Middle power states, such as Canada or Denmark, are often thought of as "followers" of great powers rather than significant actors in global security. Challenging this view, this book highlights how middle powers have in fact showed great leadership by developing a "human security" agenda that focuses on countering threats to human beings rather than to nation-states.
The work examines how coalitions of middle powers have performed through five case studies: the formation of the Multinational Standby High Readiness Brigade for United Nations Operations (SHIRBRIG), the realization of the Ottawa Mine Ban Treaty, the establishment of the International Criminal Court, the regulation of the legal trade in small arms and light weapons, and the adoption of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) principle. Furthermore, the book explores how the human security initiatives were shaped by the middle powers' choices of diplomatic strategy, and how they were affected by the reactions of the hegemonic United States.
The Human Security Agenda will appeal to those studying international relations and global security, as well as foreign policy and international organizations.
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This book contains a collection of papers by Japanese and German authors dealing with the ongoing globalization process and notable fluctuations in the regional economic development in East Asia. The contributions discuss the stabilizing and destabilizing elements of the globalization process. The authors investigate the different options for economic policy to stabilize an ever more tightly interwoven world economy. In the center of the discussion are developments in East Asia and the European Union.

This title offers a novel cross-disciplinary theoretical perspective on conflict and conflict transformation in world society. The Middle East will continue to be a focus for theories of Conflict Studies and IR for some time to come. This book offers a new perspective (modern systems theory) on the study of conflicts. It covers conflict in Lebanon, Syria, Palestine, Jordan plus Egypt as well as Israel - the types of domestic, inter-state and global conflict dimensions which emanate from this region are at the heart of any analysis of conflict (and cooperation) dynamics in the entire Arab-Israeli region. It integrates the study of conflicts in the Middle East region into a modern systems theoretical framework.

Including a stellar line-up of international scholars, this book is an ambitious analysis of cosmopolitanism that will push the debate into new arenas, open up new lines of inquiry and have an impact on the study of globalization and global processes for years to come.

Wastelands is an exploration of trash, the scavengers who collect it, and the precarious communities it sustains. After enduring war and persecution in Kosovo, many Ashkali refugees fled to Belgrade, Serbia, where they were stigmatized as Gypsies, consigned to slums, sidelined from the economy, and subjected to violence. To survive, Ashkali collect the only resource available to them: garbage. Vividly recounting everyday life in an illegal Romani settlement, Eirik Saethre follows Ashkali as they scavenge through dumpsters, build shacks, siphon electricity, negotiate the recycling trade, and migrate between Belgrade, Kosovo, and the European Union. He argues that trash is not just a means of survival: it reinforces the status of Ashkali and Roma as polluted Others, creates indissoluble bonds to transnational capitalism, enfeebles bodies, and establishes a localized sovereignty.

In this open access book, Mikael Hard tells a story of how people around the world challenged the production techniques and products brought by globalization. Retaining their autonomy and freedom, creative individuals selectively adopted or rejected modern gadgets, tools, and machines. In standard historical narratives, globalization is portrayed as an unstoppable force that flattens all obstacles in its path. Modern technology is also seen as inexorable: in the nineteenth century, steamships, telegraph lines, and Gatling guns are said to have paved the way for colonialism and other forms of dominating people and societies. Later, shipping containers and computer networks purportedly pulled the planet deeper into a maelstrom of capitalism. Hard discusses instances that push back against these narratives. For example, in Soviet times, inhabitants of Samarkand, Uzbekistan, preferred to remain in-and expand-their own mud-brick houses rather than move into prefabricated, concrete residential buildings. Similarly, nineteenth-century Sumatran carpenters ignored the saws brought to them by missionaries-and chose to chop down trees with their arch-bladed adzes. And people in colonial India successfully competed with capitalist-run Caribbean sugar plantations, continuing to produce their own muscovado and sell it to local consumers. This book invites readers to view the history of technology and material culture through the lens of diversity. Based on research funded by the European Research Council and conducted in the Global South, Microhistories of Technology: Making the World shows that the spread of modern technologies did not erase artisanal production methods and traditional tools.

This study is the first effort to document the extent of NAFTA's impact on higher education. Through case studies, the authors analyze higher education policy in Canada, Mexico, and the USA using a common theoretical framework that identifies economic globalization, international trade liberalization, and post-industrialization as common structural factors exerting a significant influence on higher education in the three countries.

From direct foreign investment to the flow of capital, there are endless factors that affect the economies of the world's poorest countries. Knowledge of the struggles of these countries--also known as the Least Developed Countries (LDCs)--is essential to understanding the impact of globalization. This work provides a platform for grasping why developed countries are reaping the benefits of globalization while the LDCs are being left behind. Topical chapters seek to uncover the processes that LDCs should take to reverse their marginalization and build their economies so that they can receive the benefits of globalization. Subjects include: *The relationship between the World Trade Organization, World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund *Multilateral trade regimes *Tariff and non-tariff barriers in developed countries *Global Commodity Prices *Trends in Poverty and Human Development *Technology

The key arguments and debates about globalization have raised searching questions about the significance of national and regional borders for the competitive strategies of individuals, firms and industries." Global Competitiveness and Innovation" seeks to address these issues by exploring four key topics: The status of economic agents in the emerging global economy; the limits of path dependence and the scope of agent action; the relationship between agents' decision-making and their environments; and agents' learning capacities in a world of information and knowledge creation.

"Cultural Globalization: A User's Guide" is a personal and engaging journey through theories of culture and globalization. Drawing on extensive examples and interdisciplinary research, Wise explores concepts of culture, territory and identity in order to give students a new perspective on issues of globalization.Includes numerous examples from Asian, European, and North American youth culture and popular musicDraws on interdisciplinary research from the fields of anthropology, cultural studies, cultural geography, and media studiesConsiders how global processes carry with them the ethical questions of how to act in the world and how to care for othersProvides an original and stimulating overview of theories of culture and globalization, encouraging
students think more broadly about the key issues

This interdisciplinary volume analyzes the strong links between the way we form our individual and collective identities and the type of society in which we live. The contributors--who include sociologists, anthropologists, political scientists, and philosophers--focus on the issue of modern identity both on a conceptual level and in the context of European unification and progressive globalization. Among the issues examined are the tension between our fluid, situation-specific identity and our constant attempt to create a coherent image of the self; the transformation of identities resulting from the collective experiences of East European societies in the aftermath of Communism; and the interplay between the evolution of the modes of constitution of identity and the social changes determined by European integration.

The 'democratic deficit' of the European Union is a much discussed-concern of politicians and commentators, and this insightful collection argues that this is a result of the multi-level nature of EU governance. Popular loyalties become divided between levels of government, lines of accountability become ambiguous and supranational institutions seem distant from citizens.These challenges are part of broader globalizing processes that have destabilized the traditional notion of the nation state and replaced it with multilevel forms of governance across the globe.
Focusing on the EU, this volume examines the problems multilevel governance causes for democratic legitimacy by placing it in a comparative and theoretical context, and explore how challenges faced by the EU compare with those faced by traditional federal systems worldwide. Through a combination of theoretical perspectives and empirical research, this book offers the means to evaluate the various explanations for the problems facing democracy within the EU and shows how legitimacy and accountability can be improved.

This book engages the question, hotly debated among theorists and policymakers alike, of how a developing country's pursuit of foreign direct investment (FDI) affects its development prospects in a globalized world. Can small latecomers to economic development use high-tech FDI to rapidly expand indigenous capabilities, thus shortcutting stages of the industrialization process? What conditions, economic and non-economic, must be met for this strategy to succeed? Using the cases of Ireland and Costa Rica, the author shows how the dynamics of the FDI-development nexus have changed over time, rendering problematic Costa Rica's attempt, and those of other latecomers, to replicate the Celtic Tiger's success story.

This study explores a range of dynamics in state-society relations which are crucial to an understanding of the contemporary world: processes of state formation, collapse and restructuring, all strongly influenced by globalization in its various respects. The themes addressed include strategies of state construction, and trajectories of state decline, collapse and re-start, the politics of statelessness and the dynamics of identity and power. Particular attention is given to externally orchestrated state restructuring and to the varying capacities of state systems in the South to cope with the impact of global forces.

Globalizing Responsibility: The Political Rationalities of Ethical Consumption presents an innovative reinterpretation of the forces that have shaped the remarkable growth of ethical consumption. * Develops a theoretically informed new approach to shape our understanding of the pragmatic nature of ethical action in consumption processes * Provides empirical research on everyday consumers, social networks, and campaigns * Fills a gap in research on the topic with its distinctive focus on fair trade consumption * Locates ethical consumption within a range of social theoretical debates -on neoliberalism, governmentality, and globalisation * Challenges the moralism of much of the analysis of ethical consumption, which sees it as a retreat from proper citizenly politics and an expression of individualised consumerism

In an era of intensifying globalization and transnational connectivity, the dynamics of cultural production and the very notion of creativity are in transition. Exploring creative practices in various settings, the book does not only call attention to the spread of modernist discourses of creativity, from the colonial era to the current obsession with 'innovation' in neo-liberal capitalist cultural politics, but also to the less visible practices of copying, recycling and reproduction that occur as part and parcel of creative improvization.

In an era of intensifying globalization and transnational connectivity, the dynamics of cultural production and the very notion of creativity are in transition. Exploring creative practices in various settings, the book does not only call attention to the spread of modernist discourses of creativity, from the colonial era to the current obsession with 'innovation' in neo-liberal capitalist cultural politics, but also to the less visible practices of copying, recycling and reproduction that occur as part and parcel of creative improvization.

The globalization of the motor vehicle industry--specifically, cars and light trucks--has engendered new forms of competition and cooperation with less regard for national boundaries than ever before. The DaimlerChrysler merger, the GM-Toyota joint venture, the Renault equity stake in Nissan, the Ford takeover of Mazda, Jaguar, and Volvo cars, and direct foreign investments in Mexico, Mercosur (Mercado Com DEGREESD'un del Sur), China, and India--developments like these are almost impossible to keep up with. Hiraoka, a prize-winning analyst of manufacturing excellence in the automotive industry, surveys them and their causes and presents a clarifying picture with thoroughness and depth.

Hiraoka's explanation of the various factors contributing to globalization of the motor vehicle industry provides the background information necessary to gain perspective on recent events. These developments include e-commerce networks, alliances with local and far-flung parts suppliers, low-cost mass production and distribution systems, the launching of hybrid products in mature economies, and the buildup of capacity in emerging markets. His analysis ranges widely, delving into managerial reactions to regional free-trade blocks, currency crises, government shifts away from central planning and trade protectionism, the vicissitudes of business cycles in emerging markets, and the juxtaposition of Japan's prolonged recession and the booming American motor vehicle market. Corporate decision-makers, labor leaders, policy analysts, researchers, students, and industry observers will benefit from understanding the global characteristics of today's motor vehicle industry.

The world's financial markets experienced a strong globalization trend in the 20th century. With the removal of barriers to cross-border flow of capital, financial markets have become truly global during the last two decades of the century. The research papers included in this book study a number of important issues in the world's financial markets. The recent emerging markets crisis, which started in South-Eeast Asia and affected all the world's developed and emerging financial markets, is studied in detail. Another important issue, which receives considerable coverage in the book, is the European financial integration. The financial markets in the United States, Europe, Asia, and Latin America are studied extensively and the linkages between them are analyzed. The objective of the book is to provide the reader with a comprehensive and balanced overview of the world's financial markets at the end of the 20th century.

It may be tempting to view political development and democratization in East Asia from a global view and conclude that the contours of democracy will converge throughout the world. However, a close examination of the cultural and economic development of Asian societies suggests a contrary picture. The story of Asia is one of political and economic survival, in which political elites sought to legitimate their authority through the use of both traditional and modern symbols. Traditional communitarian values and the modern symbols of economic growth and materialism coexist in Asian political systems. The stability and legitimacy of Asian governments depend on the ability of political elites to balance these symbols. As globalization proceeds, the standard traditional and modern symbols have waned in their effectiveness. Therefore, democracy as a symbol and practice can provide new sources of legitimacy to these political systems.

Compton's Asian political development model is tested with quantitative indicators and through a series of case studies. The three case studies--Japan, South Korea, and Thailand--build on each other through a rigorous historical comparison. While the case studies themselves are interesting, he makes connections to the model and tests the congruence of these cases to the model, and concludes that the model's validity is predicated on the internal environment, including culture and economy. Of particular interest to scholars, students, and researchers involved with comparative and Asian politics, political development, and political culture.

"Language and the City "shows how the contemporary form of globalization has certain effects on language in social context and identifies the city as the most important site for the realization of these effects. The book challenges a set of assumptions that hold sustainable linguistic diversity to be inherently non-urban while regarding the city as an unproblematic site for understanding the social function of language. The central purpose of the work is to construct a fresh conceptual framework for understanding language-city relationships.

The contributors to this volume provide a critical examination of the notion of bilingualism as it has developed in linguistics and of its use in discourses of social regulation in state and civil society in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. They attempt to move the field away from a common sense, but in fact highly ideologized, view of bilingualism as the co-existence of two linguistic systems, and to develop a critical perspective which approaches bilingualism as a wide variety of sets of sociolinguistics practices connected to the construction of social difference and of social inequality under specific historical conditions.

As the international behaviour of firms changes, so too must the theories used to describe, explain and predict that behaviour change. This volume is conceived as an exploration of the evolving nature of internationalization in the context of shifting environmental forces in an effort to: highlight the nature of firms' changing behaviours; explore the potential reasons for those changes; and propose new perspectives from which a more contemporary theory of internationalization can be developed. The papers in this volume examine the internationalization behaviour of a wide range of firms, from MNCs to SMEs, including firms from both developed and emerging economies. Consideration is given to the rapid internationalization of "born global" firms, to inward as well as outward internationalization and to the dynamic nature of internationalization at the beginning of the 21st century.

This book is available as open access through the Bloomsbury Open Access programme and is available on bloomsburycollections.com. In Retooling Global Development and Governance a team of UN experts debate new ideas about how to overcome deficiencies in the ongoing process of globalization and in the existing mechanisms for global economic governance. They do not claim to offer a blueprint, rather a set of ideas that could become the basis for a coherent "toolbox" designed to guide development policies and international cooperation. Promising directions for reform discussed in the book include: - Strengthening government capacities for formulating and implementing national development strategies - New strategies for ensuring that official development assistance is aligned with national priorities - Enhancing international trade and financial systems so that countries with limited capabilities can successfully integrate into the global economy - Creating new mechanisms for dealing with deficiencies, such as specialized multilateral frameworks through which to govern international migration and labour mobility, international financial regulation, multinational corporations and global value chains regulation and sovereign debt workouts. Above all, the book highlights the need for a strong mechanism for global economic coordination to establish coherence across all areas of global economic governance.