an essential contribution to that debate.

Contested Waters provides an in-depth analysis of trans-boundary water conflict involving the Indus Basin in Pakistan. The book focuses on both national scale and local scale case studies to illustrate how these water conflicts are both discursively and materially driven by human institutions and politics. Through case studies of controversy over large dams, local flooding and irrigation methods, Daanish Mustafa highlights the various deeply political and institutional factors driving water conflict - specifically the disparity between national scale strategies of water politics and local scale water politics - and calls for engagement with water conflict in political terms.

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press's mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1967.

Moving beyond state-centric and elitist perspectives, this volume examines everyday security in the Central Asian country of Kyrgyzstan. Based on ethnographic fieldwork and written by scholars from Central Asia and beyond, it shows how insecurity is experienced, what people consider existential threats, and how they go about securing themselves. It concentrates on individuals who feel threatened because of their ethnic belonging, gender or sexual orientation. It develops the concept of 'securityscapes', which draws attention to the more subtle means that people take to secure themselves - practices bent on invisibility and avoidance, on disguise and trickery, and on continually adapting to shifting circumstances. By broadening the concept of security practice, this book is an important contribution to debates in Critical Security Studies as well as to Central Asian and Area Studies.

Sunni Islam has played an ambivalent role in Turkey's Kurdish conflict-both as a conflict resolution tool and as a tool of resistance. Under the Banner of Islam uses Turkey as a case study to understand how religious, ethnic, and national identities converge in ethnic conflicts between co-religionists. Gulay Turkmen asks a question that informs the way we understand religiously homogeneous ethnic conflicts today: Is it possible for religion to act as a resolution tool in these often-violent conflicts? In search for answers to this question, in Under the Banner of Islam, Turkmen journeys into the inner circles of religious elites from different backgrounds: non-state-appointed local Kurdish meles, state-appointed Kurdish and Turkish imams, heads of religious NGOs, and members of religious orders. Blending interview data with a detailed historical analysis that goes back as far as the nineteenth century, she argues that the strength of Turkish and Kurdish nationalisms, the symbiotic relationship between Turkey's religious and political fields, the religious elites' varying conceptualizations of religious and ethnic identities, and the recent political developments in the region (particularly in Syria) all contribute to the complex role religion plays in the Kurdish conflict in Turkey. Under the Banner of Islam is a specific story of religion, ethnicity, and nationalism in Turkey's Kurdish conflict, but it also tracks a broader narrative of how ethnic and religious identities are negotiated when resolving conflicts.

The idea of civilization recurs frequently in reflections on international politics. However, International Relations academic writings on civilization have failed to acknowledge the major 20th-century analysis that examined the processes through which Europeans came to regard themselves as uniquely civilized - Norbert Elias's On the Process of Civilization. This book provides a comprehensive exploration of the significance of Elias's reflections on civilization for International Relations. It explains the working principles of an Eliasian, or process-sociological, approach to civilization and the global order and demonstrates how the interdependencies between state-formation, colonialism and an emergent international society shaped the European 'civilizing process'.

This title looks at borders as transitional zones. The past two decades have seen an intense, interdisciplinary interest in the border areas between states - inhabited territories located on the margins of a power center or between power centers. This timely and highly original collection of essays edited by noted scholar William Zartman is an attempt 'to begin to understand both these areas and the interactions that occur within and across them' - that is, to understand how borders affect the groups living along them and the nature of the land and people abutting on and divided by boundaries. These essays highlight three defining features of border areas: border landers constitute an experiential and culturally identifiable unit; borderlands are characterized by constant movement (in time, space, and activity); and in their mobility, borderlands always prepare for the next move at the same time as they respond to the last one. The ten case studies presented range over four millennia and provide windows for observing the dynamics of life in borderlands. They also have policy relevance, especially in creating an awareness of borderlands as dynamic social spheres and of the need to anticipate the changes that given policies will engender - changes that will in turn require their own solutions. Contrary to what one would expect in this age of globalization, says Zartman, borderlands maintain their own dynamics and identities and indeed spread beyond the fringes of the border and reach deep into the hinterland itself.

This major new study examines the nature of Chinese power and its impact on the international order. Drawing on an extensive range of Chinese-language debates and discussions, the book explains the roles of different actors and interests in Chinese international interactions, and how they influence the nature of Chinese strategies for global change. It also gives a unique perspective on how assessments of the consequences of China's rise are formed, and how and why these understandings change. Providing an important challenge to scholars and policy makers who seek to engage with China, the book demonstrates just how far starting assumptions can influence the questions asked, evidence sought and conclusions reached.

This concise introduction to the growth and evolution of geopolitics as a discipline includes biographical information on its leading historical and contemporary practitioners and detailed analysis of its literature. An important book on a topic that has been neglected for too long, Geopolitics: A Guide to the Issues will provide readers with an enhanced understanding of how geography influences personal, national, and international economics, politics, and security. The work begins with the history of geopolitics from the late 19th century to the present, then discusses the intellectual renaissance the discipline is experiencing today due to the prevalence of international security threats involving territorial, airborne, space-based, and waterborne possession and acquisition. The book emphasizes current and emerging international geopolitical trends, examining how the U.S. and other countries, including Australia, Brazil, China, India, and Russia, are integrating geopolitics into national security planning. It profiles international geopolitical scholars and their work, and it analyzes emerging academic, military, and governmental literature, including "gray" literature and social networking technologies, such as blogs and Twitter. Biographies of major current geopolitical scholars and descriptions and listings of their works Maps of geopolitical crisis areas, such as Afghanistan/Pakistan, the South China Sea, and the Straits of Malacca Quotations from various government and military primary source documents A glossary of geopolitical terms A bibliography of international scholarly resources, including government and military documents