This new book provides fresh and in-depth perspectives on so-called 'resource wars'. Highlighting the multiple forms of violence accompanying the history of resources exploitation, business practices supporting predatory regimes, insurgent groups and terrorists, this is an authoritative guide to the struggle for control of the world's resources. It includes key conceptual chapters and covers a wide range of case studies including: * the geopolitics of oil control in the Middle East, Central Asia and Columbia, * spaces of governance and 'petro-violence' in Nigeria * 'blood diamonds' and other minerals associated with conflicts in Sierra Leone and the Congo. This book was previously published as a special issue of the journal Geopolitics.

For a long time, India and China have been seen as the rising economic giants on the Asiatic mainland. Studies of the conflicts which have plagued the borderlands of India and China however have tended to only analyse individual case studies without attempting to compare and contrast the situation in these conflicts. This book compares and contrasts the situation in India's disputed borderlands - Kashmir and the Indian north eastern states - with China's contested borderlands - Xinjiang and Tibet. The book looks at the root causes of the conflict and how these conflicts have evolved and changed their character with the passage of time. Analysing how the countries have dealt with their territorial disputes from the 50's till more recent times, the author shows to what extent these state policies have exacerbated the already strained situation. Using primary data collected primarily through interviews, from the people/inhabitants of these conflict zones, the book throws new light on the problem. This bottom up approach allows the people to speak and provides a different understanding of the nature of the conflict, which may very well be the way forward for long lasting peace. A comparative study of the conflicts in the contested borderlands of China and India, the book will be of interest to scholars studying Asian security studies and Asian Politics particularly and Defence and Security Studies more generally.

Over the past few decades, the governance of nature has taken its most radical turn. The most influential change in economic and social regulation has seen a dramatic reprise of liberal faith in less regulated markets and minimalist states, underpinned by advocacy for extending exclusive property rights to nearly everything imaginable. This complex turn, with its countless yet uncharted implications for environmental quality and governance, is captured by the contentious concept of neoliberalism. Today, neoliberalism provides the context and direction for how humans affect and interact with the non-human world and with one another. But what does this mean for nature?

This volume brings together specific case studies that span more than two decades of experience and evidence linking neoliberalism with concrete environmental changes, politics, and outcomes in diverse, international contexts. It evaluates specific political ecologies and dynamics, and the implications of particular neoliberal reforms and enforcements, while collectively affording new contributors and readers the possibility of thinking comparatively across sectors and geographic contexts. Such specificity and comparative potential serves important analytical functions because it allows the authors and editors to craft stronger, more credible answers to the central questions of what neoliberalism is and what it entails in specific sorts of circumstances.

This book is an ethical critique of existing approaches to sustainable development and international environmental cooperation, providing a detailed and structured account of the tensions, normative shifts and contradictions that currently characterize it. With specific focus on three environmental regimes, the volume explores the way various notions of justice feature both implicitly and explicitly in the design of global environmental policies. In so doing, the dominant conceptions of justice that underpin key global environmental policies are identified and criticised on the basis of their compatibility with the normative essence of global sustainable development. Global Justice and Neoliberal Environmental Governance demonstrates that whilst moral norms inflict far greater impact in regime development than is currently acknowledged by orthodox approaches to regime analysis, the core polices remain rooted in two neo-liberal interpretations of justice which undermine the ability to achieve sustainable development and international justice. It will appeal to students and scholars of politics, philosophy, international relations, geography and law.

Following successive international legal verdicts, Bangladesh is now an accredited maritime state. Possessing a spacious territorial sea and an extended continental shelf, with a maritime zone almost equalling its land borders, a 'window of opportunity' has opened for the country to realise its developmental aspirations. Yet, it faces numerous challenges, many of which are entwined. This book is a detailed analysis of Bangladesh's maritime strategy. It charts the country's maritime legacies, including disputes with both Myanmar and India and analyses the contributions of the leadership in the maritime territorial gains. The author examines Bangladesh's need to consolidate these newly reclaimed gains, whilst exploring the unremitting interest of major global power players in maintaining maritime resource exploitation, navigation and security. Finally, the author demonstrates how the country needs to embrace the notional principles of sustainable development of its ocean economy to utilize its resources and how it has since been coming to grips with the emerging concept of "blue economy" to enhance its enduring national development. The first systematic study on Bangladesh's maritime policy and the country's importance in the emerging geopolitical rivalry in the Indian Ocean, this book will be of interest to academics in the field of South Asian and Indian Ocean politics.

Over the past few decades, the governance of nature has taken its most radical turn. The most influential change in economic and social regulation has seen a dramatic reprise of liberal faith in less regulated markets and minimalist states, underpinned by advocacy for extending exclusive property rights to nearly everything imaginable. This complex turn, with its countless yet uncharted implications for environmental quality and governance, is captured by the contentious concept of neoliberalism. Today, neoliberalism provides the context and direction for how humans affect and interact with the non-human world and with one another. But what does this mean for nature?

This volume brings together specific case studies that span more than two decades of experience and evidence linking neoliberalism with concrete environmental changes, politics, and outcomes in diverse, international contexts. It evaluates specific political ecologies and dynamics, and the implications of particular neoliberal reforms and enforcements, while collectively affording new contributors and readers the possibility of thinking comparatively across sectors and geographic contexts. Such specificity and comparative potential serves important analytical functions because it allows the authors and editors to craft stronger, more credible answers to the central questions of what neoliberalism is and what it entails in specific sorts of circumstances.

This book explores the growing interests of China in the Arctic and examines the nature of its interests and motivations in maintaining its involvement and presence in the region. The new geopolitical landscape of the Arctic today is a significant departure from the great power politics that existed in the region during the Cold War era. Apart from traditional Arctic states, more and more international organizations and non-Arctic states are showing an increased interest in this region, not least China. Many have attempted to interpret China's intention in moving to the high north and this book aims to add to the existing literature from three approaches: China's participation in the international institutions, China's relationships with the Arctic stakeholders and China's sectoral engagement in the Arctic. In taking a three-dimensional approach to the analysis, the author builds a comprehensive picture of China's interests and activities in the Arctic, not only from the perspective of China but also from the viewpoint of other Arctic states (Russia, Canada, the U.S., Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Iceland). One of the first books in English to cover the subject since the release of China's Arctic policy white paper in January 2018, this analysis will be of interest to academics, students of Arctic studies, maritime law and international law, as well as policy makers in Arctic and non-Arctic states.

"To be someone-to be anyone-is about...not being someone else. Miller's amused and inspired book is utterly compelling." -Adam Phillips "A compendium of expressions of wonder over what might have been...Swept up in our real lives, we quickly forget about the unreal ones. Still, there will be moments when, for good or ill, we feel confronted by our unrealized possibilities." -New Yorker We live one life, formed by paths taken and untaken. Choosing a job, getting married, deciding on a place to live or whether to have children-every decision precludes another. But what if you'd gone the other way? From Robert Frost to Sharon Olds, Virginia Woolf to Ian McEwan, Jane Hirshfield to Carl Dennis, storytellers of every stripe consider the roads not taken, the lives we haven't led. What is it that compels us to identify with fictional and poetic voices tantalizing us with the shadows of what might have been? Not only poets and novelists, but psychologists and philosophers have much to say on this question. Miller finds wisdom in all of these, revealing the beauty, the allure, and the danger of sustaining or confronting our unled lives. "Miller is charming company, both humanly and intellectually. He is onto something: the theme of unled lives, and the fascinating idea that fiction intensifies the sense of provisionality that attends all lives. An extremely attractive book." -James Wood "An expertly curated tour of regret and envy in literature...Miller's insightful and moving book-both in his own discussion and in the tales he recounts-gently nudges us toward consolation." -Wall Street Journal "I wish I had written this book...Examining art's capacity to transfix, multiply, and compress, this book is itself a work of art." -Times Higher Education

This volume examines the reasons why some despair at the prospects for an ecological form of democracy, and challenges the recent 'deliberative turn' in environmental political thought.

Deliberative democracy has become popular for those seeking a reconciliation of these two forms of politics. Demand for equal access to a public forum in which the best argument will prevail appears to offer a way of incorporating environmental interests into the democratic process. This book argues that deliberative theory, far from being friendly to the environmental movement, shackles the ability those seeking radical change to make their voices heard in the most effective manner.

Mathew Humphrey challenges beliefs about the relationship between ecological politics and democracy at a time when those who take direct action are being swept up in the War on Terror. By calling for a more open and contested form of democracy, in which the boundaries of what constitutes 'acceptable' behaviour are not decided in advance of actual debate, Ecological Politics and Democratic Theory is an original contribution to the literature on environmental politics, ecological thought and democracy.

This volume attempts to draw debates on governance, at both of these levels, into spaces of cross-border regionalism in Europe today. Embodying both supra-national and sub-national dynamics of contemporary forms of governance, cross-border regions (or euregions) enable observation of the fitful progress and contradictions of the multilevel polity that is contemporary Europe. Including case studies from throughout the EU as exemplars of specific "border regimes", the volume identifies the practical and theoretical importance of governing in Europe's new cross-border territories as part of a newly reinvigorated 'regional question'. In Europe's euregions, it is argued, issues of democracy, identity, sovereignty, citizenship and scale must be rethought, when a border runs through it. This book utilises a diversity of perspectives and a range of selected case studies to examine modes of governance emerging across the nation-state borders of Europe. It will interest students and researchers of European Union borders.

Modern urban spaces are, by definition, mixed socio-spatial configurations. In many ways, their enduring success and vitality lie in the richness of their ethnic texture and ongoing exchange of economic goods, cultural practices, political ideas and social movements. This mixture, however, is rarely harmonious and has often led to violent conflict over land and identity. Focusing on mixed towns in Israel/Palestine, this insightful volume theorizes the relationship between modernity and nationalism and the social dynamics which engender and characterize the growth of urban spaces and the emergence therein of inter-communal relations. For more than a century, Arabs and Jews have been interacting in the workplaces, residential areas, commercial enterprises, cultural arenas and political theatres of mixed towns. Defying prevailing Manichean oppositions, these towns both exemplify and resist the forces of nationalist segregation. In this interdisciplinary volume, a new generation of Israeli and Palestinian scholars come together to explore ways in which these towns have been perceived as utopian or dystopian and whether they are best conceptualized as divided, dual or colonial. Identifying ethnically mixed towns as a historically specific analytic category, this volume calls for further research, comparison and debate.

The COVID-19 pandemic is a Rorschach test for society: everyone sees something different in it, and the range of political and economic responses to the crisis can leave us feeling overwhelmed. This book cuts through the confusion, dissecting the new post-coronavirus capitalism into several policy areas and spheres of action to inform academic, policy and public discourse. Covering all the major aspects of contemporary capitalism that have been affected by the pandemic, Andreas Noelke deftly analyses the impacts of the crisis on our socio-economic and political systems. Signposting a new era for global capitalism, he offers alternatives for future economic development in the wake of COVID-19.

This book explores the most important strategic questions about the emerging Indo-Pacific region by offering an incisive analysis on the current and future patterns of competition and cooperation of key nations in the region. Examining emerging policies of cooperation and conflict adopted by Indo-Pacific states in response to a rising China, the book offers insights into the evolving Indo-Pacific visions and strategies being developed in Japan, India, Australia and the US in reaction to shifting geopolitical realities. The book provides evidence of geopolitical advances in what some see as a spatially coherent maritime zone stretching from the eastern Pacific to the western Indian Ocean, including small island states and countries that line its littoral. It also analyzes the development and operationalization of Indo-Pacific policies and strategies of various key nations. Contributors provide both macro and micro perspectives to this critically significant topic, offering insights into the grand strategies of great powers as well as case studies ranging from the Philippines to the Maldives to Kenya. The book suggests that new rivalries, shifting alliances and economic ebbs and flows in the Indo-Pacific will generate new geopolitical realities and shape much else beyond in the twenty-first century. A timely contribution to the rapidly expanding policy and scholarly discussions about what is likely to be the defining region for international politics for coming generations, the book will be of interest to policymakers as well as students and academics in the fields of International Relations, Foreign Policy, Security Studies, Diplomacy and International Law, East and South Asian Studies, East African Studies, Middle East Studies, and Australian Studies.

This is a new exploration of the impacts of Arctic regimes in such vital areas as pollution, biodiversity, indigenous affairs, health and climate change. The post-Cold War era has seen an upsurge in interest in Arctic affairs. With new international regimes targeting Arctic issues at both the global and regional levels, the Northern areas seem set to play an increasingly prominent role in the domestic and foreign policies of the Arctic states and actors - not least Russia, the USA and the EU. This volume clearly distinguishes between three key kinds of impact: effectiveness, defined as mitigation or removal of specific problems addressed by a regime; political mobilization, highlighting changes in the pattern of involvement and influence in decision making on Arctic affairs; and region building, understood as contributions by Arctic institutions to denser interactive or discursive connectedness among the inhabitants of the region. Empirically, the main focus is on three institutions: the Arctic Council, the Barents Euro-Arctic Region and the Council of the Baltic Sea States. International Cooperation and Arctic Governance is essential reading for all students with an interest in Arctic affairs and their impact on global society.

Although globalization has led to increased cross-border traffic, there has been little examination of how crossing political boundaries affects tourism and vice versa. Bringing together case studies from Europe, the USA and Southern Africa, this volume discusses current issues and policies, destination management and communication, and planning in cross-border areas. Topics studied include borders as tourist attractions and destinations in their own right, as barriers to travel and the growth of tourism, boundaries as links of transit and the growth of supranationalism. The book concludes that the role of borders has changed dramatically in recent years. Many more borders that have traditionally hosted large-scale tourism are becoming more difficult to cross, primarily because of safety and immigration concerns. On the other hand, places that were once forbidden to foreigners are now opening up and new destinations are becoming more commonplace.

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.

This extensively revised second edition of The Geopolitics Reader draws together the most influential and significant geopolitical readings from the last hundred years. A compendium of divergent viewpoints of global conflict and change, it includes readings from Halford Mackinder, Theodore Roosevelt, Adolf Hitler, George Kennan, Samuel Huntington, Edward Said, Osama Bin Laden and American neoconservatives. It draws on the most illuminating examples of imperial, Cold War and contemporary geopolitics, as well as new environmental themes, global dangers and multiple resistances to the practices of geopolitics. Whilst retaining a coherent five part structure, the selection of readings has been updated to account for recent developments in the critical study of geopolitics and the post 9/11 geopolitical landscape (including issues in technoscience, biowarfare, oil politics, and terrorism), and key questions address issues of the transformed nature of threats in the new millennium, the debate over the hegemonic position of the US, and non-American perspectives on contemporary geopolitics. Skilfully guiding the reader through the divergent viewpoints of global conflict and change, the editors, all leading geopolitical authorities, provide comprehensive introductions and critical commentaries at the start of each section. Illustrated with provocative cartoons, this second edition of The Geopolitics Reader is the ideal textbook for introductory classes on international relations, world politics, political geography and, of course, geopolitics, provoking lively discussion of how questions of discourse and power are at the centre of the critical study of geopolitics.

It is widely believed that globalization has proceeded to the point where international economic linkages are as strong as those within nations. Struck by research suggesting that this perception is dramatically mistaken, John Helliwell spent three years assessing the evidence. The results are reported in this book, the latest in Brookings' Integrating National Economies series. It provides the most systematic measurements yet available of the relative importance of global and national economic ties.

The original finding, based on a gravity model of trade flows, was that 1988 trade linkages between Canadian provinces were twenty times as dense as those between Canadian provinces and U.S. states of similar size and distance. A much longer and more detailed body of data is used to expand and explain these findings. Data for trade within and among OECD and some developing countries are used to show that the Canadian-U.S. results are applicable to other countries. Helliwell then surveys and extends the evidence relating to price linkages, capital mobility, migration, and knowledge spillovers, finding in all cases very large border effects.

The evidence offers a challenge to economists, policymakers, and citizens to explain why national economies have so much staying power, and to consider whether this is a good or bad thing. Helliwell argues that since large and small industrial economies have similar levels of income, there are likely to be diminishing returns from increases in globalization beyond levels sufficient to permit the ready exploitation of comparative advantages in trade, and relatively easy access to knowledge developed elsewhere.

As we move further into the 21st century, the prominence of regions can no longer be taken for granted. A certain skepticism has developed with regard to the feasibility of marginal regions achieving self-sustained growth and states have maintained their role as regulators of economic and social activities. Thus, the notion of the region and its significance is currently much debated and contested. Illustrated with a wide range of European case studies, this volume brings together the main strands of these contestations, as economic, political and social actors attempt to institutionalise their vision of their region as the dominant form of territorial governance. It questions both the external delimitation and the internal constitution of regions and critically analyses the societal processes circumscribing ways in which regions are created, maintained and undermined. The volume provides a wide range of analytical perspectives to enable an understanding of the current mosaic of regionalism in Europe.

The partition of the Indian subcontinent, the collapse of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia, the reunification of Germany, the continuing feud between two Koreas, the Irish peace process, the case of Israel/Palestine and the lingering division of Cyprus, have together given rise to a huge body of literature. However, studies of partitions have usually focused on individual cases. This innovative volume uses comparative analysis to fill the gap in partition studies and examines cross-cutting issues such as:
* violence
* state formation
* union and regional unification
* geopolitics
* transition.

East Asia is a potential area of international conflict, with a number of possible 'flashpoints' and with the absence of strong regional organisations able to deal with conflict resolution. At the same time, global powers frequently get involved in the international politics of the region in order to protect their interests. This book presents a comprehensive overview of the geopolitics of the region. It focuses in particular on the way geographical and historical forces continue to play a key role in shaping international relations here. It considers the role of both regional and international powers, and assesses the risks of war in the region.

Since the end of the Cold War, one of the most significant debates in international relations has been the question of whether the rise of China as a major economic, political and military power will be a force for stability or instability in the international system and the East Asian region. Forceful arguments have been put forward on both sides. This book examines perceptions of the 'China Threat', and governments' policies in response to the perceived threat in a wide range of countries, including the United States, Russia, Europe, Japan, South Asia, South-East Asia and the Middle East, as well as the perceptions of the Chinese themselves. For each country current security concerns and policies, especially the policy of engagement, are examined in detail, and future prospects for relations with China are assessed. As the Bush administration in Washington increasingly focuses on China as a 'strategic competitor' and Sino-US relations becomes increasingly tense, the 'China Threat' issue has come to dominate the security agenda in the Asia-Pacific region, and now poses the biggest foreign policy challenge of the 21st century.

Emmers questions the dichotomy implicit in this interpretation and investigates what role the balance of power really plays in such cooperative security arrangements and in the calculations of the participants of ASEAN and the ARF. He offers a thorough analysis of the influence the balance of power has had on the formation and evolution of the ASEAN and ARF and reveals the co-existence and inter-relationship between both approaches within the two institutions.
The book contains case studies of Brunei's motives in joining the ASEAN in 1984; ASEAN's response to the Third Indochina Conflict; the workings of the ARF since 1994 and ASEAN's involvement in the South China Sea dispute. It will interest students and researchers of the ASEAN and ARF, the international politics of Southeast Asia, Regionalism and the Balance of Power theory.

In developing democracies, political parties built around charismatic personalities, coupled with populist campaigns, often ascend to power. This tactic has long been effective in Latin America, and has resulted in parties that rely heavily on personalistic appeals and vote-buying. The predominant view is that ethnic parties are an exception to this rule; they behave differently from traditional populist parties by attracting voters based on the expectation that they will create policies to provide for the groups that they represent. In Candidate Matters: A Study of Ethnic Parties, Campaigns, and Elections in Latin America, Karleen Jones West shows that under certain conditions, niche parties-such as ethnic parties-are not that different from their mainstream counterparts. Through a detailed examination of the Pachakutik party in Ecuador, she shows that the characteristics of individual candidates campaigning in their districts shapes party behavior. Ethnic parties that are initially programmatic can become personalistic and clientelistic because vote-buying is an effective strategy in rural indigenous areas, and because candidates with strong reputations and access to resources can create winning campaigns that buy votes and capitalize on candidates' personal appeal. Why do niche parties in developing democracies struggle to maintain programmatic and meaningful platforms? West argues that when candidates' legislative campaigns are personalistic and clientelistic in their districts, niche parties are unable to maintain unified programmatic support. By combining in-depth fieldwork on legislative campaigns in Ecuador with the statistical analyses of electoral results and public opinion, she demonstrates the importance of candidates and their districts for how niche parties compete, win, and become influential in developing democracies.