The end of the Cold War era has not brought greater security to the world community. Although the likelihood of a global strategic nuclear war has been reduced significantly, we have already witnessed the impact of other challenges to international peace. As the Gulf War of 1991 demonstrated, regional conflicts can expand, adopting the methods and means of the earlier superpower confrontation. Recent events in the Horn of Africa, the Balkans, and Southeast Asia have revealed the continuing power of historic ethnic, religious, and national rivalries and the seeming inability of the international community to find effective solutions. At the same time, modern weapons and communications technologies, demographic changes and environmental degradation, vast disparities in wealth, and the globalization of both economic activity and Western culture pose enormous challenges. Are the international institutions with which we have lived since the end of the Second World War equipped to handle these problems? Written by international authorities in a wide range of disciplines, the essays in this text examine what is known, what must be determined, and what might be done with respect to these profound and urgent issues.

Examines how ideas of sovereignty and security from the non-Western world contribute to order and change in world politics.

An assessment of Russia that suggests that we should look beyond traditional means of power to understand its strength and capacity to disrupt international politics. Too often, we are told that Russia plays a weak hand well. But, perhaps the nation's cards are better than we know. Russia ranks significantly behind the US and China by traditional measures of power: GDP, population size and health, and military might. Yet 25 years removed from its mid-1990s nadir following the collapse of the USSR, Russia has become a supremely disruptive force in world politics. Kathryn E. Stoner assesses the resurrection of Russia and argues that we should look beyond traditional means of power to assess its strength in global affairs. Taking into account how Russian domestic politics under Vladimir Putin influence its foreign policy, Stoner explains how Russia has battled its way back to international prominence. From Russia's seizure of the Crimea from Ukraine to its military support for the Assad regime in Syria, the country has reasserted itself as a major global power. Stoner examines these developments and more in tackling the big questions about Russia's turnaround and global future. Stoner marshals data on Russia's political, economic, and social development and uncovers key insights from its domestic politics. Russian people are wealthier than the Chinese, debt is low, and fiscal policy is good despite sanctions and the volatile global economy. Vladimir Putin's autocratic regime faces virtually no organized domestic opposition. Yet, mindful of maintaining control at home, Russia under Putin also uses its varied power capacities to extend its influence abroad. While we often underestimate Russia's global influence, the consequences are evident in the disruption of politics in the US, Syria, and Venezuela, to name a few. Russia Resurrected is an eye-opening reassessment of the country, identifying the actual sources of its power in international politics and why it has been able to redefine the post-Cold War global order.

In a tempestuous narrative that sweeps across five continents and seven centuries, this book explains how a succession of catastrophes—from the devastating Black Death of 1350 through the coming climate crisis of 2050—has produced a relentless succession of rising empires and fading world orders. During the long centuries of Iberian and British imperial rule, the quest for new forms of energy led to the development of the colonial sugar plantation as a uniquely profitable kind of commerce. In a time when issues of race and social justice have arisen with pressing urgency, the book explains how the plantation’s extraordinary profitability relied on a production system that literally worked the slaves to death, creating an insatiable appetite for new captives that made the African slave trade a central feature of modern capitalism for over four centuries. After surveying past centuries roiled by imperial wars, national revolutions, and the struggle for human rights, the closing chapters use those hard-won insights to peer through the present and into the future. By rendering often-opaque environmental science in lucid prose, the book explains how climate change and changing world orders will shape the life opportunities for younger generations, born at the start of this century, during the coming decades that will serve as the signposts of their lives—2030, 2050, 2070, and beyond.

With the United States' superpower status rivalled by a rising China and emerging powers like India and Brazil playing a growing role in international affairs, the global balance of power is shifting. But what does this mean for the future of the international order? Will China dominate the 21st Century? Will the so-called BRICS prove to be a disruptive force in global affairs? Are we headed towards a world marked by frequent strife, or will the end of Western dominance make the world more peaceful? In this provocative new book, Oliver Stuenkel argues that our understanding of global order and predictions about its future are limited because we seek to imagine the post-Western world from a parochial Western-centric perspective. Such a view is increasingly inadequate in a world where a billions of people regard Western rule as a temporary aberration, and the rise of Asia as a return to normalcy. In reality, China and other rising powers that elude the simplistic extremes of either confronting or joining existing order are quietly building a "parallel order" which complements today's international institutions and increases rising powers' autonomy. Combining accessibility with expert sensitivity to the complexities of the global shift of power, Stuenkel's vision of a post-Western world will be core reading for students and scholars of contemporary international affairs, as well as anyone interested in the future of global politics. "A fascinating interpretation of our understanding of politics and global affairs, which demonstrates the evolving nature of power today. Oliver Stuenkel presents a compelling argument - not just about the "Rise of the Rest", but also the overlooked power and influence of the non-Western world. Highly engaging and instructive." Dr Shashi Tharoor, India’s Minister of State for External Affairs (2009-10) "Oliver Stuenkel is one of the best new voices in the field of international politics. In Post-Western World, he explores the primary challenges of the global order and critiques the parochial, Eurocentric vision which conforms to international power structures. This book is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand what a multipolar world order would look like and how it might be effectively realized." Celso Amorim, Brazil’s Minister of External Relations (1993-5, 2003-11) and Minister of Defence (2011-15)

The issues that increasingly dominate the 21st century cannot be solved by any single country acting alone, no matter how powerful. To manage the global economy, prevent runaway environmental destruction, reign in nuclear proliferation, or confront other global challenges, we must cooperate. But at the same time, our tools for global policymaking - chiefly state-to-state negotiations over treaties and international institutions - have broken down. The result is gridlock, which manifests across areas via a number of common mechanisms. The rise of new powers representing a more diverse array of interests makes agreement more difficult. The problems themselves have also grown harder as global policy issues penetrate ever more deeply into core domestic concerns. Existing institutions, created for a different world, also lock-in pathological decision-making procedures and render the field ever more complex. All of these processes - in part a function of previous, successful efforts at cooperation - have led global cooperation to fail us even as we need it most. Ranging over the main areas of global concern, from security to the global economy and the environment, this book examines these mechanisms of gridlock and pathways beyond them. It is written in a highly accessible way, making it relevant not only to students of politics and international relations but also to a wider general readership.

As China and the U.S. increasingly compete for power in key areas of U.S. influence, great power conflict looms. Yet few studies have looked to the Middle East and Africa, regions of major political, economic, and military importance for both China and the U.S., to theorize how China competes in a changing world system. China's Rise in the Global South examines China's behavior as a rising power in two key Global South regions, the Middle East and sub-Saharan Africa. Dawn C. Murphy, drawing on extensive fieldwork and hundreds of interviews, compares and analyzes thirty years of China's interactions with these regions across a range of functional areas: political, economic, foreign aid, and military. From the Belt and Road initiative to the founding of new cooperation forums and special envoys, China's Rise in the Global South offers an in-depth look at China's foreign policy approach to the countries it considers its partners in South-South cooperation. Intervening in the emerging debate between liberals and realists about China's future as a great power, Murphy contends that China is constructing an alternate international order to interact with these regions, and this book provides policymakers and scholars of international relations with the tools to analyze it.