The best-selling introduction to international relations offers the most comprehensive coverage of the key theories and global issues in world politics, written by the leading experts in the field.

We live today in an interconnected world in which ordinary people can became instant online celebrities to fans thousands of miles away, in which religious leaders can influence millions globally, in which humans are altering the climate and environment, and in which complex social forces intersect across continents. This is globalization. In the fifth edition of his bestselling Very Short Introduction Manfred B. Steger considers the major dimensions of globalization: economic, political, cultural, ideological, and ecological. He looks at its causes and effects, and engages with the hotly contested question of whether globalization is, ultimately, a good or a bad thing. From climate change to the Ebola virus, Donald Trump to Twitter, trade wars to China's growing global profile, Steger explores today's unprecedented levels of planetary integration as well as the recent challenges posed by resurgent national populism. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

"Brawley provides us with a remarkably balanced, systematic, and nevertheless accessible survey of the facts and debates pertaining to the issue of globalization." - Daniel Verdier, Ohio State University

Now in its fifth edition, this title has been fully revised and updated in the light of recent developments in world politics, with new chapters on the changing nature of war, human security, and international ethics.

Globalization and Politics brings together vision and imaginative insight to the analysis of the evolution of inter-state politics to produce a clear, comprehensive and coherent sense of how globalization works and how it might work better. The study looks upon globalization as a distinct set of phenomena - energy, economy, environment and politics - all of which interact. Presenting opportunities for interdependency and governance, globalization offers both dangers and promises which explains why it is equally feared and praised. Globalization is an economic trend with strong spillovers and as such has become a political trend with cultural implications. This volume is an invaluable, highly readable new text for graduate and undergraduate courses. It sets out the key challenges for globalization in the 21st century and looks at the challenges, responses and risks of globalization. It is required reading for analysts, students and professionals who want to understand what's at stake in the globalization debate.

Politics of Globalization presents an up-to-date perspective on the kaleidoscopic politics of globalization. The authors analyze the existing definitions of capitalism and argue that globalization and the consequent growing multi-polarity in world politics is not a crisis but a proliferation of capitalisms. This network of capitalisms becomes the framework of the politics of the new globalization.

In this book, the authors set forth a new model of globalization that lays claims to supersede existing models, and then use this model to assess the way the processes of globalization have operated in different historic periods in respect to political organization, military globalization, trade, finance, corporate productivity, migration, culture, and the environment. Each of these topics is covered in a chapter which contrasts the contemporary nature of globalization with that of earlier epochs. In mapping the shape and political consequences of globalization, the authors concentrate on six states in advanced capitalist societies (SIACS): the United States, the United Kingdom, Sweden, France, Germany, and Japan. For comparative purposes, other states—particularly those with developing economics—are referred to and discussed where relevant. The book concludes by systematically describing and assessing contemporary globalization, and appraising the implications of globalization for the sovereignty and autonomy of SIACS. It also confronts directly the political fatalism that surrounds much discussion of globalization with a normative agenda that elaborates the possibilities for democratizing and civilizing the unfolding global transformation.