Political Science and International Studies (R0)

This book explores state–religion relations under a populist authoritarian ruling party in Turkey. In doing so, it investigates how the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) instrumentalizes state-controlled religion to further, defend, legitimatize and propagate its authoritarian populist political agenda in a constitutionally secular nation-state. To exemplify this, the authors examine the Friday sermons delivered weekly in every mosque in Turkey by the Turkish State’s Directorate of Religious Affairs (Diyanet). By analyzing all sermons delivered between 2010-2021, the book shows how the Diyanet has enthusiastically adopted AKP’s increasingly Islamist, authoritarian, civilisationist, militarist and pro-violence populism since 2010, and how it has tried to socially engineer beliefs in line with this ideology.

This book contains the history of China-U.S. Relations (1911–1949), including China-US relations in Early Republican Period, the impact of Versailles Peace Conference and Washington Conference on China-US relations, US support for Northern Warlord Government, the Guangzhou Revolutionary Government, and the Nanjing National Government. During the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, the United States went from neutral to form an alliance with China against Japan. After the end of the War, China and the United States gradually moved toward confrontation. This book also has a brief description of China-US relations from 1784 to 1911.

This book offers a sharp, critical analysis of the rise and fall of the 2019 anti-extradition bill movement in Hong Kong, including prior events like Occupy Central and the Mongkok Fishball Revolution,  as well as their aftermaths in light of the re-assertion of mainland sovereignty over the SAR. Reading the conflict against the grain of those who would romanticize it or simply condemn it in nationalistic fashion, Vukovich goes beyond mediatized discourse to disentangle its roots in the Basic Law system as well as in  the colonial and insufficiently post-colonial contexts and dynamics of Hong Kong. He  examines the question of localist  identity and its discontents, the problems of nativism, violence, and liberalism, the impossibility of autonomy, and what forms a genuine de-colonization can and might yet take in the city. A concluding chapter examines Hong Kong’s need for state capacity and proper, livelihood  development, in the light of theOmicron wave of the Covid pandemic, as the SAR  goes forward into a second handover era.   

This is an open access book. Relations between Brazil and Japan progressed dynamically in the 1960s and 1970s, centering on the substantial complementarity between Japan’s needing primary goods to sustain high economic growth and Brazil’s seeking non-hegemonic investment to invigorate its resource potential. Now that this complementarity has lost significance, the two countries are restructuring their relations to protect shared values of democracy, freedom, the rule of law, and the need for maintaining good relations with both China and the United States.

Analyzed here is the development of this renewed bilateral relationship in multiple directions: productivity, global environment and health, migration, and triangular cooperation in third countries’ development. Facing the prospect of a declining population, Japan may become more open to international migration, but the experience with Japanese-descent Brazilian workers since the amendment of the migration control law in 1990 presents many lessons and challenges for the symbiosis of multicultural groups. Brazil, for its part, needs to address social inequality. To this end, it is fundamental to improve the quality of work.

This book argues that Brazil and Japan can benefit from cooperation in managing those country-specific issues. It also discusses ways that Brazil and Japan can profit from coordinating action on global problems such as greenhouse gas reduction, mitigation of tropical diseases, healthy community building, and high-quality infrastructure for poverty reduction.

Reappraising Modern Indian Thought: Themes and Thinkers is a lucid and comprehensive account of the thread of socio-political thought of major Indian thinkers over the decades. In contrast to the existing texts on the subject, it explores the social and political conditions that formed the basis of political thinking of the thinkers in the past two centuries. The book begins with a detailed discussion on the development and articulation of socio-political thought that have evolved in modern India. It then goes to give a comprehensive coverage and makes an analysis of great thinkers of modern India, namely Rabindranath Tagore, Madan Mohan Malaviya, Swami Vivekananda, Aurobindo Ghose, Abul Kalam Azad, Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Bipin Chandra Pal, Lala Lajpat Rai, Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay, Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, Madhav Sadashiv Golwalkar, Deen Dayal Upadhyaya, Syed Ahmed Khan, and Muhammad Iqbal. Divided into four thematic sections; Ideal-Humanist Thought, Militant-Extremist Thought, Cultural–Revivalist Thought and Radical-Pragmatist Thought — the chapters on such thinkers not only talks about their lives and times but also discusses and examines the contributions of those to contemporary period.

This book aims to help readers make sense of our changing world by sharing the views of global thought leaders on some of the most important issues of our time, from US-China relations and global governance to climate change and the COVID-19 pandemic.

The ten dialogues in this book were part of the “China and the World” series of online discussions hosted by the Center for China and Globalization (CCG). The series features CCG President Huiyao Wang in conversation with experts from a range of fields, from renowned scholars of international relations, economics, and history, to journalists, policymakers, and business leaders.

The speakers featured in this book are Graham Allison, David Blair, Kerry Brown, Anne Case, Li Chen, Wendy Cutler, Angus Deaton, Thomas L. Friedman, Valerie Hansen, Pascal Lamy, Kishore Mahbubani, Joseph S. Nye Jr., Adam Posen, J. Stapleton Roy, John L. Thornton, Huiyao Wang, Martin Wolf, and Zhu Guangyao.

These wide-ranging discussions offer unique insights and perspectives on key trends shaping our world in the 21st century. These include the rise of China and shifts in geopolitics, as well as the evolving nature of globalization, transnational threats, and multilateralism.

This is an open access book.

This is an open access book.

This book offers a new interpretation of the evolution and modernization of social order in China’s grass-roots communities. Traditionally, social order at the grass-roots level was maintained through an organic combination of self-rule by the people and authority rule by political leaders. As a hybrid form of social order, therefore, it not only has features of autonomy but also reflects the power of the state apparatus. Despite the modernization of the nation-state, the old rules sustaining social order at the grass-roots level are still very much in effect and have seamlessly integrated into the new social structure. Unless we fully appreciate this fundamental continuity, we would not be able to understand how social order at the grass-roots level today is upheld and functions. And the modernization of social order at the grass-roots level is most fruitfully studied from the perspectives of the construction of modern public social relations and the development of grass-roots systems of social autonomy.

This book explores Bangladesh's shift from a 'bottomless pit' into a 'middle-income' category. Six chapters in the book cover topics on microfinance growth, ready-made garment production, and social safety net programs playing pivotal roles particularly for women empowerment. In doing so, the book shows that the net effect was not just a change to the country's limited number of representative brands, but also a realization of many more brands to have built up over time.

This book is based on detailed empirical research conducted to analyse the communication dissemination approach applied to the world’s largest employment guarantee program MGNREGA (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act). To uncover the insights, perspectives and understanding of the program, more than 30 villages in Western parts of India were visited and more than 400 MGNREGA beneficiaries were contacted personally by the author.

This book focuses on Political Public Relations (PPR) Techniques of both Russian and US Leaderships. It does so by analysing leadership (presidential or otherwise) inaugural addresses from the two countries between 1980 to 2018, using triangulation analysis of verbal, non-verbal language, and emotions of speakers.

Given that the Russian perception of Political Public Relations, known as Political Technologies (PT) in Russia, is unique and often misunderstood or misinterpreted in Western scholarship, the book acts as a bridge between these two fields of studies. With that in mind, the study of Political Technologies is explained and applied in a wider sense than is offered by other disciplines, specifically in more meaningful ways than suggested in communications discipline in the West. In doing so, the book not only offers a deep dive into theory, but also provides a unique methodology aiming at extracting and analysing PPR or PT techniques. This triangulation method allows us to investigate a combined effect of audio visual and verbal “effects” on the general public, and offers a way of interpreting such “effects”.

Readers would understand more about the research dynamic in PPR discipline, apply the triangulation methodology to expand this research, and more generally find out more about the evidence-based list of PPR techniques and their applications and interpretations.”

This book examines how Turkey’s ruling party, the Justice and Development Party (AKP), under the leadership of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan produces and employs necropolitical narratives in order to perpetuate its authoritarian rule.

This Open Access book provides a comprehensive analysis of political reforms in Japan since the 1990s, emphasizing the role of ideas in shaping their goals and outcomes.

       For more than fifteen years following the collapse of Japan’s economic bubble, politicians, business people and academics tackled a range of institutional reforms. The sweeping changes they enacted—covering almost all facets of the public sphere, including elections, public administration, courts and the central bank—fundamentally altered Japanese political processes and policies. Taken together, they arguably represent the final touches of Japan’s political modernization, which had been unfolding since the mid-19^th century.

    Throughout the reform process, advocates were inspired by a combination of liberal and modernist ideas. This book examines those guiding concepts and illustrates the often messy process of applying them to real-world institutions. While most reforms began from common goals, they ultimately produced different—and frequently unexpected—institutional outcomes, which continue to shape Japanese politics. By focusing on the relationship between the ideas and processes that shaped Japan’s reforms, this book presents a broad vision of institutional change in comparative politics.

This book offers a comprehensive analysis of the multifaceted dimensions of violent extremist groups in South Asia, attending especially to the relationships between the local and regional forces influencing their emergence and activities. In addition, research in the book shows how political, security-sensitive events and processes are framed, and the factors responsible for such framing. Similarly, it discusses prevalent discourses on anti-violent extremism policy and the on-the-ground militarized preventive/reactive interventions they guide, which are inspired by ideologies that increasingly reflect controversial understandings of the experiences of people within conditions of state fragility. In doing so, the book balances attention to local conditions that frame the rise and fall, or persistency, of incidences of violent extremism. The systems-based ecological framing of issues in the book is influenced by a concern for the broader questions of securitization, global governance, poverty, (under)development, and armed conflicts in South Asia.

This book addresses critical aspects of the nationalization of labour markets in the Gulf countries. It examines the role of higher education institutions in providing the market with the right skills that are most needed in the era of the fourth industrial revolution (industry 4.0). The book also explores the new dynamics of technology and information systems in upgrading the skills, changing the work environment, and generating employment for the youth in the Gulf countries. The holistic approach of the subject area makes this volume indispensable to academics, researchers, students, and policy makers in the Gulf region and beyond.

The analysis is based on original research and primary data collected by a group of scholars from 15 countries and presented in an illustrative, accessible, and concise manner.

This book delves into the Australia-China relationship, which is currently at its worst since 1972, when the two countries first established a diplomatic relationship. Australia is seen by the US as its front-line ally in its fight in containing China. Derived from an international symposium organized by the editorial team and held in Adelaide, South Australia in September 2021, these essays are an attempt to offer some understanding and explanations for the deterioration of Sino-Australian ties. It is also an attempt to explore the ways by which the two countries can reach some common ground for the future. Despite our very different pasts, can we seek out a shared future together, a future that avoids a war, hot or cold, between a rising power of China and the incumbent US hegemon?

This book is about Big Brother Naija (BBN), which is a Nigerian version of the Big Brother franchise featured in more than 50 countries of the world with its major concept drawn from George Orwell ’s novel, Nineteen Eigther-Four . It is organised and starred by Nigerians but viewed in many parts of the world. The book critically engages this relatively new phenomenon in Nigeria which apparently lacks scholarly attention. It proffers insights into the show’s significance and implications for the nation with relation to mental health, morality, cultural di

This book contributes to efforts in furthering the democratization and development processes in the Philippines by examining the decentralization efforts in Metro Manila. It explores existing as well as proposed development models for governance with focus on the effective and efficient delivery of social services, bringing forth growth with equity through development efforts, and addressing national-local concerns to promote political and socio-economic stability in the country. In doing so, the book examines the strong and weak governance points in the National Capital Region of the Philippines, and identifies areas for reform.

The book discusses the failure of many African governments in providing the social needs of the masses, thereby placing the citizenry on the desperate quest for economic resources. Unfortunately, in many African States, mineral resources are owned, explored and marketed by the machinery of the state. The problem arises when the masses begin to challenge state access and ownership of resources that are domiciled within their ancestral land, communities, and constituencies. Often the challenge and resistance to state ownership of resources is generated by communal or group sense of exploitation, negligence and widespread poverty in the face of high resource endowment and waste by the government officials. 

Paradoxically, in Niger Delta of Nigeria, as discussed in the book, the state has unleashed unlimited might upon all social groups and agitators, thereby leading to the increased act of taking arms by such groups. When the informal resource agitators succeed in arming themselves, they begin to demand social and environmental justice, thereby leading to mass armed conflict between them and the government security agencies. Sometimes, the confrontation could be between them and other rival local resource actors in the informal sector of their country’s economy bearing in mind that the resources within their jurisdiction have become the central determinant of national commonwealth. 

 It is at that state of desperado to control access, extraction and sale of natural resources in a State, by different armed groups that the process of natural resources extraction qualifies as the most visible cause of conflicts and crises around the African continent that is the centrepiece of the book. This is quite understandable given that mineral resource is a gift of nature; and nature is that phenomenon that every human, group and nation claim to represent, or, believe to represent them.

This book focuses on the public pension reform in China from both institutional and empirical studies perspectives. It introduces the process of the public pension reform in China and investigates its effects on households and firms’ behaviors and individuals’ well-being. It provides the reader with rich academic evidence for understanding the transformation of public pension and its effect on the household consumption, participating in risky financial market, and firms’ decision making on wage and employment, as well as individuals’ well-being. The main content of this book comprises three parts: (i) institutional transitions and issues on public pensions in China; (ii) the impact of public pensions on households or firms’ behaviors in China; and (iii) the impact of public pensions on well-being in China. This book provides rich academic evidence about these issues based on economic theories and econometric methods using many kinds of Chinesenationwide representative survey data. This book is highly recommended to readers who are interested in up-to-date and in-depth empirical studies on the issues of public pension reform, and its impact on individuals, households, and firms’ behaviors as well as well-being in China. This book is of interest to those who are interested in the Chinese economy, social security policymakers, and scholars with an econometric analysis background.

This book focuses on securitization and authoritarianism in Turkey with research on the country’s Islamist populist ruling party’s (AKP) oppression of different socio-political, ethnic and religious groups. In doing so, it analyzes how the AKP has securitized to oppress different socio-political groups and identities, according to the time and need for the party's political survival. Research in the book sheds light on the use of traumas, conspiracy theories, and fear as tools in the securitization and repression processes.

This book illuminates the importance of the citizen charter (CC) in local service delivery in Bangladesh. It describes how CC was implemented into the service delivery process and its impact. In the 1970s, the transition from traditional public administration to new public management was inspired by globalization, the emergence of an information and technological society, and many economic theories, such as public choice, principal-agent theory, and transaction cost. The purpose of the government in a welfare state is to serve the citizens by providing essential services. However, public service delivery in most developing nations is ineffective owing to corruption, waste of public funds, a lack of responsibility on the part of public employees, etc. In this context, CC emerged as a means of educating individuals on many elements of services, so they may hold service providers accountable. Thus, the issue of framing and implementation of CC has been put in place due to the persistent pressing of academicians, politicians, and practitioners advocating for better local service delivery.

The book analyses how India’s rise to the status of an emerging power has affected New Delhi’s Africa policy, after sketching the historical evolution and normative underpinnings of Indo-African relations, and what challenges it has brought for New Delhi’s engagement with the continent.

India and Africa share a history dating back millennia. Today, India is one of Africa’s biggest trading partner countries, second only to China. The country regularly extends lines of credit worth billions to African nations, and its pharmaceutical producers dominate many African markets; almost one-fifth of India’s oil imports and more than one-quarter of its natural gas imports come from the continent. However, relations between India and Africa are far from being limited to economic cooperation.

The book scrutinises three foreign policy fields: (1) India’s foreign economic policy towards Africa with an in-depth analysis of Indo-African trade, investment and lines of credit; (2) NewDelhi’s development cooperation policy vis-à-vis Africa, its principles, instruments and volume; (3) India’s politico-diplomatic foreign and security policy vis-à-vis Africa, including New Delhi's high-level diplomacy, security and diaspora policy as well as multilateral Africa policy.

This book explores India’s economic and political relations and defence cooperation with major West European countries—France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom as well as Austria, the Visegrad Four, the Netherlands, Portugal, Sweden and the Baltics. It examines the complexity, the elements of convergence and divergence as well as the challenges and prospects of India’s relations with these countries and assesses the diverging EU think tanks’ images of India. It focuses on India’s multi-dimensional relationship with European countries, which are major trading partners, a significant source and destination of foreign direct investment, an important source of technology and best practices. It examines the Narendra Modi government’s policies to re-energise the India-EU matrix and proactively engage Europe and its sub-regions.

Using semi-structured interviews with 122 young Muslims in Australia, the United Kingdom (UK) and the United States of America (USA) from diverse ethnic backgrounds, this book investigates the lived reality of young Muslims from their own perspectives. It explores their ideas of key Islamic and secular issues, their struggles, world views, triumphs, how the stigmatized group negotiates their identity in these three English language speaking Western countries, 20 years after 9/11. The key aspect of this book is to transcend binaries and reductionisms by exploring what Muslims actually think and say rather than intellectual articulations on them. The book presents a very detailed account of these young Muslims in the Anglophone West on their political beliefs, their knowledge and understanding of sharia law, their interest and participation in local and transnational political activism, their positive and negative feelings about their own communities, and indeed how they define theircommunity.

This book investigates the history and role of the United Nations Command (UNC), which is important not only for the Korean Peninsula but also for East Asian security. The UNC has played a crucial role in maintaining peace on the Korean Peninsula divided by South and North Korea for the past 70 years. However, little is known about how the U.S. administration has perceived the role of the UNC and what policies it has implemented. It is known that the Nixon, Ford, and Carter administrations tried to dismantle the UNC in the 1970s, but eventually decided to reduce it rather than eliminate it. In this context, this study greatly helps us understand the true importance of the UNC by finding out the decisive reason why the U.S. did not remove it. According to the study, past official documents confirmed that the U.S. has recognized the UNC as the basis for maintaining the regime of the armistice on the Korean Peninsula. Historically, no studies have tracked U.S. policy on the UNC through primary data.

This book sets out to explore the new role of China in Brazilian politics and geopolitics. As China has become Brazil's biggest trade partner, Brazil's political economy has been transformed in subterranean ways, and China's role in the global economy has become a hot topic in Brazilian politics. By bringing into light a new generation of Brazilian scholars, this book seeks to consolidate the scholarship developed in the last decade and promote a new approach to Brazil-China relations, written from the perspective of the global south.

This book explores the evaluations made by religious groups and individuals about the potential of public spheres for religious practice, focussing upon public religion in societies of the Asia-Pacific. Across this region we observe a resurgence of religious traditions, increasing mediatisation of religion, and an inward turn toward conservative political programs. Against this background, relations between religion and public domains are critical influences upon civic inclusion and equal citizenship.

The Muslim Brotherhood (MB) is the most influential, organized, social, and political movement in Kuwait. With the succession in Kuwait, the role of the organisation become more interesting for people interested in Kuwait and Gulf domestic politics as well as those interested in the MB and Political Islam. This book traces the emergence and development of MB while considering the political and social development of Kuwait that led to its appeal. It explains the evolution of MB’s organisational structure and how it adapted itself during different periods in Kuwait’s history through the Social Movement Theory. It describes MB policies and strategies during challenging times. It traces the circumstances surrounding the emergence of the MB and focuses on its development and its mobilisation strategy. It is certainly one of the first focused studies on MB from its conception in 1941 up to 1991.

This book presents the assumptions, narratives, and institutions that underpin the key concepts and investigates the limits and potential of financial inclusion development strategy for gender equality. Using South Africa’s women entrepreneurs as a central case, the book interrogates the logic and politics of financial inclusion and gender equality globally and locally. It also examines conditions that explain financial inclusion and women’s empowerment concerning women-owned businesses in post-apartheid South Africa. Finally, it presents a debate on the socio-economic factors enabling and limiting women’s access to and using financial products to improve their socio-economic empowerment and the future suggestions, policies and recommendations on financial inclusion for women entrepreneurs in South Africa.

This book provides a unique ethnographic approach to the understanding of ethnogenesis in the Chinese context, with a particular focus on how it is being reshaped in the post-2000s era. It reinterprets the Chinese concept of ethnicity, or minzu, by investigating its evolution in relation to the proliferation of media technologies.

The pivotal question this book attempts to answer is: How does an ethnic group in China todayunderstand its identity, and what role does technology and media play in that process? This exploration offers a critical perspective on the complex interplay between digital technology, individual agency, and ethnic identity formation.

This book is devoted to the problem of the decolonization of Kazakhstan, which is considered in the framework of postcolonial studies. The author raises issues of identity, historical and socio-cultural heritage of nomads. In addition, the book examines and destroys colonial and Soviet myths and stereotypes concerning the history, lifestyle and traditions of the Kazakhs. Considering that imperial sentiments are increasing in Russia (as a former metropolis), the process of decolonization seems to be urgently necessary for Kazakhstan. And this process is beginning to develop actively. This fascinating polemic will interest historians, scholars trying to understand the former Soviet space, and scholars of Eurasia.

This book sheds important new light on Sino-Soviet relations and the politics of the Xinjiang region, publishing for the first time the complete diaries of Liu Zerong, who served as diplomat and foreign ministry envoy from 1940-49. In doing so it provides a chronicle of the downfall of Nationalist Party rule in the crucial frontier region of Xinjiang and its incorporation into the People’s Republic of China. The diaries are introduced with a biographical study of Liu, and a discussion of China’s international position during World War II and the post-war situation in Xinjiang, which at the time was divided between a sphere of GMD control and the Soviet-aligned East Turkistan Republic. Both in the Moscow embassy, and in the Xinjiang provincial administration in Ürümchi, Liu Zerong was Republican China’s most senior Russian-speaking representative, whose task it was to engage on a daily basis with his Soviet counterparts. His extensive diaries therefore offer a unique insight into this tense decade of Sino-Soviet diplomacy, and will be of interest to a wide range of scholars in fields of Chinese and international history.

This book brings together scholars based in, or had previously been based in a range of East and Southeast Asian countries, building on their respective primary empirical data and first-hand experience as academics and think tank researchers, in order to pluralise the current debates about governance in transitional societies. In an era of global democratic backsliding, this edited volume offers less-explored local perspectives, to balance the Western-centrism observed in area studies and the focus on former Soviet countries in transit. What is the future of governance in Asia? This book, by attempting to supply a diversity of answers, will interest political scientists, economists, and journalists.

This book discusses how people can come together to address current energy justice and access poverty problems by examining the relationship between energy systems and society in diverse energy sources. The novelty of this book is that this is the only complete guide for readers who wish to understand the status of Indonesia’s energy transition and renewable energy development. 

 Energy programs that are explored are the ones prioritized by government administrations, including coal, nuclear power, solar energy, green electricity, and geothermal energy. Based on extensive fieldwork and empirical data, the book combines insights from historical data on energy subsidies and economic diversification, current empirical data on social acceptance of new energy technologies, and contemporary studies that forecast the implications of the transition to the coal industry and fossil fuel subsidies. It asks how Indonesia has enacted policies that support energy transition. Howdo the public and civil society view those policies? What are the implications for broader themes and discussions on energy sources, technology, systems, policies, and service?

Strategies are suggested to advance a sustainable transition in the developing world that will mitigate developmental risks associated with the transition away from fossil fuels while encouraging decision making in a sustainable and socially just manner. This book is an informative and engaging read for a general audience as well as a valuable resource for scholars, researchers, and students in environmental and energy studies.

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. The key concept of this book is “Jen”, which contains a distinct Chinese cultural experience, into the theory of international relations. Unlike other IR books to treat state as the main political actor, the book analyzes both the political aspects of state as an “organizational entity” and its civilizational aspects as a “civilizational entity”; hence, it proposes a new ontology of international relations. By integrating the concept of “Jen” based on the unique Chinese cultural experience into the theory of international relations, the book reveals the interactive nature of relationship between the international system and “human constant”. The book explains the causal relationship between state’s behavior and its “human constant”, analyzes the cultural characteristics of state actors and the international system, and tries to provide a new theoretical framework for understanding culture and modernity.

This book explores the use of Confucianism by the Chinese Communist Party in its assertion of political legitimacy.  Confucian thought offers an enduring framework for political legitimacy in East Asian societies, including China. All states strive to acquire legitimacy, and despite once denouncing Confucianism as the remnants of feudal poison, the Party is turning towards Confucianism as part of its legitimation efforts.  This suggests that the Party is suffering from an ideological void in terms of legitimacy and legitimation due to the diminishing relevance of Marxism in Chinese societal practices.  

The book is 10th in the Persian Gulf Series by Middle East Institute, New Delhi (MEI@ND) and 5th with Springer Nature. It focuses on regional developments in the Gulf and India’s relations with the region in the preceding years; hence, Persian Gulf 2023 focuses on events in 2022. The broad subject of the book is Indian foreign policy and international relations. The book is based on opensource data, statistics, and information including government and international organisations’ reports, reports published by important consultancy and research institutions focused on the Gulf region, news and media reports published in the Gulf region and India and should be of great interest to analysts, academics, journalists, students, and practitioners. Each chapter in the book has several tables and figures on economic indicators, bilateral trade, and energy-related developments. It is a reference work for anyone interested in the Gulf region and at the same time it offers valuable policy recommendations. Hence, it has both academic and policy relevance.

This volume is a collection of chapters based on work within Myanmar by the authors between 2009 and 2021 while working to improve housing, land and property rights for the population. Despite the extensive application and political uptake of their work throughout the country during the brief democratic reform period of 2011-2021, and measurable progress being made, their work and that of the entire HLP community was brought to a sudden stop following the unexpected military coup in February 2021. Many of those with whom the authors worked closely on various HLP matters are no longer able to work safely on these issues in Myanmar. Others have fled the country and are now refugees, while others continue to face daily persecution and harassment by the military regime. These texts will be of great interest to scholars and activists in the region.

The book conducts a comprehensive research study on China’s urbanization. It puts forward three theoretical development models of urban planning in China, i.e., the politics-oriented city, the economy-oriented city and the human-oriented cultural city. It makes objective evaluations of the development models of the politics-oriented city and the economy-oriented city. It suggests that relations between the government and the market should be straightened out to solve the hangovers of the development model of the politics-oriented city, and eco-civilization development and cultural development should be put on the top of the government’s agenda in order to cope with the recurring problems and complications brought about by the development model of the economy-oriented city.

This book provides perspectives on the relevance of European Studies as a disciplinary category for the Asian region. That being the primary focus, the book serves a larger purpose. First, it provides insights on European society, polity and economy (including European Integration) as they are accounted in European Studies. The epistemological character of the knowledge thus conveyed has larger credibility and reliability such that they can become policy inputs and imaginations for strengthening Asian-European relationship. This approach helps overcome the trap of subjectively motivated discourses on Europe which may fail potential collaborations between the regions. Second, the design and discursivity of European Studies will be an instruction to the Asian region on the constitutive potential of regional studies in society-building. Third, the book works towards building the idea of “Europe” in terms of international law, in the minds of Asian students, researchers and decision-makers. This is extremely relevant for the future relationship and cultural engagement between the two regions. The book is of interest to policymakers, academics, embassies, state-level government offices, researchers and students.

This book explores Chinese soft power and public diplomacy, and the way that it has played out in the context of the US-China relationship. As tensions between the two countries have grown in recent years, Chinese foreign policy has oscillated between confrontation and conciliation. In this work, which integrates all facets of China’s public diplomacy especially towards United States, the author explores the past and future of Chinese soft power, in a text that will interest diplomats, scholars and journalists.

This book is a collection of contributions related to India–China relationship beyond the issue of borders. It focuses on those elements that play important role in defining, continuing, and strengthening the interaction between the two countries.  In doing so, it explores roles of language and linguistics, history and culture, politics and economy, and philosophy and sociology that mediated ancient and modern interfaces.

The wide-ranging contributions make the book an attractive resource for academics, think-tanks, diplomats, and researchers working on Asian/India–China studies across the globe.

This book focuses on the dynamics of democracy and populism in Muslim-majority countries, such as Turkey and Indonesia. It does so by examining the complexities of democratic development in these areas, ranging from 'flawed' to 'hybrid' regimes. Despite the aspirations for democratic progress, recent democracy indices reveal a concerning trend of backsliding, particularly in the last decade. This regression can be attributed, in part, to the ascendancy of populist politics.

Populist movements have adeptly exploited both real and perceived cultural insecurities to acquire, consolidate, and maintain political power. This phenomenon is especially pronounced in flawed democracies and hybrid regimes within Muslim-majority countries, such as Turkey and Indonesia. Notably, religion, specifically Islam, has emerged as a central tool within the populist playbook. Populist actors have constructed a religious-civilizational framework that leverages political binaries, manipulates insecurities, and fosters traditional anti-elite and anti-'other' sentiments.

In this book, the authors advance the notion that populism is a multifaceted phenomenon that relies on various pre-existing fractures within societies and cultures. Once in power, populism intensifies these differences to further consolidate its position, utilizing various state apparatuses such as state-controlled religious institutions. This comprehensive analysis offers insights into the growing trend of populism in the Muslim world and its impact on contemporary politics.

This book discusses Human Security from a theoretical perspective. It builds theories in order to understand a phenomenon in a structured and well-ordered way. It sheds light on the conditions of the economy, food, health, community, environmental and political security in Asian states. It explores the idea of human security to understand the issues jeopardizing an individual’s security in the Asian continent and suggests policies to overcome these problems. This book argues that the nature of the government and the constitution are equally essential in ensuring the human security of a country. Some countries in Asia are not only economically vulnerable but also politically disrupted. The issues of hunger, poverty, illiteracy, militancy, terrorism, and ethnoreligious conflicts have posed threats to human security. The pandemic COVID-19 has brought a great humanitarian crisis. The role of the Asian states in combatting COVID-19 and protecting public health is highlightedin this book. With a multidimensional outlook this edited volume attempts to delineate an interdisciplinary discourse of human security in an Asian context.

This book provides an insight into the complex entanglements between African countries and India, China, and South Korea from multidisciplinary perspectives connecting approaches from cultural, anthropological, literary, and music studies and art history. The three parts present a regional focus, namely Africa-India, Africa-South Korea, and Africa-China while the single contributions speak to each other and offer complementary insights. At the same time, the chapters also link across the regional realms as they deal with similar topics, such as travelling music genres. In part I, for Pombo material culture is the starting point to investigate the connections between the islands of the Indian Ocean and India by questioning the construction of memory. It highlights various aspects of the multilayered history of connections between Africa, the islands, and India. Part II gathers contributions that are complimentary to each other and therefore contribute to the understanding of the complex entanglements in area studies. Part III (Africa-South Korea) explores the impact of African-American arts and artists on South Korea's popular culture as well as the changing perception of artists of African descent in visual popular culture. It shows the impact of Korean content in South Africa.

This book explores how China's media narrate climate policy and climate change. With the rapid growth of economy and carbon emissions, China has been seen as having a key role in addressing

climate change and receives substantial attention from the media. In the

Chinese coverage, climate change issues can be interpreted as various concerns

and ideas involving the dimensions of the economy, energy and emissions, public

involvement, science and ecology, and responsibility. In this sense, a discourse

approach can be used to understand how the newspapers construct the climate

change discourse and discourse networks in the coverage. This study selects

three different newspapers in China, namely People’s

Daily, China Daily and Southern Weekend. This book will interest scholars of Chinese politics, environmentalists, and media studies scholars.

This book focuses on the making and implication of AUKUS for Australians in their relations with their own state and governance, the Asia-Pacific region and the rest of the world. AUKUS is an incipient military state and a highly dangerous development, moving rapidly to integrate society, the state and the economy in the US imperial project of warfare and global domination. It constitutes the crucible of a Leviathan state, militarising climate change. The study in this book is framed in a geopolitical analytical paradigm of revolutionary and counterrevolutionary movement and power energising together the existential threat of climate change to humans and capitalism, questioning the viability of the nation-state system, highlighting the predicament confronting Australians as a nation. The book’s analysis is presented in four chapters, broadly indicated in the contents page. The book’s architecture is framed in the political philosophy and intellectual legacy of Eric Hobsbawm, Rosa Luxemburg and George Orwell and their contribution to the understanding of the contradictions of the nation-state and imperialism, capitalism and socialism, in the emancipation of humanity from war.

This book presents an original explanation of the stark contrast between two very different Chinese foreign policy patterns. On the one hand, there is Beijing’s hard power actorness related, among others, to territorial disputes and ‘wolf warrior’ intimidating maneuvers. On the other hand, there are China’s peaceful and cooperative actions, well-illustrated by the Belt and Road Initiative. This book shows that this situation is best understood as a consequence of the coexistence of two different Chinese identities respectively associated with the concepts of nineteenth-century-style territorial empire, and twenty-first-century-style postmodern global power. The book contends that in China’s case, they form a virtuous circle—characterized by a specific division of labor—as both identities are instrumental to the construction of a new, Chinese-led international order. The book provides a detailed analysis of the genesis, development, features, and interplay of these identities. It is relevant to scholars in China studies, political history, contemporary politics, and foreign policy.

This book uses complexity thinking to explore China’s demography and population-driven geopolitics within and beyond mainland China. From a multidisciplinary perspective, the book is relevant to the debates of Chinese demography studies and politics of contemporary China. It combines international relations approaches, demography research, and legal studies to conceive the recent demographic trends and social transformations in China and across the world. The book prioritizes the anthropological viewpoint to provide a better understanding of demographic phenomena and combine an anthropological demography perspective with complexity thinking and geopolitics. This book will interest scholars of China, of geopolitics, and demographers.

This book is a comprehensive introductory text to the subject of Western Muslims’ diverse interpretations, discussions and practices of Shari’a with a particular focus on their daily lives in the West. Through a series of interconnected chapters, the book navigates key themes such as Shari’a and legal pluralism, Shari’a  vis-à-vis the experiences and political participation of Muslims in Western democracies, the role of religious scholars, the dynamics of Shari’a courts, Shari’a and multiple belongings, and transnational loyalties. Functioning as a comprehensive reader and handbook, the book offers non-experts a comprehensive understanding of the meaning and relevance of Shari’a in Western contexts, exploring how Muslims interpret and apply its principles in their lived experiences and challenging the one-dimensional narratives.

This is the first book to investigate how constitutional monarchy could survive in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, during which many monarchies were overthrown by revolutions or coups d’état in Asia, the Middle East, Africa and Europe. Today we have about 200 countries in the world, but there are only 28 which have their own monarchical sovereigns – emperor, king, queen, grand duke, prince, sultan or emir – and even if we add the Commonwealth realms to these, we would find almost three-quarters of the globe are republics at this moment. So will monarchy disappear from human history in the not-too-distant future? This book shows how the European monarchs have played important roles not only as heads of state, but also as heads of nation, in which they are symbols of unity and national identity, of continuity and stability, fountainheads of national achievement and success, and supporters of social service. Consequently they have grappled with difficult contemporary issues such as social welfare, the global environment, the protection of wildlife, multiculturalism and the LGBT movement which national governments would not be able to deal with sufficiently in each country. This book also suggests reforming the existing emperor system of Japan in reference to the activities of European constitutional monarchy.

The book explores the close relationship between media institutions and power elites in Arab societies. This relationship exists within an unprecedented state of competition among global powers for influence and control over necessary resources and consumer markets in the Middle East. These conflicts still ravage these societies, including Palestinian society, designated as a region characterized by "organized chaos," dominated by multiple forms of increasing political instability and complex sources of internal turmoil. Taking the specificity of the Palestinian internal conflict as a case study, the book explores the interrelationships between power elites at the three levels of international, regional, and domestic politics, via the news message of satellite TV news media outlets. This book will interest scholars of the Middle East, of media and authoritarianism, and of the sociology of the Arab world.

This open access book explores the ‘polycrisis’ currently affecting nearly all nations by exploring key themes such as multilateralism and globalization from the perspective of think tanks from nearly every continent, searching for various solutions to the ills that currently plague the world and a way to create a future in which everyone benefits.

As China’s preeminent non-governmental think tank, the Center for China and Globalization (CCG) has invited 30 leading figures from the global think tank community to sift through the myriad layers of multilateralism and global governance and provide a contextual analysis of major themes both from a theoretical and practical perspective, focusing on China in detail, but also examining the world as a whole.

Think tanks are essential in analyzing current trends and providing potential solutions that aid governments, international organizations and business in finding solutions that are beneficial to all. As a key source of innovative ideas, they have become even more valuable today as the pace of change accelerates, geopolitical complexity increases and the world has to deal with global crises that no country can address on their own.

A common, central theme through all of the 25 essays in this book is the need for a more universal, inclusive and multilateral approach to reforming global governance. It is our hope that the views of the experts from think tanks and other non-governmental organizations in this compilation will provide valuable insights to help heal the gaps in our fragmented world.

This book focuses on the many kinds of populist politicians in Malaysia who capitalise on the mindset of the Malay majority population by appealing to their need for a protector. In order to demonstrate that populism is pervasive and can even be found in this developing nation in Southeast Asia, the book presents the background, policies, and rhetoric of seven prominent Malay politicians in Malaysia who utilise populism as a strategy. It does so by comparing various populist leaders in Malaysia to demonstrate that populism is merely a method for these politicians to garner support. Since most of these leaders come from the establishment, the rhetoric against the elites is merely performative rather than a true belief of these Malay leaders. The book takes a case-study approach to understanding the rise of populism in Malaysia, and Asia more generally. It offers a framework that is grounded in the sociopolitical context of the Malay community, which helps to elucidate the phenomenon of elite populism in the country.

This book discusses experiences of women leaders in decentralised government structure in India and their participation in governance. The book also examines contribution of women leaders to the development of local area and economy through improved delivery of public services. In India, the policy of reserving seats and executive positions to women in the Panchayati Raj Institutions (grassroot governance bodies in India) at the village, sub-district and district levels, and urban local bodies was introduced three decades ago to improve representation of women at the grassroots level and enable them to access political decision-making at the local level. Because of the policy, about half of three million leaders in local government are currently women. The book explores the impact of this significant representation of women on decentralised governance and development. It looks at why this impressive representation of women in the local government has not translated into improved participation of women at the provincial and national parliament. The book discusses successful models, experiences of women leaders from different parts in India, and challenges faced by them. It offers new interpretations of findings and new methodologies to assess the contribution of women to decentralised governance and development. It is a rich source of material for researchers, teachers, practitioners, policymakers, NGOs, and think tanks.

This book’s significance is in its African-centred border crossing overt and covert forces working against genders and sexualities, reinforcing endemic gender and sexual based complexities. Pragmatically, sexualities and genders in Africa remain contested and an area of power and control contestations in both the private and public spheres. Gender based violence and femicide (GBVF), in particular, continue to escalate, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic. Such GBVF, at most, affects young women, migrants, LGBTIQIA+ people, sex workers, informal street traders, and widows, amongst others. This is happening at a time when the feminist and women’s movements in Africa are experiencing fragmentations and factions that pull and push organising to the margins of prejudice internally, thereby exacerbating an act of ‘subordinated inclusion’. In this context, the term ‘subordinated inclusion’ connotes another form of complexity where the ‘subaltern’ has been brought inside a room as an act of inclusion yet systemically subordinated through structure and obedience, thereby compromising agency. This complexity occurs in private and public domains, where a continuum of contestations between structure and agency is sustained. Consequently, power struggles emerge and proliferate unabated into gendered and sexualised complexities, including relations of state, coloniality, apartheid, prejudice, marginalization, capitalism and democracy. This book thus strives to surface these contestations and complexities and how they continue to thrive in an era that seeks another way possible, a way out, a jump off, a manner of dealing and an exit from the status quo.

This book endeavors to examine the impact of China's rapid ascendance as a donor on the "international development assistance regime" over the past two decades. China's rapid economic rise and the success of its economic development have led to a notable trend among many developing countries to view the way of China as a "Chinese development model” and to imitate it. In addition, China itself has been conscious of the "challenge" to the development theory and international development assistance regime that has been led mainly by the West and has pushed for policies that differ from those of traditional donors.  The "Belt and Road Initiative (BRI)," which was announced in 2013, is emblematic of these distinctive developments in China. The proliferation of the "Chinese development model" in the context of these international trends has led some to view it as the global spread of the "Beijing Consensus," which has replaced the "Washington Consensus" led by the Bretton Woods Institutions that have exerted significant influence in the past.
This book presents case studies of several countries, based on the author's field research in Cambodia, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Angola, Rwanda, and other countries.

This book is part of a two-volumes exploration comprising 18 chapters organized into four distinct thematic sections. This volume delves into the geopolitical dynamics and power relations in East and Southeast Asia and the Global North. It examines the interactions of regional and extra-regional powers from both military and soft power perspectives. It highlights China's influence in the Indo-Pacific region, Russia's involvement in Myanmar's political economy, and Taiwan's situation. It also examines the dynamics of India-Taiwan relations and North Korea's foreign policy. This book presents interconnected discussions on various themes, offering valuable insights for readers. It provides useful insights into the role of the Global North from multiple perspectives. This will benefit students, scholars, and academicians from diverse disciplines such as International Relations, Foreign Policy, Defence and Strategic Studies, Political Science, Peace and Conflict Studies, and Journalism. The other volume provides an in-depth analysis of the intricate power struggles within this Asian region, with a particular focus on India, and delves into the power dynamics of Central Asia, and West Asia offering a comprehensive examination of the geopolitical and power-related issues that shape these regions.

The edited volume titled "Decoding the Chessboard of Asian Geopolitics: Asian Powerplay in South Asia, Central Asia, and West Asia" offers a distinctive examination of the power rivalries within the Asian region. It highlights the significant influence of extra-regional powers on South Asia's political, economic, foreign policy, and security landscapes. This volume also delves into the intricate power dynamics in Central Asia and West Asia. In light of recent global transformations, Asia emerges as a formidable entity that not only confronts the challenges of uncertainty but also plays a pivotal role in shaping contemporary geopolitics. Comprising 22 chapters, this volume provides a critical analysis of both internal and external factors influencing Asian Powerplay. It emphasizes the significance of the Indo-Pacific region, the Non-Alignment Movement, and the concept of multipolarity. Furthermore, it addresses various issues from traditional security to human security across four distinct sectors.The scholars of International Relations, Defence Studies,  Political Science, Strategic Studies, Journalism, Peace and conflict Studies,etc., will be benifited by this volume across the globe. This book is part of a two-volume set and the other volume in this set delves into the geopolitical dynamics and power relations in East and Southeast Asia and the Global North.

This book explores the accountability paradox in the Chinese bureaucracy. The purpose of accountability is to foster compliance and responsiveness among bureaucrats, but instead, it causes bureaucrats’ coping tactics, blame-avoiding strategies, and defensive behavior, which constitutes a paradox or pathology of accountability. The accountability paradox is well documented in Western countries, but scarce attention has been paid to the accountability system in the Chinese context. It appears that the accountability paradox is also present in the Chinese context since a series of major transformations were initiated to overhaul the accountability system in China following the 18th National Party Congress in 2012, but exhibits characteristics that are unique to China. In a tightly argued book driven by comprehensive interviews and survey investigations, Dr. Tu sheds light on a subject of interest to sinologists, political scientists, and journalists.

This open access book examines migrant settlement in regional Australia, offering policy recommendations and conceptual frameworks for sustainable integration. With a focus on key areas such as socio-political contexts, employment, education, health, and family challenges, this book provides a holistic approach to understanding and addressing the complexities of migrant settlement.

Australia's rich cultural landscape is shaped by its status as a migration nation, with over half of its population either born overseas or having at least one migrant parent. While migration is a key element of Australia's growth, regional areas face unique challenges in attracting and retaining migrants. Despite government initiatives, skill shortages persist in regional industries, prompting a need for comprehensive policy addressing migrant needs and regional development.

This book fills a critical gap in the literature, offering valuable insights for academics, policymakers, and service providers. It not only highlights the challenges faced by migrants in regional Australia but also underscores the importance of community capacity-building and support services in facilitating successful settlement.

Political shocks have come to be considered highly salient for explaining major changes to international politics and to the foreign policies of states. Such shocks can occur at all levels of analysis: domestically, dyadically, regionally, or globally. They range from political phenomena such as coups and wars to ecological catastrophes. These shocks are sufficiently disruptive to cause foreign policy makers to reconsider their foreign policy orientations and to contemplate major changes to their policies. In fact, some have argued that it is mostly through political shocks that fundamental policy change occurs in most states. No wonder then that political shocks are now increasingly part of the toolbox of considerations used by foreign policy and international relations scholars as they focus on understanding patterns of conflict and cooperation between states. 

Given the salience of political shocks to understand foreign policy change, this book brings together a group of both senior and more junior scholars whose previous work has shown substantial promise for moving forward theory and empirical analysis. Their combined efforts in this book highlight the value of multiple theoretical and empirical approaches to a clearer understanding of the nature of political shocks and their consequences for foreign policy and international politics.

This is an Open Access book. The international political economy is confronted by a number of overlapping crises. These include the climate emergency, rapid technological advancement, the high volume of globalised trade and financial flows, cross-border labour movement, rising inequality, geopolitical tensions, and frequent economic crises and natural disasters. Many developing countries are going through a period of urgent transformation and transition to adopt new policies to cope with such challenges and achieve and maintain sustainable and inclusive socioeconomic development. This path-breaking volume explores the issues shaping the response of Brunei Darussalam, long dependent on its oil and gas sector, to these challenges. The discussions presented here are framed by the notion of ‘development in transition’—a mix of well-designed policies driven by timely implementation, enforcement and monitoring, as well as international cooperation to ensure sustainable development and distribution of benefits on an equitable basis. Through fine-grained analyses of key economic sectors—including natural resources, employment patterns, financial services, global value chains, international trade, tourism and the role of the public sector—the contributors offer a critical assessment of Brunei’s policy responses. This transitional policy mix is situated in relation to the overarching development strategy called Wawasan Brunei 2035 (Brunei Vision 2035), which broadly maps onto the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development Goals. Academic scholars, university students and others interested in the study of contemporary Brunei and broader questions of economic transition in Asia will find this volume an invaluable resource for a deeper understanding of how development paths and priorities are being managed to meet pressing global and local challenges.