The recent launching of China's high profile Belt and Road Initiative and its founding of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank have underscored China's rapidly growing importance as a global player in development, diplomacy, and economic governance. To date, scholarship on "China abroad" has focused primarily on Africa and Latin America. In comparison, China's investment and development assistance among its neighbors in Asia have been understudied, despite the fact that China's aid and overseas investment remain concentrated in Asia, the countries of which have had complex and often fraught cultural and political relationships with China for more than a millennia. Through case studies from Southeast Asia, South Asia, and Central Asia, this volume provides a targeted examination of the intertwined geoeconomics and geopolitics of China's investment and development in Asia. It provides in-depth and grounded analyses of nationalisms and state-making projects, as well as the material effects of China's "going out" strategy on livelihoods, economies, and politics. The volume contributes to understandings of what characterizes Chinese development, and pays attention to questions of elite agency, capitalist dynamics, state sovereignty, the politics of identity, and the reconfiguration of the Chinese state. The chapters in this article originally appeared in a special issue of Eurasian Geography and Economics.

Globalization and Capitalist Geopolitics is concerned with the nature of corporate power against the backdrop of the decline of the West and the struggle by non-western states to challenge and overcome domination of the rest of the world by the West. This book argues that although the US continues to preside over a quasi-imperial system of power based on global military preponderance and financial statecraft, and remains reluctant to recognize the realities global economic convergence, the age of imperial state hegemony is giving way to a new international order characterized by capitalist sovereignty and competition between regional and transnational concentrations of economic power. This title seeks to interrogate the structure of world order by examining leading approaches to globalization and political economy in international relations and international political economy. Breaking with the classical school, Woodley argues that geopolitics should be understood as a transnational strategic practice employed by powerful state actors, which mirrors predatory corporate rivalry for control over global resources and markets, reproducing the structural conditions for corporate power through the transnational state form of capital. In a period of increasing geopolitical insecurity and economic instability this title provides an authoritative yet accessible commentary on debates on capitalism and globalization in the wake of the financial crisis. It is valuable resource for students and scholars seeking to develop a deeper understanding of the historical determinants of the changing dynamics of neoliberal capitalism and their implications for world order.

A comparative exploration of Western and Chinese understandings of justice and their possible use to reframe Sino-American relations and international governance. The concept of justice is central to politics: it justifies the ordering of society and the distribution of rewards. In Justice and International Order, Richard Ned Lebow and Feng Zhang compare and contrast Western and Chinese conceptions of justice. They argue that justice can almost invariably be reduced to the principles of fairness and equality, although they are developed and expressed differently in the two cultures. Lebow and Zhang show that there has been a noticeable shift in both in favoring equality over fairness in the modern era. They analyze the growing conflict between China and the West in the light of these conceptions of justice and show how they might be deployed to ameliorate it. The authors also offer a critique of what passes for global order and explore ways in which fairness and equality, and trade-offs between them, offer pathways to better and more peaceful worlds.

The Indo-Pacific is fast becoming the world's dominant region. Now, as it grows in power and wealth, geopolitical competition has reemerged, threatening future stability not merely in Asia but around the globe. China is aggressive and uncooperative, and increasingly expects the world to bend to its wishes. The focus on Sino-US competition for global power has obscured 'Asia's other great game': the rivalry between Japan and China. A modernizing India risks missing out on the energies and talents of millions of its women, potentially hampering the broader role it can play in the world. And in North Korea, the most frightening question raised by Kim Jong-un's pursuit of the ultimate weapon is also the simplest: can he control his nukes? In Asia's New Geopolitics: Essays on Reshaping the Indo-Pacific, Michael R. Auslin examines these and other key issues transforming the Indo-Pacific and the broader world. He also explores the history of American strategy in Asia, from the 18th century through today. Taken together, Auslin's essays convey the richness and diversity of the region: with more than three billion people, the Indo-Pacific contains over half of the global population, including the world's two most populous nations, India and China. In a riveting final chapter, Auslin imagines a war between America and China in a bid for regional hegemony and what this conflict might look like.

This Whitehall Paper is an examination of China's relations over its western borders, looking at the interplay between China's relations with South and Central Asia, and its relations with other great adjacent powers. Based on a two-year research project that included travel and workshops in South and Central Asia, this Paper examines Beijing's changing impact and relationship with its near neighbourhood. Conceived prior to the announcement of Xi Jinping's 'Belt and Road Initiative' research for this report was undertaken in the shadow of the September 2013 announcement and the 'Belt and Road' ultimately proved to be the driving framework under which this report was drafted. The report sketches out the roots of the initiative, and how it is being felt on the ground, exploring in detail how it is being received in China's immediate neighbourhood where its impact is most significant for China.

The twenty-first century geopolitics is gradually concentrating on the maritime world with the increase in the global economic interaction in the post liberalization world. The sea lanes of communication are attracting attention with the growing emphasis on economic interactions among the emerging economies with emphasis on military strength, especially in Asia. According to some scholars the twenty-first century global power is shifting from the Atlantic to the Pacific world where the maritime world has historically played significant role. This growing economic interdependencies promoting economic prosperity and resultant military modernization are shaping the geopolitics of Asia today as it is found in East Asia. In this part of the world the geopolitics has been maritime in character and today they are significant with the growing importance of maritime disputes in East and South China Sea among the emerging power China and her neighbours in the region, and with special role of the USA. South China Sea is fast emerging as a major zone of conflict in the East Asian, especially Southeast Asian, geopolitics. Although the soul of the conflict remains the centuries old territorial dispute over possession of some geographical features of this maritime zone, it is gradually transcending the periphery of inter-state territorial feud and emerging as the driving force of an Asian cold war of the twenty-first century. In this context it is important to study the South China Sea geopolitics with reference to its history. The book here is an attempt to study the South China Sea geopolitics of today with reference to its past and investigate its character. The study here does not revolve round the territorial disputes and their historical character and legality but rather attempts to focus on the larger context of traditional intermingling of regional and extra-regional actors shaping the maritime geopolitics there in the past and at present, sometimes independent of the disputes while sometimes in their context. Here reference of India is also made given her growing interest and role in the South China Sea maritime zone.

Since the creation of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, media and public attention has been focussed on the global negotiations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Little attention has been paid to the institutions that are charged with the responsibility of developing effective responses. These are often remote from the public, and communities most threatened by global warming are often excluded from decision-making. The contributors to this volume investigate a wide range of institutions within the 'climate change regime complex'. From carbon trading, to food and water availability, energy production, human security, local government, and the intergovernmental climate talks themselves, they find much that should be of concern to policy makers, and the public at large. In doing so they provide a series of recommendations to improve governance legitimacy, and assist public participation in policy deliberations that will affect future generations.

Armenia receives one of the highest levels of international aid per capita in the Western world, and among the highest of the post-Soviet states. This ethnographic study, based on new primary research, looks at aid in the South Caucasus, and its role in Armenia's relationship with Europe. In particular, Skedsmo argues that the Aarhus Convention, which entitles citizens of Europe to access information and participation in decision-making in environmental matters has allowed Armenian citizens to adapt and control the direction of their country's political future in various ways - whether through protest activism or legal challenges. A new examination of aid and development, and the structures these create, Europe and Armenia will be an essential case study for scholars of development, for regional specialists in the post-soviet area (especially South Caucasus), social anthropologists, students of post socialism and development (postcolonialism). In addition, the book will be of interest for practitioners and European policy-makers, transnational organizations and others involved in development policies and projects in the region.

What makes large, multi-ethnic states hang together? At a time when ethnic and religious conflict has gained global prominence, the territorial organization of states is a critical area of study. Exploring how multi-ethnic and geographically dispersed states grapple with questions of territorial administration and change, this book argues that territorial change is a result of ongoing negotiations between states and societies where mutual and overlapping interests can often emerge. It focuses on the changing dynamics of central-local relations in Indonesia. Since the fall of Suharto's New Order government, new provinces have been sprouting up throughout the Indonesian archipelago. After decades of stability, this sudden change in Indonesia's territorial structure is puzzling. The author analyses this "provincial proliferation", which is driven by multilevel alliances across different territorial administrative levels, or territorial coalitions. He demonstrates that national level institutional changes including decentralization and democratization explain the timing of the phenomenon. Variations also occur based on historical, cultural, and political contexts at the regional level. The concept of territorial coalitions challenges the dichotomy between centre and periphery that is common in other studies of central-local relations. This book will be of interest to scholars in the fields of comparative politics, political geography, history and Asian and Southeast Asian politics.

The Earth is in crisis. We know this. We have known this for a long time. In the throes of the unfolding nightmare we call "capitalism" it is not hard to see and hear the violence that is being enacted against the planet. If we are to move beyond the idea that humanity is tasked with expressing our dominion over nature and towards a renewed integral understanding of humanity as firmly located within the biosphere, as an anarchist political ecology demands, then we have to start interrogating the privileges, hierarchies, and human-centric frames that guide our ways of knowing and being in the world. This volume centers around the idea that anarchism, as a conceptual framework, encourages us to contend with the multiple lines of difference, the various iterations of privilege, and the manifold set of archies that undergird our understandings of the world, and crucially, our place within it.

This Whitehall Paper is an examination of China's relations over its western borders, looking at the interplay between China's relations with South and Central Asia, and its relations with other great adjacent powers. Based on a two-year research project that included travel and workshops in South and Central Asia, this Paper examines Beijing's changing impact and relationship with its near neighbourhood. Conceived prior to the announcement of Xi Jinping's 'Belt and Road Initiative' research for this report was undertaken in the shadow of the September 2013 announcement and the 'Belt and Road' ultimately proved to be the driving framework under which this report was drafted. The report sketches out the roots of the initiative, and how it is being felt on the ground, exploring in detail how it is being received in China's immediate neighbourhood where its impact is most significant for China.

As the twenty-first century progresses, the Indo-Pacific theater is experiencing an unprecedented transformation involving economic development, military build-ups, political reforms, social changes, and technological advancements. The region now reflects a multitude of geopolitical challenges, factors, and complicated realities. Although America is still recognized as the most powerful force in the Indo-Pacific region, the challenge to America's hegemonic role is quite real and unrelenting. The ongoing global financial crisis has left a changed world with unanswered questions in its wake. Is America's post-WWII dominance of the Indo-Pacific region finally coming to an end? Can the United States and China work together to manage the region's hegemonic responsibilities? In The Geopolitical Power Shift in the Indo-Pacific Region, Randall Doyle provides analysis and insights on the transformational changes and the epochal history unfolding in this part of the world and America's increasingly precarious political and economic position.

The international framework for a climate change agreement is up for review as the initial Kyoto period to 2012 comes to an end. Though there has been much enthusiasm from political and environmental groups, the underlying economics and politics remain highly controversial. This book takes a cool headed look at the critical roadblocks to agreement, examining the economics of climate change, the incentives of the main players (the US, EU, China) and examines the policies governments can put in place to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and ultimately shift our economies onto a low-carbon path.
The volume brings together leading climate change policy experts to set out the economic analysis and the nature of the negotiations at Copenhagen and beyond. In addition to reviewing the main issues discussed above, a number of the articles question the basis of much of the climate change consensus, and debate the Stern Report's main findings.
The book is in four parts. Following an overview of the main issues, the first part is a reassessment of the economics of climate change. This is fundamental to the rest of the volume, and it contains new material which goes well beyond what might be called the new conventional wisdom. The second part looks at the geography of the costs and benefits of climate change - the very different perspectives of Africa, China, the US and Europe. These chapters provide a building block to considering the prospects for a new global agreement - the very different interests that will have to be reconciled at Copenhagen and beyond. The third part looks at policy instruments at the global level (whereas much of the literature to date is nationally and regionally based). Trading and R&D feature in the chapters, but so too do more radical unilateral options, including geo-engineering. Part four turns to the institutional architecture - drawing on evidence from previous attempts in other areas, as well as proposals for new bodies.

'An exceptional account.' Prospect 'Enlightening.' Spectator For the first time in millennia we live without formal empires. But that doesn't mean we don't feel their presence rumbling through history. The Great Imperial Hangover examines how the world's imperial legacies are still shaping the thorniest issues we face today. From Russia's incursions in the Ukraine to Brexit; from Trump's 'America-first' policy to China's forays into Africa; from Modi's India to the hotbed of the Middle East, Puri provides a bold new framework for understanding the world's complex rivalries and politics. Organised by region, and covering vital topics such as security, foreign policy, national politics and commerce, The Great Imperial Hangover combines gripping history and astute analysis to explain why the history of empire affects us all in profound ways.

Writing Global Trade Governance operationalises a key post-structuralist methodology in order to expand understanding on the institution at the heart of the global political economy. Despite the WTO's centrality and the growing popularity of methods utilizing discourse theory, no other text has yet demonstrated how these two fields of learning can be productively combined. The book seeks to move beyond existing literatures that assume the WTO to be a structure, institution or normative framework, in order to enquire into the discursive processes of identity formation that make the WTO both possible and contested. The book criticises conventional approaches that treat critical civil society as distinct to the WTO, arguing instead that it is only through including such social practices within the field of relations making the WTO that we can properly understand what makes the WTO work. The book presents an empirical analysis of the discursive character of the present-day WTO (including its formation and operation) and then moves on to evaluate how it is subject to change within a broader social context. The final stage of the book seeks to discuss the impact of the findings on future research, both on the WTO and other institutions. This work is a significant intervention in the literature on the World Trade Organization and the politics of global trade and social movements, and will be of great interest to students and scholars of global governance, discourse theory and international organizations

This highly original work of anthropology combines extensive ethnographic fieldwork and investigative journalism to explain how security is understood, experienced, and constructed along the Triple Frontera, the border region shared by Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay. One of the major "hot borders" in the Western Hemisphere, the Triple Frontera is associated with drug and human trafficking, contraband, money laundering, and terrorism. It's also a place where residents, particularly on the Argentine side, are subjected to increased governmental control and surveillance. How does a scholar tell a story about a place characterized by illicit international trading, rampant violence, and governmental militarization? Jusionyte inventively centered her ethnographic fieldwork on a community of journalists who investigate and report on crime and violence in the region. Through them she learned that a fair amount of petty, small-scale illicit trading goes unreported a consequence of a community invested in promoting the idea that the border is a secure place that does not warrant militarized attention. The author's work demonstrates that while media is often seen as a powerful tool for spreading a sense of danger and uncertainty, sensationalizing crime and violence, and creating moral panics, journalists can actually do the opposite. Those who selectively report on illegal activities use the news to tell particular types of stories in an attempt to make their communities look and ultimately be more secure.

A TLS and a Prospect Book of the Year A revelatory, explosive new analysis of the military today. Over the first two decades of the twenty-first century the British Army fought in Iraq and Afghanistan, at considerable financial and human cost. Yet neither war achieved its objectives. Award-winning journalist Simon Akam questions why, and provides challenging but necessary answers. Composed from assiduous documentary research, field reportage, and hundreds of interviews, this book is a strikingly rich, nuanced portrait of one of our pivotal national institutions in a time of great stress. This is as much a book about Britain, and about the politics of failure, as it is about the military.

Loch Johnson's new book explores the subject of covert action, often referred to as a "Third Option" between America's use of diplomacy and warfare--a shadowy approach to international affairs based on the controversial use of secret propaganda, political activities, economic sabotage, and paramilitary operations (whether clandestine warfare or assassinations). The three major instruments that guide United States foreign policy are the Treaty Power, the War Power, and the Spy Power. Within the category of Spy Power is the "Third Option" the use of covert action. Ever since the creation of the Central Intelligence Agency in 1947, the US has often turned to the third option in the conduct of its international relations. This controversial approach includes covert propaganda campaigns, subversive political activities, economic sabotage, and paramilitary operations ranging from clandestine warfare to the assassination of foreign leaders. From the beginning of the Cold War to the present day, America's intelligence and national security agencies have employed all of these "third option" tools in order to advance America's global interests. In The Third Option, the eminent national security scholar Loch Johnson provides a history of American covert warfare from 1947 to the present. In particular, he focuses on the morality and consequences of America's heavily veiled attempts to shape global affairs through its covert actions. Over the course of the book, a fundamental question comes into focus: Of what value has the Third Option been to the US as a complement to the nation's more open battlefield and diplomatic initiatives? Just as importantly, Johnson exposes the conflict between this controversial approach to achieving America's international objectives and the ideals that the US has always propounded: democracy, human rights, and liberalism. The Third Option closes with a sharp assessment of the policy, measuring its failures versus its successes. A richly detailed synthesis of America's covert action program ever since it became the world's preeminent power, this book serves as an ideal introduction for anyone interested in US foreign and national security policy.

First published in 2004, this book is the inaugural volume of the Indian Ocean Research Group (IORG). The volume emphasizes the complexity and historical and contemporary geopolitical significance of the Indian Ocean Region (IOR). It also propagates the necessity for increased intra-regional cooperation.

This book, first published in 1994, provides a comprehensive treatment of a crucial set of geopolitical issues from a region where political developments are observed with great care and some trepidation by the rest of the world. Based on expert analysis by leading researchers, the book is the first English-language to deal collectively with the origins and contemporary status of land and maritime boundaries in the Gulf and Arabian Peninsula. The 1990 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait was the gravest challenge yet posed to the system of small states established by Britain during its stay as a protecting power along the western Gulf littoral. Immediately, questions were raised about the origins of these tiny emirates: How had this territorial framework evolved? What was its raison d'etre? How capable was this framework of withstanding serious internal and external upheaval such as that caused by the Iraqi invasion? This book reviews these and related concerns from a variety of informed perspectives: those of the boundary-maker himself, the international lawyer, the oil economist, and the political and historical geographer. The origins of the region's framework of state territory are carefully scrutinised, as are the region's borders and the contemporary disputes over their status. The period following the first Gulf War has witnessed an increase in the prevalence of Arabian territorial disputes. Some ae new, such as Saudi-Qatar, but most are established cyclical affairs. Although a complete explanation for these developments is premature, they have occurred as states in the region have been making clear moves to finalise the framework of Arabian state territory; only the Saudi-Yemen border remains indeterminate, albeit the subject of current negotiations. The book begins with a major scene-setting chapter by Richard Schofield. This is followed by chapters containing expert insights into the relationship between territory and indigenous notions of sovereignty, Britain's role in drawing Arabian territorial limits (including a contribution from someone who drew up some of its boundaries), Iran-Kuwait disputes in particular, maritime boundaries, the hydrocarbon dimension, and concepts of shared political space. With many newly-drawn maps based on original research, this volume stands alone as a comprehensive reader on an issue that plays a dominant part in the regional geopolitics of the Gulf and Arabian Peninsula.

Provincialising Nature: Multidisciplinary Approaches to the Politics of the Environment in Latin America offers a timely analysis of some of the crucial challenges, contradictions and promises within current environmental discourses and practices in the region. This book shows both challenging scenarios and original perspectives that have emerged in Latin America in relation to the globally urgent issues of climate change and the environmental crisis. Two interconnected analytical frameworks guide the discussions in the book: the relationship between nature, knowledge and identity and their role in understanding recent and current practices of climate change and environmental policy. The different chapters in this volume contribute to this debate by offering multidisciplinary perspectives on particular aspects of these two frameworks and through a multidirectional outlook that links the local, national, regional and transnational levels of inquiry across a diverse geographical spectrum.

This book surveys the development of geo-political thought in the twentieth century and relates it to international political developments, as well as examining how sound geopolitical theories are. It considers the work of Mackinder, Hartshorne, and Haushofer and his disciples in Germany who influenced the Nazis; and of more recent developments including Marxist geographical writing.

This book, originally published in 1986, shows the importance of geography in international power politics and shows how geopolitical thought influences policy-making and action. It considers the various elements within international power politics such as ideologies, territorial competition and spheres of influences, and shows how geographical considerations are crucial to each element. It considers the effects of distance on global power politics and explores how the geography of international communication and contact and the geography of economic and social patterns change over time and affect international power balances.

Drawing on scholarly and life experience on, and over, the historically posited borders between "West" and "East," the work identifies, interrogates, and challenges a particular, enduring, violent inheritance - what it means to cross over a border - from the classical origins of Western political thought. The study has two parts. The first is an effort to work within the Western tradition to demonstrate its foundational and enduring, violent conception of crossing over borders. The second is a creative effort to explore and encourage a fundamentally different outlook towards borders and what it means to be on, at, or over them. The underlying social theoretical disposition of the work is a form of post-Orientalist hermeneutics; the textual subject matter of the two parts of the study is linked using Walter Benjamin's concept of the storyteller. The underlying premise of the work is that the sense of violent possibility on the borders between "West" and "East" existed well before the more recent "age of imperialism" and even before there was a "West" or an "East" to speak of. That sense is constitutive of a political imagination about borders developed deep within the revered sources of Western culture. On the other hand, confronting the influence of such violent imaginaries requires truly novel modes of hermeneutical openness, hospitality and solidarity. Seeking to offer a new understanding and opening in the study of borders, this work will provide a significant contribution to several areas including international relations theory, border studies and political theory.

This classic work is a comprehensive treatment of the world's political frontiers and boundaries, and includes sections on boundaries in the air as well as chapters treating the subject in a regional manner, covering the continets in terms of the evolution of boundaries.