Since the end of the Cold War, globalization has been reshaping the modern world, and an array of new scholarship has risen to make sense of it in its various transnational manifestations-including economic, social, cultural, ideological, technological, environmental, and in new communications. The chapters discuss various aspects in the field through a broad range of approaches. This handbook focuses on global studies more than on the phenomenon of globalization itself, although the various aspects of globalization are central to understanding how the field is currently being shaped

In this book, top scholars of international relations assess the consequences of globalization for national security, identifying three distinct ‘processes’ of globalization - the intensification of economic exchange, the flow of information, and marketization (the expansion of the set of social relations governed by market forces)-exploring how they can affect the capacity and power of states as well as conflict within and among them. Though much has been written on the topics of globalization and national security, there has been relatively little in the way of a systematic examination of the impact that globalization has on a state's national security. These essays deal with how state-less actors, such as terrorists, utilize the benefits of globalization, changing the nature of the security game. Failure to account for the influence of globalization will make it increasingly difficult to understand changes in the balance of power, prospects for war, and strategic choices embraced by states.

Globalization, Difference, and Human Security seeks to advance critical human security studies by re-framing the concept of human security in terms of the thematic of difference. Drawing together a wide range of contributors, the volume is framed, among others, around the following key questions: What are the silences and erasures of advancing a critical human security alternative without making recognition of difference its central plank?How do we rethink the complex interplay of human security and difference in distinct and varied spatial and cultural settings produced by global forces? What is the nexus between human security and the broader field of global development? What new challenges to Human Security and International Relations are produced with the rise of the ‘post-liberal’ or ‘post-secular’ subject? In what ways releasing human security from identification with the territorial state helps reconceptualize culture? How does Human Security serve as a subspecies of modern humanitarian thought or the latter reinforce imperial imaginaries and the structures of order and morality? Is the pursuit of indigenous rights fundamentally counterpoised to the pursuit of human security? What difference it might make to take the ‘doings and beings’ of communities-of-subsistence rather than basic-needs/wealth-seeking individuals as a point of departure in critical human security studies? How does reconstruction bind post-war and post-disaster states and societies into the global capitalist-democratic political structure?

This volume studies the links among the concepts of globalization, security, and the authority of the nation state, drawing attention to why and how these three concepts are interrelated and why they should be studied together. Contributors explore the connections between security and global transformations, and the corresponding or resulting changes in state structures that emerge. Probing and extending existing paradigms, the book offers three regional cases studies: the periphery states of the Middle East and North Africa, the second world states of the Russian Federation, and the core states of the European Union. It concludes with three chapters that synthesize the above themes to identify corresponding changes in the patterns of international politics.

Scholars and statesmen have debated the influence of international commerce on war and peace for thousands of years. Over the centuries, analysts have generally treated the questions "Does international commerce influence security?" and "Do trade flows influence security?" as synonymous. In Producing Security, Stephen Brooks maintains that such an overarching focus on the security implications of trade once made sense but no longer does. Trade is no longer the primary means of organizing international economic transactions; rather, where and how multinational corporations (MNCs) organize their international production activities is now the key integrating force of global commerce. MNC strategies have changed in a variety of fundamental ways over the past three decades, Brooks argues, resulting in an increased geographic dispersion of production across borders. The author shows that the globalization of production has led to a series of shifts in the global security environment. It has a differential effect on security relations, in part because it does not encompass all countries and industries to the same extent. The book's findings indicate that the geographic dispersion of MNC production acts as a significant force for peace among the great powers. The author concludes that there is no basis for optimism that the globalization of production will promote peace elsewhere in the world. Indeed, he finds that it has a net negative influence on security relations among developing countries.

Whether globalization, development and human security are inescapably trapped within a vicious circle or a virtuous circle is the central concern of this book.

This edited volume offers a timely examination of one of the most crucial and controversial questions in international relations, namely should states adopt a unilateral or multilateral approach to contemporary security challenges?