Contemporary international affairs are largely shaped by widely differing thematic issues and actors, such as nation states, international institutions, NGOs and multinational companies. Obtaining a deeper understanding of these multifaceted themes and actors is crucial for developing a genuine understanding of contemporary international affairs. This book provides undergraduate and postgraduate students of global politics and international relations with the necessary knowledge of the forces that shape and dominate our global political, economic and social/cultural environment. The book significantly enhances our understanding of the essentials of contemporary international affairs. Understanding Global Politics takes a pragmatic approach to international relations, with each chapter being written by an expert in their respective field: Part I provides the historical background that has led to the current state of world affairs. It also provides clear outlines of the major yet often complex theories of international relations. Part II is dedicated to the main actors in global politics. It discusses actors such as the most important nation states, the UN, EU, international organizations, NGOs and multinational companies. Part III considers important contemporary themes and challenges in global politics, including non-state centered challenges. Chapters focus on international terrorism, energy and climate change issues, religious fundamentalism and demographic changes. The comprehensive structure of this book makes it particularly viable to students who wish to pursue careers in international organizations, diplomacy, consultancy, the think tank world and the media.

This historical study “persuasively links the reception of Yugoslav migrants to West Germany’s shifting relationship to the Nazi past . . . essential reading” (Tara Zahra, author of The Great Departure). During Europe’s 2015 refugee crisis, more than a hundred thousand asylum seekers from the western Balkans sought refuge in Germany. This was nothing new, however. Immigrants from the Balkans have streamed into West Germany in massive numbers since the end of the Second World War. In fact, Yugoslavs became the country’s second largest immigrant group. Yet their impact has received little critical attention until now. Memory, Politics, and Yugoslav Migrations to Postwar Germany tells the story of how Germans received the many thousands of Yugoslavs who migrated to Germany as political emigres, labor migrants, asylum seekers, and war refugees from 1945 to the mid-1990s. With a particular focus on German policies and attitudes toward immigrants, Christopher Molnar argues that considerations of race played only a marginal role in German attitudes and policies towards Yugoslavs. Rather, the history of Yugoslavs in postwar Germany was most profoundly shaped by the memory of World War II and the shifting Cold War context. Molnar shows how immigration was a central aspect of how Germany negotiated the meaning and legacy of the war.

At the end of the nineteenth century, Southeastern Europe became a prime sending region of emigrants to overseas countries, in particular the United States. This massive movement of people ended in 1914 but remained consequential long thereafter, as emigration had created networks, memories, and attitudes that shaped social and political practices in Southeastern Europe long after the emigrants had left. This book’s main concern is to reconstruct the political and socioeconomic impact of emigration on Southeastern Europe. In contrast to migration studies’ traditional focus on immigration, this book concentrates on the sending countries. The author provides a comparative analysis of the socioeconomic causes and consequences of emigration and argues that migrant networks and emulation effects were crucial for the persistence of migration inclinations. It also brings the state back in the emigration story and discusses political responses towards emigration by governments in the region before 1914. Emigration policy became closely aligned with nation-building and social engineering. These stances continued even after emigration had subsided: interwar Yugoslavia, which is studied in detail, tried to create a Yugoslav “diaspora” in America by turning emigrants from its territory into expatriate citizens. Hence, a nationalizing state exploited transnational linkages. The book closes with the emigration policies of communist Yugoslavia until the early 1960s,when experiments and experiences of the government were crucial for its eventual decision to liberalize labor migration to the West (the only communist government to do so). A paramount reason for this was the fact that emigrants, both as a place of memory and a source of remittances, continued to be significant. This book therefore presents emigration as a complex social phenomenon that requires a multifaceted historical approach in order to reveal the effects of migration on different temporal and spatial scales.

Papers from a conference held Dec. 8-10, 2006 at the Berlin College for the Comparative History of Europe.

This study scrutinizes the significance of transnational mobilization for language minorities, both with regard to their ability and their motivation to undertake such action. It is designed as interpretative case study on Romanian minorities in the post-communist countries of Serbia, Bulgaria, Ukraine, and Hungary. The book concentrates on immobile and marginal groups outside the focus of international politics and research. It contributes to recent research on cosmopolitanism: only an in-depth study of actors' everyday reality can produce qualified claims on the tense relationship between local rootedness on the one hand and possibilities for international mobility on the other. This, in turn, is vital to assess the vigor of international processes such as globalization and European integration. (Series: Region - Nation - Europa - Vol. 75) [Subject: Sociology, European Studies, Minority Studies]

The geo-political area of what once constituted Yugoslavia has been a region of significant migration since the 1960s. More recently, the conflicts in the region were the catalysts for massive displacements of individuals, families and whole communities. Thus far, there has been a gap in the literature on the qualitative experience of migrants from the former Yugoslavia through the twin theoretical lenses of transnationalism and diaspora. This book offers an ethnographic account of migration and life in diaspora of migrants originating from the former Yugoslavia and now living in Britain. Concepts such as the development of cultural beacons and diasporic borrowing are introduced through the ways in which migrants from the region form community associations and articulate - or avoid - such affiliations. The study examines the ways in which the experience of migration can be shaped by the socio-political contexts of departure and arrival, and considers how the lexicon associated with the act of migration can weave itself into the identities of migrants. The ways in which the transnational and diasporic spaces are dictated by certain narratives, for example the allegory of dreaming and the language of guilt, are explored. It also investigates migrants’ ongoing connection with the homeland, considering social and cultural elements, their reception in UK, and British media representations of Yugoslavia. Contributing to the knowledge on the experiences of migrants from a part of the world which has been under-researched in terms of its migrating populations, this book will be of interest to students and scholars of Political Geography, Social Geography, Eastern European Politics, and Migration and Diaspora studies.

This volume is the result of an international research project that drew together perspectives from three countries in Central, Eastern, and South-Eastern Europe: Croatia, Lithuania, and Poland. It explores the under-researched phenomenon of immaterial values and resources that returning migrants bring with them, as they have the potential to contribute to economic development, together with the social, political, and cultural change in their countries of origin. The authors explore the mechanisms, challenges, and successes of the process of social remitting by returnees to these countries.