This textbook on power, wealth, global order, and international relations is designed for students taking introductory courses in international relations and African studies. Challenging the intellectual domination of the north, this book shows what the world and its patterns of power, wealth, and privilege look like from an African perspective of transborder political and economic interaction in today’s world. Students are empowered to become active players on the global stage and to contribute to changing these structures and institutions for the better. Up-to-date advice is provided on how to use the Internet and how to pursue careers in international relations. A glossary, list of acronyms, bibliography, index, maps, and biographies of important people mentioned in the text are also included.

Recent scholarship in International Relations (IR) has started to study the meaning and implications of a non-Western world. With this comes the need for a new paradigm of IR theory that is more global, open, inclusive, and able to capture the voices and experiences of both Western and non-Western worlds. This book investigates why Africa has been marginalised in IR discipline and theory and how this issue can be addressed in the context of the emerging Global IR paradigm. To have relevance for Africa, a new IR theory needs to be more inclusive, intellectually negotiated and holistically steeped in the African context. In this innovative volume, each author takes a critical look at existing IR paradigms and offers a unique perspective based on the African experience. Following on from Amitav Acharya and Barry Buzan’s work, Non-Western International Relations Theory, it develops and advances non-Western IR theory and the idea of Global IR. This volume will be of key interest to scholars and students of African politics, international relations, IR theory and comparative politics.

A vital component of the interdependent global economy, maritime transit routes are nowhere more critical than those traversing the Indian Ocean and the Western Pacific. Previously, areas of the Indian Ocean and Western Pacific have been viewed as separate and discrete political, economic, and military regions. In recent years, however, a variety of economic, political, and military forces have created a new understanding of these maritime expanses as one zone of global interaction. This book complements the material presented in its companion volume, Maritime Security in the Indian Ocean and the Western Pacific, by analysing the perceptions, interests, objectives, maritime capabilities, and policies of the major maritime powers operating in the Indian Ocean and the Western Pacific. In addition, the book also assesses the contemporary maritime challenges and opportunities that confront the global community within what is rapidly becoming recognised as an integrated zone of global interaction. A valuable study for researchers and policymakers working in the fields of maritime security; military, security and peace studies; conflict resolution; and Asian affairs.

This book is on Iran’s geopolitical importance representing a continuum of international competition for political gains and economic benefit, due to the country's unique geographical location that has always been a cause of contention. Iran’s massive boarders and evolving political weakness, along with influences from the kings of Qajar that maintained and strengthened Great Britain’s hegemony in the region, were major factors affecting ongoing regional conflicts. Additional roles played by other world powers such as France, Russia and the United States are also noted. Conflicts, unrest and regional wars were all consequences arising from power struggles that led to treaties and international agreements between Iran, Britain and Russia that caused the eventual loss of traditional Iranian territories. Hence, extrinsic impositions on Iran are the subject of this study as authors examine the turbulent climate that altered Iranian borders during the Qajar Dynasty.

International relations emerged as a distinct academic discipline in the early twentieth century, but its philosophic foundations draw on centuries of thinking about human nature, power and authority, justice and injustice, the idea of sovereignty and the implications for relations within and between political communities. The historic sources of these ideas appear to draw largely on European or Western experiences but, as this book shows, influences have emanated from much further afield, while contemporary thought is becoming more open to insights from non-Western sources. In this fully updated and expanded fourth edition of her popular text, Stephanie Lawson retains a broad world historical and contextual approach to the central themes and theoretical perspectives in IR, while also addressing the most pressing issues facing the world today. Topics covered include the emergence of states and empires, theories ranging from classical realism and liberalism to postcolonial and green theory, twentieth-century international history, security and insecurity, global governance and world order, international political economy and the prospects for a ‘post-international’ world in an era that has seen both deepening globalization and accompanying challenges to the sovereign state, as well as the reassertion of nationalist ideas around the world. With a range of additional pedagogical features to assist learning and class discussion, this lively and accessible text is an ideal primer for beginner and intermediate students alike.

A series of essays explaining the impact of the events at Marikana upon the South African perspective of police and the keeping of order. This fifth volume in the New South African Review series takes as its starting point the shock wave emanating from the events at Marikana on 16 August 2012 and how it has reverberated throughout politics and society. Some of the chapters in the volume refer directly to Marikana. In others, the influence of that fateful day is pervasive if not direct. Marikana has, for instance, made us look differently at the police and at how order is imposed on society. Monique Marks and David Bruce write that the massacre 'has come to hold a central place in the analysis of policing, and broader political events since 2012...'. The chapters highlight a range of current concerns - political, economic and social. David Dickinson's chapter looks at the life of the poor in a township from within. In contrast, the chapter on foreign policy by Garth le Pere analyses South Africa's approach to international relations in the Mandela, Mbeki and Zuma eras. Anthony Turton's account, 'When gold mining ends' is a chilling forecast of an impending environmental catastrophe. Both Devan Pillay and Noor Nieftagodien focus attention on the left and, in different ways, ascribe its rise to a new politics in the wake of Marikana. The essays in NSAR 5: Beyond Marikana present a range of topics and perspectives of interest to general readers, but the book will also be a useful work of reference for students and researchers.

The book offers a detailed analysis on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. A book needs to be written on this to make sense, from a theoretical perspective, why this invasion has occurred and what the main actors are pursuing. The originality rests on testing main international relations theories: realism, liberalism and constructivism to the war that emerges with the practices and approaches during the Cold War to date from the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), the Soviet Union (and now Russia) and Ukraine. The monograph commences with a historical overview of NATO and how it has engaged in expansionism policy to further contain Russia in contemporary international affairs with the accession of additional former Soviet states. This helps to explain the current Russian invasion of Ukraine that would attract great readership. The main argument presented rests on the pursuance of realist interests by NATO, Ukraine and Russia for containment, national security interests and as a response to the security dilemma respectively. This has served as the main catalyst of this conflict that has made diplomacy, international law and collective security measures problematic to implement.