As the EU's relations with Russia remain at an all-time low and continue to be in a state of paralysis, marked by de-institutionalisation, inertia and estrangement, the EU's policy towards Russia seems up for review. By taking stock of the implementation of the EU's Global Strategy and the five principles that are guiding EU-Russia relations, this volume provides a forward-looking angle and contributes to a better understanding of the current EU-Russia relationship and the prospects for overcoming the existing deadlock. By bringing together European and Russian scholars and adopting an interdisciplinary perspective that combines insights from EU studies, international relations, and European and international law, the book provides a comprehensive and holistic view on the state of affairs in EU-Russia relations.

Founded in 1929, the Jewish Agency played a central role in the founding of the State of Israel. Throughout the 1920s, 30s and 40s, many secret meetings took place between the JA and Arab leaders and elites. The dominant narrative claims that Syrian leaders and elites were not involved in any such meetings. However, this book reveals for the first time that a multitude of secret meetings and negotiations took place including with the Syrian National Block - the official Syrian leadership at the time - and the Shahbandari opposition and leaders of Jabal al-Druze. Based mainly on primary sources from Israeli archives, including documentation of discussions, reports and decisions taken by the JA leadership, the book tells a new story of a critical period of history, the Arab Revolt of 1936-1939 in Palestine. Mahmoud Muhareb argues that the main historic objective of the JA was to reach agreements with Arab leaders and Arab states, behind the back of the Palestinians and at their expense, and to normalize its relations with the Arab states while it continued to deny the national rights of the Palestinians. The book challenges Israeli and Syrian official narratives and substantiates the Palestinian narrative, as well as some Israeli new historians who asserted Israel refusal to recognize the national rights of the Palestinians and affirmed its attempts to reach a comprehensive settlement with the Arab states at the expense of the Palestinians. The book includes Arabic and Hebrew sources translated into English for readers.

In Lobbying in Company, Joris van den Tol argues that people made a difference in the Dutch West India Company colony in Brazil (1630-1654). Through a combination of petitions, personal relations, and public opinion, individuals were able to exercise influence on the decision-making process regarding Dutch Brazil. His thorough analysis of these different elements offers a new perspective on the Atlantic and the Dutch Republic in the seventeenth century as well as a better understanding of lobbying in the early modern period.

European Perceptions of China and Perspectives on the Belt and Road Initiative is a collection of fourteen essays on the way China is perceived in Europe today. These perceptions - and they are multiple - are particularly important to the People's Republic of China as the country grapples with its increasingly prominent role on the international stage, and equally important to Europe as it attempts to come to terms with the technological, social and economic advances of the Belt and Road Initiative. The authors are, on the whole, senior academics specializing in such topics as International Relations and Security, Public Diplomacy, Media and Cultural Studies, and Philosophy and Religion from more than a dozen different European countries and are involved in various international projects focussed on Europe-China relations.

In this book the territory of Pechenga, located well above the Arctic circle between Russia, Finland and Norway, holds the key to understanding the geopolitical situation of the Arctic today. With specific focus on the local nickel industry of the region, Lars Rowe explores the interaction between commercial and state security concerns in the Soviet Union. Through the lens of this local industry a larger historical context is unravelled - the nature of Soviet-Finnish relations after the Russian Revolution, Soviet international relations strategies during the Second World War and the nature of the Stalinist economy in the early post-war years. By presenting this environmentally focused history of a small corner of the Arctic, Rowe offers the historical context needed to understand the current geopolitical climate of the Polar North.

Cell phone apps share location information; software companies store user data in the cloud; biometric scanners read fingerprints; employees of some businesses have microchips implanted in their hands. In each of these instances we trade a share of privacy or an aspect of identity for greater convenience or improved security. What Robert M. Pallitto asks in Bargaining with the Machine is whether we are truly making such bargains freely - whether, in fact, such a transaction can be conducted freely or advisedly in our ever more technologically sophisticated world. Pallitto uses the social theory of bargaining to look at the daily compromises we make with technology. Specifically, he explores whether resisting these 'bargains' is still possible when the technologies in question are backed by persuasive, even coercive, corporate and state power. Who, he asks, is proposing the bargain? What is the balance of bargaining power? What is surrendered and what is gained? And are the perceived and the actual gains and losses the same - that is, what is hidden? At the center of Pallitto's work is the paradox of bargaining in a world of limited agency. Assurances that we are in control are abundant whether we are consumers, voters, or party to the social contract. But when purchasing goods from a technological behemoth like Amazon, or when choosing a candidate whose image is crafted and shaped by campaign strategists and media outlets, how truly free, let alone informed, are our choices? The tension between claims of agency and awareness of its limits is the site where we experience our social lives - and nowhere is this tension more pronounced than in the surveillance society. This book offers a cogent analysis of how that complex, contested, and even paradoxical experience arises as well as an unusually clear and troubling view of the consequential compromises we may be making.

On July 6, 2003, four months after the United States invaded Iraq, former ambassador Joseph Wilson's now historic op-ed, "What I Didn't Find in Africa," appeared in "The New York Times." A week later, conservative pundit Robert Novak revealed in his newspaper column that Ambassador Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame Wilson, was a CIA operative. The public disclosure of that secret information spurred a federal investigation and led to the trial and conviction of Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, Scooter Libby, and the Wilsons' civil suit against top officials of the Bush administration. Much has been written about the "Valerie Plame" story, but Valerie herself has been silent, until now. Some of what has been reported about her has been frighteningly accurate, serving as a pungent reminder to the Wilsons that their lives are no longer private. And some has been completely false -- distorted characterizations of Valerie and her husband and their shared integrity.

Valerie Wilson retired from the CIA in January 2006, and now, not only as a citizen but as a wife and mother, the daughter of an Air Force colonel, and the sister of a U.S. marine, she sets the record straight, providing an extraordinary account of her training and experiences, and answers many questions that have been asked about her covert status, her responsibilities, and her life. As readers will see, the CIA still deems much of the detail of Valerie's story to be classified. As a service to readers, an afterword by national security reporter Laura Rozen provides a context for Valerie's own story.

"Fair Game" is the historic and unvarnished account of the personal and international consequences of speaking truth to power.

In Offering Hospitality: Questioning Christian Approaches to War, Caron E. Gentry reflects on the predominant strands of American political theology-Christian realism, pacifism, and the just war tradition-and argues that Christian political theologies on war remain, for the most part, inward-looking and resistant to criticism from opposing viewpoints. In light of the new problems that require choices about the use of force-genocide, terrorism, and failed states, to name just a few-a rethinking of the conventional arguments about just war and pacifism is timely and important. Gentry's insightful perspective marries contemporary feminist and critical thought to prevailing theories, such as Christian realism represented in the work of Reinhold Niebuhr and the pacifist tradition of Stanley Hauerwas. She draws out the connection between hospitality in postmodern literature and hospitality as derived from the Christian conception of agape, and relates the literature on hospitality to the Christian ethics of war. She contends that the practice of hospitality, incorporated into the jus ad bellum criterion of last resort, would lead to a "better peace." Gentry's critique of Christian realism, pacifism, and the just war tradition through an engagement with feminism is unique, and her treatment of failed states as a concrete security issue is practical. By asking multiple audiences-theologians, feminists, postmodern scholars, and International Relations experts-to grant legitimacy and credibility to each other's perspectives, she contributes to a reinvigorated dialogue.

Patrick Wright's memoir opens on a diplomatic crisis. A growing number of countries are threatening to boycott the Commonwealth Games in protest of the British government's handling of South African apartheid. And the problems only get worse. Patrick Wright was one of the pre-eminent diplomats of his day, putting him at the forefront of some of the late twentieth century's most important global events. His six years at the FCO found him dealing with the backlash from the Falklands War, the collapse of the Soviet Union, strained relations with the EU, the First Gulf War and, perhaps most challenging of all, the `fire and glares' of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Lord Wright's account is not only an essential documentation of a significant historical period, but witty and entertaining throughout. He revels in gossip, despairs at the mischievous press `painting lurid pictures of Britain versus the Rest', recalls numerous amusing scenarios and is rather brutal in his assessment of various high- profile political figures.

"Informative." - Foreign Affairs Recep Tayyip Erdogan has ruled Turkey for nearly two decades. Here, Soner Cagaptay, a leading authority on the country, offers insights on the next phase of Erdogan's rule. His dwindling support base at home, coupled with rising opposition, the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, and Turkey's weak economy, would appear to threaten his grip on power. How will he react? In this astute analysis, Cagaptay casts Erdogan as an inventor of nativist populist politics in the twenty-first century. The Turkish president knows how to polarize the electorate to boost his base, and how to wield oppressive tactics when polarization alone cannot win elections. Cagaptay contends that Erdogan will cling to power-with severe costs for Turkey's citizens, institutions, and allies. The associated dynamics, which carry implications far beyond Turkey's borders-and what they portend for the United States-make A Sultan in Autumn a must-read for all those interested in Turkey and the geopolitics of the next decade.

An all-new edition of the candid insiders' guide to the US Foreign Service as an institution, a profession, and a career Career Diplomacy takes readers inside the world of American diplomats in the US Foreign Service. Members of the Foreign Service represent the country abroad, protect and support American citizens overseas, manage government programs and facilities, and move foreign policy from the abstract to the actual. In this new and thoroughly revised edition, Foreign Service veterans Harry W. Kopp and John K. Naland lay out what to expect in a Foreign Service career, from the entrance exam through midcareer and into the senior service-how to get in, get around, and get ahead. Part one begins with the history and structure of the US Foreign Service in the Department of State and other agencies. Part two looks at a number of professional challenges, including how to be a diplomat in a war zone and how to respond when what the government demands conflicts with what the Constitution requires or one's conscience compels. In part three, the authors explore the trajectory of a Foreign Service career through their own experiences and through interviews with more than a hundred current and former members. Part four brings the discussion up to the present and looks to the future, describing a Service emerging from the Trump years determined to improve diversity in its workforce, protect a high standard of nonpolitical public service, and reward performance with responsibility. This best-selling guide demystifies the US Foreign Service for those interested in working within or alongside the institution. Kopp and Naland offer readers a candid look at the profession, with its dangers, rewards, challenges, frustrations, and excitement.

The globalized world has witnessed the development of a number of economic integration projects, including at least two Eurasian projects: the Eurasian Union and the Belt and Road Initiative. These initiatives blur the European Union Global Strategy adjusted in 2016 to be an attempt to reconsider and enhance the role and place of the European Union as the leader in the global arena. These initiatives must be studied and considered further to understand the numerous benefits, opportunities, and challenges they face. Regional Economic Integration and Global Competition in the Post-COVID-19 Era: European Union, Eurasian Economic Union, and the Belt and Road Initiative provides insight into the reasons and consequences of the discrepancy in the legal restrictions, institutional policies, and mutual skepticism on the economic integration progress. The text is also useful in defining and promoting a regional strategy of economic integration and the creation of mutual trust. Covering a range of topics such as international trade, environmental risk management, and globalization, this reference work is ideal for policymakers, government officials, strategic decision makers, practitioners, researchers, scholars, academicians, instructors, and students.

Memory studies is a well-established academic discipline, but the revised issue of ethnicity poses a new set of research questions, particularly in relation to the problem of the operational character of memory and ethnicity in the context of traumatized identity. Contemporary political processes in Europe, populism, and nationalism, in addition to ethnic challenges in the form of demographic shifts have created a situation in which new national identities have been developed simultaneously with emerging competitive historical memories. Memory, Identity, and Nationalism in European Regions is an essential scholarly resource that investigates the interactions between politics and managed historical memory and the discourse of ethnicity in European regions. Featuring topics such as anthropology, memory politics, and national identity, this book is ideally designed for scholars, practitioners, specialists, and politicians.

Descriptive Psychology and the Person Concept maps the common ground of behavioral science. The absence of a shared foundation has given us fragmentation, a siloed state of psychological theory and practice. And the science? The integrity of choice, accountability, reason, and intention are necessary commitments at the cornerstone of civilization and any person-centered psychotherapy, but when taught along with a "scientific" requirement for reductionism and determinism, reside in contradictory intellectual universes. Peter Ossorio developed the Person Concept to remedy these problems. This book is an introduction to his work and the community of scientists, scholars, and practitioners of Descriptive Psychology. Ossorio offered these maxims that capture the discipline's spirit: 1. The world makes sense, and so do people. They make sense to begin with. 2. It's one world. Everything fits together. Everything is related to everything else. 3. Things are what they are and not something else instead. 4. Don't count on the world being simpler than it has to be. The Person Concept is a single, coherent concept of interdependent component concepts: Individual Persons; Behavior as Intentional Action; Language and Verbal Behavior; Community and Culture; and World and Reality. Descriptive Psychology uses preempirical, theory-neutral formulations and methods, to make explicit the implicit structure of the behavioral sciences. The goal is a framework with a place for what is already known with room for what is yet to be found.

Historiographically this book rests on the fact that European transitions to modern economic growth were obstructed and promoted by the Revolution in France and 15 years of geopolitical conflict sustained by Napoleon in order to establish French Hegemony over the states and economies of Britain, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Italy, Spain, Portugal and overseas commerce. The chapters reveal that their authors concerns to analyse both the nature and significance of connections between geopolitical and economic forces lend coherence to a collaborative endeavour utilising comparative methods to address a mega question. What might be plausibly concluded about the economic costs and the benefits of this protracted conjuncture of Revolutionary and Napoleonic Warfare? Contributors are: Patrick Karl O'Brien, Loic Charles, Guillaume Daudin, Silvia Marzagalli, Marjolein 't Hart, Johan Joor, Mark Dincecco, Giovanni Federico, Leandro Prados de la Escosura, Carlos Santiago-Caballero, Cristina Moreira, Jaime Reis, Rita Martins de Sousa, and Peter M.Solar.

Bringing together historians of US foreign relations and scholars of Iranian studies, American-Iranian Dialogues examines the cultural connections between Americans and Iranians from the constitutional period of the 1890s through to the start of the White Revolution in the 1960s. Taking an innovative cultural approach, chapters are centred around major themes in American-Iranian encounters and cultural exchange throughout this period, including stories of origin, cultural representations, nationalism and discourses on development. Expert contributors draw together different strands of US-Iranian relations to discuss a range of path-breaking topics such as the history of education, heritage exchange, oil development and the often-overlooked interactions between American and Iranian non-state actors. Through exploring the understudied cultural dimensions of US-Iranian relations, this book will be essential reading for students and scholars interested in American history, international history, Iranian studies and Middle Eastern studies.

Commissioned by the Qianlong emperor in 1751, the Qing Imperial Illustrations of Tributary Peoples (Huang Qing zhigong tu ), is a captivating work of art and an ideological statement of universal rule best understood as a cultural cartography of empire. This translation of the ethnographic texts accompanied by a full-color reproduction of Xie Sui's ( ) hand-painted scroll helps us to understand the conceptualization of imperial tributary relationships the work embodies as rooted in both dynastic history and the specifics of Qing rule.

The historical development of Russia remains one of the most unique yet ambiguous timelines in the realm of political science and sociology. Understanding the state of culture as a single, dynamic, and interrelated phenomenon is a vital component regarding the memoirs of this prominent nation. Political, Economic, and Social Factors Affecting the Development of Russian Statehood: Emerging Research and Opportunities is a collection of innovative research on the historical aspects of the formation of the political system in Russia and proposes directions for the further development of modern Russian statehood. While highlighting topics including socio-politics, Soviet culture, and capitalization, this book is ideally designed for economists, government officials, policymakers, historians, diplomats, intelligence specialists, political analysts, professors, students, and professionals seeking current research on the history of public administration in Russia.

The fifth volume in the Mathematical Cognition and Learning series focuses on informal learning environments and other parental influences on numerical cognitive development and formal instructional interventions for improving mathematics learning and performance. The chapters cover the use of numerical play and games for improving foundational number knowledge as well as school math performance, the link between early math abilities and the approximate number system, and how families can help improve the early development of math skills. The book goes on to examine learning trajectories in early mathematics, the role of mathematical language in acquiring numeracy skills, evidence-based assessments of early math skills, approaches for intensifying early mathematics interventions, the use of analogies in mathematics instruction, schema-based diagrams for teaching ratios and proportions, the role of cognitive processes in treating mathematical learning difficulties, and addresses issues associated with intervention fadeout.