The contemporary Sino-MENA-Asia relations and the Belt and Road Initiative are in the making in an emerging 'multiplex world'. This edited volume includes new researches in fifteen chapters, examining China’s complex relations with Iran, Turkey, Egypt, GCC, Pakistan, central and south Asia.

"This edited volume critically examines the changing dynamics of multidimensional relations between China, Middle East and North Africa (MENA) and Asia in an emerging "multiplex world". It challenges both extremes of "Sinophobia" and "Sinophilia" by studying the real "pragmatist" China. This book, in fifteen chapters, problematizes what MENA and Asia means to China in the age of neoliberalism, explores what are the real or perceived pillars of Sino-MENA-Asia relations, and sheds light on how MENA can benefit from its relations with China while keeping a clear distance from the harms of neoliberal authoritarianism. Contributors are Mojtaba Mahdavi, Tugrul Keskin, Manochehr Dorraj, Sari Hanafi, Habibul Haque Khondker, Dara Conduit, Rigas Arvanitis, Saeed Shafqat, Jordi Quero, Mahesh Ranjan Debata, Andrea Ghiselli, Mher D. Sahakyan, Michael McCall, Yossra M. Taha and Xiaoyue Li"--

This book argues that the world order is no longer unipolar, and the war in Ukraine proves this fact. As this study describes and theorizes, it has been transformed into a Multipolar World Order 2.0 stage. This title critically examines Chinese, US, Russian, EU, Indian, and a number of other powers’ cooperation and competition over security, diplomatic, economic and cyberspace issues. Accomplished scholars from various regions of the Eurasian continent consider the impact of the Russo–Ukrainian war, the Sino–Russian strategic partnership, China’s relations with the United States and the European Union, the influence of the Belt and Road Initiative, the expansion of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and Eurasian Economic Union, China’s policies in the Middle East, Central Asia, Indo-Asia Pacific, the South Caucasus, Central and Eastern Europe, as well as focus on details of growing contradictions and collaboration in the Eurasian continent over markets, technologies, digital leadership, vaccine distribution, and financial institutions in the Era of Multipolar World Order 2.0. Showing that the US-centred unipolar world order is replaced by Multipolar World Order 2.0 where conflicting powers fight to keep or extend their spheres of influence, this volume is of great interest to decision makers, diplomats, scholars and students of international relations, politics, global governance, Eurasian studies, Chinese studies, cybersecurity, and economics, and for those studying human security, international organizations, and geopolitics.

This book explores a range of key issues connected to China’s relations with countries in the Middle East and South Asia. It discusses economic and political connections, and projects which have arisen as part of China’s Belt and Road Initiative. It covers both important countries in the Middle East, and also Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan. It examines current contentious issues including Iranian sanctions and the war in Syria, and assesses the roles of other powers such as Russia, Turkey and Israel insofar as they affect China’s relationships. Overall, the book presents many new perspectives on the subject, with many of the perspectives representing the view from the countries of the Middle East and South Asia.

This book presents a comprehensive, detailed analysis of the establishment, evolution and current significance of different institutions in today's Islamic Republic of Iran. The volume draws on the insights of a number of Iran experts to examine their establishment, functions and evolution, as a means of understanding Iranian politics and society. The Sacred Republic's specific focus is on the key formal institutions of the state through which the Islamic Republic exercises power, namely the velayat-e faqih: the judiciary, the presidency, the parliament, elections, the Revolutionary Guards, and the foreign policy establishment. Despite significant work on Iranian politics in recent decades, few studies have focused on state institutions, their resilience, or the reasons for and manner of institutional change. Through historical institutionalism and comparative historical analysis, the contributors to this book together fill a glaring gap in the study of Iran's political institutions, offering significant insights for the theoretical literature on comparative politics, Middle Eastern politics, and Iranian Studies.

This Handbook uses a comprehensive study of political institutions, social movements and external pressures to offer nuanced study of politics in the Middle East. Foremost scholars on the Middle East examine key themes such as political change, regional rivalry and authoritarianism, making this collection very timely and relevant as an authoritative source.

Since the late 1980s, there has been a global upsurge of various forms of regionalist projects. The widening and deepening of the European Union (EU) is the most prominent example, but there has also been a revitalization or expansion of many other regionalist projects as well, such as the African Union (AU), the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the Southern Common Market (Mercosur). More or less every government in the world is engaged in regionalism, which also involves a rich variety of business and civil society actors, resulting in a multitude of regional processes in most fields of contemporary politics. In this new text, Fredrik Söderbaum draws on decades of scholarship to provide a major reassessment of regionalism and to address questions about its origins, logic and consequences. By examining regionalism from historical, spatial, comparative and global perspectives, Rethinking Regionalism transcends the deep intellectual and disciplinary rivalries that have limited our knowledge about the subject. This broad-ranging approach enables new and challenging answers to emerge as to why and how regionalism evolves and consolidates, how it can be compared, and what its ongoing significance is for a host of issues within global politics, from security and trade to development and the environment. Retaining a balanced and authoritative style throughout, this text will be welcomed for its uniquely comprehensive examination of regionalism in the contemporary global age.