This book explores the relationship between the “human constant” (Jen) of the four large-scale civilizational societies—China, the USA, Japan, and India—and their international behavior, response patterns, and interaction with the international system. The book analyzes the characteristics and limitations of the current international system, as well as the way it is related to the Western type of “human constant”. It also analyzes the challenges facing China in its integration into the international system. This book aims to explore international relations from the combined psychological and cultural perspective.

This book challenges the perceived underlying causes and culprits of the ongoing challenges in Canadian defence procurement, arguing that although headlines often put the blame on the political leadership, the defence procurement bureaucracy, ongoing pressures in the defence industry and continuous demands placed on Canada though its alliances also carry a large part of the responsibility. Focusing on four main case studies: the Fixed Wing Search and Rescue Plane, the Joint Support Ships, the Medium Support Vehicle System and the Halifax Class Modernization, the author offers a comparative analysis of how these ongoing procurement efforts were dealt with by different administrations, from Jean Chrétien and Paul Martin to Stephen Harper.

This edited book complements and follows up on the book, Thompson and Volgy et al, Regions, Power and Conflict: Constrained Capabilities, Hierarchy, and Rivalry. It is predicated in part on the paucity of published material available on comparing regional international politics. Monadic, dyadic, and systemic approaches all have their uses and have been exploited extensively. The same cannot be said about comparative regional analysis. The premise is that a great deal of international politics takes place within regional parameters. Most states simply lack the capability or interest in devoting many resources to extra-regional affairs. Yet each region is distinctive. In some, military coups remain common while they have died out as a form of political practice in others. A few have been highly conflictual and then become more pacific, while others persist in their conflict intensity. Some have powerful neighbors with intervention tendencies, while others are surrounded by relatively weak states. Some are rich; others are poor. The point is that regions, all with proper names, have attributes that can be harnessed through comparison to explain why regional behavior differs greatly across the planet. The aim is to replace the proper names with the leading variables that appear to drive behavior. For instance, to shrug and say “that’s the Middle East for you” does not take us very far. Replacing the Middle East label with conceptualization about how a set of small, weak, autocratic states behave subject to high penetration by major powers might take us farther than shrugging off regional identity.

This book analyses the historical sociology of state formation in the Horn of Africa. It examines the genesis, trajectories, processes, routes and consequences of the evolution of state formation. Three analytical and explanatory models explain the process of state formation in the HOA: proto-state, colonial and national liberation. The models, heuristically and innovatively, provide understanding, interpretation and analysis of state formation. While the proto-state model explicates an indigenous historical process of state formation, the colonial model refers to an externally designed and imposed process of state formation. The national liberation model concern state formation conducted under liberation movement and ideology. The distinct significance of these models is that collectively they generate sufficient analysis of state formation. They are also unique in that they have never been employed as aggregate analytical and explicative instruments to address the predicament of state formation in the Horn of Africa.

This book studies neoliberalism's features in the UK and USA in the 1980s in relation to the philosophical, historical, political, legal, and economic concepts. It analyses the model's legacy in the "Anglosphere," its acceptance, rejection, proliferation in France and Europe - the EU often emulating and disseminating neoliberal processes and techniques via hard and soft law -, its scope, its spread throughout EU countries characterised by "illiberalism," highlighting the model's need to adapt. It fills a historiographical gap regarding a concept which remains acutely topical.

This book is about transformation of the state and an incomplete state-building. It defies the transitology assumption of continuity, linearity and dichotomy of formal and informal in the transformation of the state. Contrary to the conventional approaches, it claims that any social order or its political scaffolding, the state, is always incomplete and we need to develop cognitive maps to better understand that incompleteness. It reflects on the social practices, processes and patterns that evolve as a non-linear result of three sets of factors: those that are historical, external, and elite-driven.

This book is a pioneering effort in critical Arctic studies. The contributions identify and investigate some of the blind spots in human development in the Arctic that research in the social sciences had yet to broach. To this end, the authors tap a variety of critical approaches in fields spanning aesthetics, affect theory, biopolitics, critical geopolitics, Indigenous archaeology, intersectionality, legal anthropology, moral economy, narrative studies, neoliberal governmentality, queer studies and socio-legal studies. The chapters probe topics such as representations of the Arctic in contemporary art, the role of affects in postcolonial Greenland, Canada’s Arctic policies and China’s engagement with the Arctic. The book provides a rich knowledge base for researchers in Arctic social sciences and offers an absorbing textbook for students interested in Arctic issues.

This book offers a unique and timely political analysis of war, international law and human rights, and the important interconnections among them. It questions why war features as a foundational problem in ​contemporary world affairs and explores how international law is used to manage this and other types of political violence.

Samir Hasanov untersucht die machtpolitischen Interessen Russlands im Südkaukasus für den Zeitraum von 1992 bis 2014. Seine Analyse verdeutlicht, dass zwischen dem Begehren Russlands, regionale Großmacht zu sein, und den imperialistischen Ansätzen seiner Vergangenheit eine Verknüpfung besteht. Der Autor beschäftigt sich dabei mit der Frage, ob das auf althergebrachte Herrschaftspraktiken gestützte Vorgehen Moskaus im Südkaukasus stabilitätsfördernder oder konfliktstimulierender Natur ist. Mittels einer Vielzahl von klassischen Theoriemodellen und durch die Analyse regionaler wie globaler Mächte legt der Autor diese Zusammenhänge nachvollziehbarer dar. Die qualitativen Interviews am Ende der Arbeit dienen dem Zweck, die Überzeugungskraft und Stichhaltigkeit der bisherigen Argumente auf den Prüfstand zu stellen.

This edited volume addresses the role of non-state actors (NSAs) in international relations. From their emergence in the early 20th century, entities of non-state status have played a role of increasing prominence in international politics. Scholarly work has been slow to catch up, approaching NSAs mainly through the scope of legitimacy and international law or limiting focus to NGOs, international organizations, and economic corporations. This volume remedies that, creating a typology of NSAs based on systematic and coherent analysis.

This book deals with China’s global aspirations, which rise from its economic power, history, tradition, ideology, and culture. Confucianism guided the emperors in their mandate of heaven over two thousand years. Today government-driven Confucianism as a country’s soft power is embedded to advance China’s aspirations for global power. The methodology in this book is historical and cultural narrative to gain a more profound understanding of China—how China thinks and acts.

This book contributes new theoretical and comparative insights on migrant agency, undocumentedness and informality in non-Western, non-democratic migration regimes. The book is conceived as a critical reflection on the contemporary migration regime scholarship, and, more generally, on comparative migration studies, which primarily focus on migrants’ experiences and immigration policies in the context of liberal democracies in North America and Western Europe.

This book highlights important parallels between Carr and three influential figures in the first wave of post-colonialism—DuBois, Césaire and Fanon—on the analysis of imperialism and the causes of war. Specifically, Carr’s analysis of imperialism and war parallels the first wave post-colonial thinkers in two respects. First, Carr’s work historically situates imperialism in the context of the social question in Western democracies.