This volume examines the complex international system of the twenty first century from a variety of perspectives. Proceeding from critical theoretical perspectives and incorporating case studies, the chapters focus on broad trends as well as micro-realities of a Post-Westphalian international system. The process of transformation and change of the international system has been an ongoing cumulative process. Many forces including conflict, technological innovation, and communication have contributed to the creation of a transnational world with political, economic, and social implications for all societies. Transnationalism functions both as an integrative factor and one which exposes the existing and the newly emerging divisions between societies and cultures and between nations and states. The chapters in this volume demonstrate that re-thinking fundamental assumptions as well as theoretical and methodological premises is central to understanding the dynamics of interdependence.

This collection of original articles offers an up-to-date, critical review of the global political economy today, covering such topics as international finance, corporate governance, military power, international labour standards, global health, human rights, and more. Assembling a group of top scholars, the editors are able to provide a wide-ranging yet coherent survey of contemporary international institutions and how they are governed. In the process, they offer a useful basis for understanding the financial crisis of 2008. Relations of Global Power is the only book available that examines the many different dimensions of the international regulatory structure across a range of issues, placing them all within the context of neoliberal globalization. It will be of interest to scholars of political science, sociology, policy studies, public administration, and global studies, and will also appeal to activists and members of alter-globalization movements.

This exciting new textbook challenges the implicit notions inherent in most existing International Relations (IR) scholarship and instead presents the subject as seen from different vantage points in the global South. Divided into four sections, (1) the IR discipline, (2) key concepts and categories, (3) global issues and (4) IR futures, it examines the ways in which world politics have been addressed by traditional core approaches and explores the limitations of these treatments for understanding both Southern and Northern experiences of the "international." The book encourages readers to consider how key ideas have been developed in the discipline, and through systematic interventions by contributors from around the globe, aims at both transforming and enriching the dominant terms of scholarly debate. This empowering, critical and reflexive tool for thinking about the diversity of experiences of international relations and for placing them front and center in the classroom will help professors and students in both the global North and the global South envision the world differently. In addition to general, introductory IR courses at both the undergraduate and graduate levels it will appeal to courses on sociology and historiography of knowledge, globalization, neoliberalism, security, the state, imperialism and international political economy.

“A valuable primer on foreign policy: a primer that concerned citizens of all political persuasions—not to mention the president and his advisers—could benefit from reading.” —Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times An examination of a world increasingly defined by disorder and a United States unable to shape the world in its image, from the president of the Council on Foreign Relations Things fall apart; the center cannot hold. The rules, policies, and institutions that have guided the world since World War II have largely run their course. Respect for sovereignty alone cannot uphold order in an age defined by global challenges from terrorism and the spread of nuclear weapons to climate change and cyberspace. Meanwhile, great power rivalry is returning. Weak states pose problems just as confounding as strong ones. The United States remains the world’s strongest country, but American foreign policy has at times made matters worse, both by what the U.S. has done and by what it has failed to do. The Middle East is in chaos, Asia is threatened by China’s rise and a reckless North Korea, and Europe, for decades the world’s most stable region, is now anything but. As Richard Haass explains, the election of Donald Trump and the unexpected vote for “Brexit” signals that many in modern democracies reject important aspects of globalization, including borders open to trade and immigrants. In A World in Disarray, Haass argues for an updated global operating system—call it world order 2.0—that reflects the reality that power is widely distributed and that borders count for less. One critical element of this adjustment will be adopting a new approach to sovereignty, one that embraces its obligations and responsibilities as well as its rights and protections. Haass also details how the U.S. should act towards China and Russia, as well as in Asia, Europe, and the Middle East. He suggests, too, what the country should do to address its dysfunctional politics, mounting debt, and the lack of agreement on the nature of its relationship with the world. A World in Disarray is a wise examination, one rich in history, of the current world, along with how we got here and what needs doing. Haass shows that the world cannot have stability or prosperity without the United States, but that the United States cannot be a force for global stability and prosperity without its politicians and citizens reaching a new understanding.

Where does international order come from? How is it established and maintained? Why does it break down? With every sovereign state its own master, how can order prevail? Answering these questions in a briskly paced, systematic survey, Stephen Kocs explores the rise and fall of successive international systems across the centuries - from the dynastic institutions of Renaissance Europe, to the power-politics systems of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Europe, to the liberal international systems of the contemporary world.

A Brookings Institution Press and Chatham House publication The Russian annexation of Crimea was one of the great strategic shocks of the past twenty-five years. For many in the West, Moscow's actions in early 2014 marked the end of illusions about cooperation, and the return to geopolitical and ideological confrontation. Russia, for so long a peripheral presence, had become the central actor in a new global drama. In this groundbreaking book, renowned scholar Bobo Lo analyzes the broader context of the crisis by examining the interplay between Russian foreign policy and an increasingly anarchic international environment. He argues that Moscow's approach to regional and global affairs reflects the tension between two very different worlds—the perceptual and the actual. The Kremlin highlights the decline of the West, a resurgent Russia, and the emergence of a new multipolar order. But this idealized view is contradicted by a world disorder that challenges core assumptions about the dominance of great powers and the utility of military might. Its lesson is that only those states that embrace change will prosper in the twenty-first century. A Russia able to redefine itself as a modern power would exert a critical influence in many areas of international politics. But a Russia that rests on an outdated sense of entitlement may end up instead as one of the principal casualties of global transformation.