This open access book consists of essays written by Kishore Mahbubani to explore the challenges and dilemmas faced by the West and Asia in an increasingly interdependent world village and intensifying geopolitical competition. 

The contents cover four parts: 

Part One - The End of the Era of Western Domination: The major strategic error that the West is now making is to refuse to accept this reality. The West needs to learn how to act strategically in a world where they are no longer the number 1. 

Part Two - The Return of Asia: From the years 1 to 1820, the largest economies in the world were Asian. After 1820 and the rise of the West, however, great Asian civilizations like China and India were dominated and humiliated. The twenty-first century will see the return of Asia to the center of the world stage. 

Part Three - The Peaceful Rise of China: The shift in the balance of power to the East has been most pronounced in the rise of China. While this rise has been peaceful, many in the West have responded with considerable concern over the influence China will have on the world order. 

Part Four - Globalization, Multilateralism and Cooperation: Many of the world’s pressing issues, such as COVID-19 and climate change, are global issues and will require global cooperation to deal with. In short, human beings now live in a global village. States must work with each other, and we need a world order that enables and facilitates cooperation in our global village.

Table of contents:

Part 1: The End of the Era of Western Domination

• The Hypocrisy of the West

• Trump, Macron and the Poverty of Liberalism

• Democracy or Plutocracy? America’s Existential Question

• Can America Escape Plutocracy?

• What Do US Capitol Attack and the West’s Covid-19 Death Rates Have in Common?

• Was Trump Right or Wrong on China? Biden’s Answer Will Shape the Future

• Why the Trump Administration Has Helped China

• Why American Presidents Matter

• What Biden Will Mean for the Rest of the World

• East and West: Trust or Distrust?

• Great Battles Require Strategic Discipline—And Washington Needs It in This Crisis

Part 2: The Asian Renaissance

• On the Dawn of the Asian Century

• ASEAN’s Quiet Resilience

• Asia, Say No to NATO

• East Asia’s New Edge

• Why the ‘India Way’ May Be the World’s Best Bet for Moral Leadership

• India’s Tryst with the Asian Century

• India: A Brave and Imaginative Superpower?

• Can India Become Stronger Than China? Yes, It Can

• The West Needs to Rethink Its Strategic Goals for Asia

• Myanmar Coup Could Jump-Start US-China Cooperation, Through Quiet Diplomacy

• Can Asia Help Biden?

Part 3: The Peaceful Rise of China

• China: Threat or Opportunity?

• A ‘Yellow Peril’ Revival Fueling Western Fears of China’s Rise

• Is China Expansionist?

• How Dangerous Is China?

• What China Threat? How the United States and China Can Avoid War

• The Great Paradox of Donald Trump’s Plan to Combat China

• HK People Must Understand They’ve Become a Pawn

• Covid-19 ‘Enhanced China’s Position in the World Order’

• How China Could Win Over the Post-coronavirus World and Leave the US Behind

• Why Attempts to Build a New Anti-China Alliance Will Fail

• Biden Should Appear ‘Tough & Fierce’ on China, but Cooperate ‘Below the Radar’

• Biden Should Summon the Courage to Reverse Course on China

• The West Should Heed Napoleon’s Advice and Let China Sleep

• Asian Inheritors of a Western Legacy?

Part 4: Globalization, Multilateralism and Cooperation

• Globalization Is Dead! Long Live Globalization!

• Can the World Order Catch Up with the World?

• Diplomacy: Power or Persuasion

• UN: A Sunrise Organization?

• Can the World Health Organization Be Rejuvenated?

• Multilateral Diplomacy

• Can Humanity Make U-turns?

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Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has upset the geopolitical balance in Europe, with shockwaves hitting the entire world. As a result, today’s world seems to be heading back to a future that looks all too like countless “pasts”. The mindset of “opposing blocs” is returning to Europe, or so it seems. NATO is rediscovering its identity after 30 years of drift. There is a resurgence of “non-aligned” countries, from Turkey to India, to many Latin American governments, as they seek a tricky balance between the major players. The mix of high inflation and energy crisis has taken to the stage again, dragging us back to the 1970s, when rationing and double-digit price rises were commonplace. And the nuclear threat, poverty and perhaps the risk of a less globalised world are rising too. All these returns and revivals are crucial changes that are taking their toll on Europe. The ISPI Report 2023 provides a compass to navigate this changing world. 

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In order to truly understand the emergence, endurance, and legacy of autocracy, this volume of engaging essays explores how autocratic power is acquired, exercised, and transferred or abruptly ended through the careers and politics of influential figures in more than 20 countries and six regions.

The book looks at both traditional "hard" dictators, such as Hitler, Stalin, and Mao, and more modern "soft" or populist autocrats, who are in the process of transforming once fully democratic countries into autocratic states, including Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in Turkey, Brazilian leader Jair Bolsonaro, Rodrigo Duterte in the Philippines, Narendra Modi in India, and Viktor Orbán in Hungary. The authors touch on a wide range of autocratic and dictatorial figures in the past and present, including present-day autocrats, such as Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, military leaders, and democratic leaders with authoritarian aspirations. They analyze the transition of selected autocrats from democratic or benign semi-democratic systems to harsher forms of autocracy, with either quite disastrous or more successful outcomes.

An ideal reader for students and scholars, as well as the general public, interested in international affairs, leadership studies, contemporary history and politics, global studies, security studies, economics, psychology, and behavioral studies.

Contents:

List of contributors

Introduction: dictators and autocrats: a global phenomenon

PART I The notorious three

1 - Joseph Stalin: autocrat par excellence (1878–1953)

2 - Adolf Hitler: from democracy to dictatorship (1889–1945)

3 - Mao Zedong: communist Party dictatorship (1893–1976)

PART II Pathbreaking autocrats of the twentieth century

4 - Fidel Castro: from grassroots dictatorship to Communist autocracy (1926–2016)

5 - Augusto Pinochet: the emergence of one-man rule in Chile (1915–2006)

6 - Robert Mugabe: ruthless authoritarian who preferred democratic clothing (1924–2019)

7 - Joseph Kabila: the “Raïs” of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (born 1971)

8 - Hugo Chavez: was he an autocrat? (1954–2013)

9 - Lee Kuan Yew: autocracy, elections, and capitalism (1923–2015)

PART III Twenty-first-century autocrats: the major powers

10 - Vladimir Putin: Russia’s neo-patrimonial façade democracy (born 1952)

11 - Xi Jinping: the rise of an authoritarian leader (born 1953)

12 - Narendra Modi: elected authoritarian (born 1950)

13 - Donald J. Trump: the authoritarian style in American politics (born 1946)

PART IV Twenty-first-century autocrats: other influential autocrats

14 - Ali Hosseini Khamenei: routinizing revolution in Iran (born 1939)

15 - The Assad Dynasty: quo vadis Damascus? (Hafiz: 1930–2000; Bashar: born 1965)

16 - Kim Jong Un: rise to power and leadership style (born 1984)

17 - Abdel Fattah el-Sisi: the one and only Egyptian dictator (born 1954)

18 - Prayuth Chan-o-Cha: from the barracks to the ballot box (born 1954)

19 - Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud (a.k.a. “MBS”): king in all but name (born 1985)

20 - Viktor Orbán and János Kádár: a post-Communist and a Communist autocrat in Hungary. 

                                                            A comparative analysis (Kádár: 1912–1989; Orbán: born 1963)

21 - Recep Tayyip Erdoğan: from “illiberal democracy” to electoral authoritarianism (born 1953)

22 - Rodrigo Duterte: macho populism and authoritarian practice (born 1945)

23 - Jair Bolsonaro: beyond the pale, above the fray (born 1955)

Index

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Global Political Leadership explores contemporary shifts in leadership, and the related leadership crisis, in the global world.

 Globalization is now perceived as a threatening and hostile force, with many of its advocates and political supporters turning away from it, but its processes cannot be reversed. New powers emerge, old ones re-emerge, and uncertainty about the future global order is increasing. This book tells the inside stories of global power games and asks important questions about the leadership crisis in the western world. The author provides an interpretative framework for contemporary shifts within the western political sphere based on the concept of global leadership. This framework presents the nature of the transformation caused by global processes, as part of which force and coercion have ceased to be the main modus operandi of the international realm. The issue of global political leadership has often been neglected in international relations literature, while being widely exploited by managerial and organizational studies. However, all social organizations have ‘gone global’ within the last several decades; they are more interconnected and more dependent on global processes, so the question of effective leadership strategies matching these new realities is highly necessary, even – or especially – at a time when globalization is no longer seen as a leading political programme. 

This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of global affairs, politics and international relations, leadership and development, and diplomatic studies.

Contents page:

Introduction

Chapter 1: Landscape of Political Leadership in the 21st Century

Chapter 2: Changing the Centre of Gravity: Global Leadership Strategies in the Post-American World

Chapter 3: Focus on Followers: Individual Empowerment and Public Affairs on a Global Scale

Chapter 4: Global Leadership as Sense Making

Conclusion

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This first university textbook of human security, intended as an introductory text from senior undergraduate level up, and includes chapters by 24 authors that encompass the full spectrum of disciplines contributing to the human security field. It is based on the four-pillar model of socio-political security, economic security, environmental security and health security. The chapters include learning outcomes, extension activities, and suggested readings; a comprehensive glossary lists key terms used throughout the book. This textbook can be used in courses on international studies and relations, political studies, history, human geography, anthropology and human ecology, futures studies, applied social studies, public health, and more. 

Contents:

[...]

Preface

Acknowledgements

I. Main Body

1. Introduction

2. Human Security Foundation Documents and Related Resources

3. Why Human Security Needs Our Attention

4. Conflicting Perspectives

• Summary

• 4.1 Introduction

• 4.2 On Globalisation

• 4.3 Human Rights and Human Security

• 4.4 Notes from an Ethnography

• 4.5 A Hierarchy of Needs?

• 4.6 The West and the Rest?

• 4.7 Freedom of Religion, Freedom from Religion

• 4.8 Conclusion – Paradoxes of Universality

• Resources and References

5. Threats to Human Security

• Summary

• 5.1 Introduction

• 5.2 Assessing Human Security

• 5.3 Violent Conflict as a Threat to Human Security

• 5.4 Other Threats to Human Security

• 5.5 Conclusions

• Resources and References

6. Human Security in the Context of International Humanitarian Law and International Criminal Law

• Summary

• 6.1 Introduction

• 6.2 Situations in Which the Protective Measures Will Apply

• 6.3 Who and What Are Protected?

• 6.4 Means and Methods of Warfare

• 6.5 Different Responsibility Regimes, Core International Crimes and Enforcement Options

• 6.6 Conclusion: The Future of the Responsibility Regimes

• Resources and References

7. Individuals and Groups Outside of the State System

• Summary

• 7.1 Introduction

• 7.2 Individuals and Groups Outside of the State

• 7.3 Alienated Citizenship and Sub-state Terrorism

• 7.4 Counter Terrorism, Human Rights and Human Security

• 7.5 Conclusion

• Resources and References

8. Political Hybridity and Human Security in Post-colonial and Post-conflict State Building / Rebuilding

• Summary

• 8.1 Introduction

• 8.2 Enhancing State Resilience and Promoting Human Security

• 8.3 The Quest for Human Security in Insecure and Fragile States

• 8.4 Diagnosing Vulnerability and Preventing State Failure

• 8.5 Promoting Human Security in Weak States

• 8.6 Hybrid Political Orders

• 8.7 Community Sources of Legitimacy

• 8.8 Centrality of Context

• 8.9 Conclusions

• Resources and References

• Long Descriptions

9. Climate Change and Human Security

• Summary

• 9.1 Introduction

• 9.2 Current and Future Risks to Human Security

• 9.3 Major Culprits and Victims of Climate Change

• 9.4 Barriers to Counteracting Climate Change

• 9.5 Achieving Climate Justice as the Way Forward

• Resources and References

• Long Descriptions

10. Human Security and Resource Scarcity

• Summary

• 10.1 Introduction

• 10.2 Resource Scarcity Through the Ages

• 10.3 Understanding Resource Scarcity

• 10.4 Tragedy of the Commons

• 10.5 Social Traps

• 10.6 Understanding Complex Systems

• 10.7 Resource Scarcity and Conflict

• 10.8 Human Security in the Face of Resource Scarcity

• 10.9 Case Studies in Water Scarcity

• Resources and References

11. Our War Against Nature: Ontology, Cognition and a Constricting Paradigm

• Summary

• 11.1 Introduction: Defining Terms, Posing Questions

• 11.2 Reality, Science and Revolutions in Our Thinking

• 11.3 Seeing the Complexity of Nature

• 11.4. Seeing Ourselves in Life’s Larger Context

• 11.5 The ‘War Against Nature’

• 11.6 Understanding How and Why We Continue to Wage ‘Our War Against Nature’ and Reversing Course

• 11.7 Becoming Reflexive: Rethinking ‘Who’ We Are, Breaking Free of a Constricting Paradigm, Ending the ‘War’

• Resources and References

12. Our War Against Nature: Letters from the Front

• Summary

• PART I: The Assault on Organisms and Ecosystems

• 12.1 Introduction: Welcome to the Anthropocene!

• 12.2 Animal Armageddon

• 12.3 The Fraying of Food Webs

• 12.4 Assault on the Oceans: Chemical and Physical Changes

• PART II: The Human Footprint

• 12.5 The Human Footprint: Population

• 12.6 The Human Footprint: Consumption

• 12.7 Money Games: Chasing the Symbol

• 12.8 Who Are We?

• Resources and References

13. Transnational Crime

• Summary

• 13.1 International Crime or Transnational Crime? Some Definitions

• 13.2 Globalization and Transnational Crime

• 13.3 The Economic Scale of Transnational Crime

• 13.4 The Threat of Transnational Crime

• 13.5 Transnational Crime as a Human Security Threat

• 13.6 Trafficking in Persons

• 13.7 International Efforts to Address Transnational Crime

• 13.8 Regional Efforts to Address Transnational Crime

• 13.9 Sovereignty, Security or Sentiment? Solving Transnational Crime

• Resources and References

14. Recalling the Significance of Local Governance to Human Security in Illiberal Sub-Saharan African Contexts

• Summary

• 14.1 Introduction

• 14.2 Post-Cold War Realities in Sub-Saharan Africa Versus Africanist Scholarship

• 14.3 Assessing Value

• 14.4 Making Historical Comparisons

• 14.5 Conclusion: Recalling the Significance of Local Government Institutions

• Resources and References

15. Issues with Human Rights Violations

16. Developing Good Governance

• Summary

• 16.1 Introduction

• 16.2 Sustainable Development and Human Security

• 16.3 The Principle of Sustainability

• 16.4 Governance for Sustainability

• 16.5 The Role of Civil Society

• 16.6 The Earth Charter: A Framework for Global Governance

• 16.7 Conclusion

• Resources and References

• Long Descriptions

17. Health Security in the Context of Social-ecological Change

18. Empowering International Human Security Regimes

19. Conflict Transformation and Peace Processes: Peace Without Justice Is Just a Ceasefire

• Summary

• 19.1 Introduction: What Do We Mean by ‘Transforming’ Conflict?

• 19.2 From Peace Treaties to Peace Processes: Conflict and Peace in Historical Perspective

• 19.3 Four Peace Processes

• 19.4 Post-conflict Conditions Today

• 19.5 Assessing Conflict Transformation in Four Peace Processes

• Resources and References

20. Human Security and Global Environmental Governance

21. Conclusions, Prospects, Futures

• Summary

• 21.1 Human Security in World Affairs: Challenges

• 21.2 Human Security in World Affairs: Opportunities

• 21.3 Besides Environmental Sustainability, What Other Aspects of Human Security Need Improvement?

Resources and References

Glossary of Terms and Definitions

Authors’ Biographical Information

Versioning History

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This open access book explores the ways in which the global south reimagined the future world order at the end of the Second World War, and the cultural and intellectual breakthroughs that these new narratives created. 

[From the Preface:]  The end of the Second World War and the eclipse of empires brought a wave of efforts to reimagine the world in the future tense. Nation-states emerging from the shadows of colonial rule gathered at Bandung to chart alternative destinies and to challenge global inequalities. The result was nothing less than an effort to reimagine the world order in a way that stood in direct contrast to the liberal regime designed in Bretton Woods and in San Francisco as the Second World War drew to a close. Anticolonialism and development dreaming envisioned a less hierarchical, more pluralistic, and more distributive arrangement. As the current world order gets caught ever more tightly into an impasse, this volume looks back at the proliferating alternative visions under the mantle of the Third World. Avoiding the tendency to treat alternatives as doomed, utopian projects, the volume seeks to recover the world-changing aspirations of the Third World project as well as its cultural and intellectual breakthroughs.

By inventing the Third World, writers, artists, musicians, and photographers sought to create new institutions of solidarity, new expressions, and alternative narratives than the liberal and/or imperial ones they had inherited. In so doing, they also created substitute channels, networks, and associations to circulate and exchange their insights, ideas, and cultural production from universities to book prizes, foundations and literary festivals, magazines and movies, many of which moved across borders but outside the dominant circuitry of what we now call the Global North. They built a nonaligned movement to strike a different path from Cold War geopolitics. Equally important, writers, artists, photographers, and musicians experimented with cultures of hope and possibility. Viewed from different points in what we now call the Global South, or what was then called—in a triumphal chorus—the Third World, there was a search for new meanings of freedom, self-determination, and the promise of development. 

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What is the 'Global South' and where is it? The term 'Global South' marks a new attempt at providing order and meaning in the current global political constellation, replacing the term 'Third World'. But the term 'Global South' is fraught with many ambiguities. 

This book explore the possible meanings of this new distinction and assess the advantages and disadvantages of adopting it. They cast a wide exploratory net, looking beyond the dominant politico-economic meaning to how the way that we interpret the world has changed over time and the wider cultural–intellectual meanings.

Renowned globalization scholar Jan Nederveen Pieterse deftly guides the reader through the development of globalization in the West and the East, explaining key topics such as the 2008 crash, trends in inequality, the changing fortunes of the BRICs, and the role of governance and democracy. Accessible and insightful, this book will be an essential guide for both students in the social sciences and for professionals and scholars seeking a fresh perspective.

Key features:

• Asks whether 'Global South' and 'Global North' are useful for understanding the current global constellation

• Analyses the recent global transformation that allegedly made the 'Third World' disappear and the 'Global South' emerge

• Explores how space is used for different but overlapping purposes: to build socio-political concepts, to criticise recent trends in global developments and to develop a normative angle for collective political action

• Draws on global history, conceptual history, comparative literature, social and political theory, political philosophy and social history to develop a full, interdisciplinary picture of the uses of 'South' and 'North'

Contents page:

Acknowledgements

Illustrations

Contributors

1. Finding one's way in global social space

Peter Wagner

2. Does the world have a spatio-political form? Preliminaries

Gerard Rosich

3. The BRICS countries: time and space in moral narratives of development

Cláudio Costa Pinheiro

4. Russia between East, West and North: Comments on the history of moral mapping

Maxim Khomyakov

5. Digging for class: thoughts on the writing of a global history of social distinction

Jacob Dlamini

6. North–South and the question of recognition: a constellation saturated with tensions

À. Lorena Fuster

7. On spaces and experiences: modern displacements, interpretations and universal claims

Aurea Mota

8. The South as exile

Nathalie Karagiannis

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Like a giant oil tanker, the world is slowly turning. The rapid growth of economies in Asia and the global South has led to a momentous shift in the world order, leaving much of the traditional literature on globalization behind. Multipolar Globalization: Emerging Economies and Development is the perfect guide to these ongoing 21st-century transformations, combining engaging and wide-ranging coverage with cutting-edge analysis.

The rise of China and other emerging economies has led to the emergence of a new geography of trade, new economic and political combinations, new financial actors, investors and donors, and weaker American hegemony. This interdisciplinary volume combines development studies, global political economy, sociology, and cultural studies to ask what this growth means for domestic and global inequality and examines the role of multipolarity in the reshaping of globalization.

Renowned globalization scholar Jan Nederveen Pieterse deftly guides the reader through the development of globalization in the West and the East, explaining key topics such as the 2008 crash, trends in inequality, the changing fortunes of the BRICs, and the role of governance and democracy. Accessible and insightful, this book will be an essential guide for both students in the social sciences and for professionals and scholars seeking a fresh perspective.

Contents page:

Introduction 

1 Into the multipolar world

2 Oriental globalization

3 Asia rising: moving complementarities

4 BRICS are in the eye of the beholder

5 Social inequality: multicentric perspectives

6 Crisis and the East-South turn: dynamic imbalances

7 Media and hegemonic populism: representing the rise of the rest

8 Governance and protest

9 Debugging theory

10 Conclusion: global restructuring?

Glossary

References

Index

Reviews:

"As always, Jan Nederveen Pieterse is in the avant garde, advancing debates and perspectives with a global yet nuanced sweep. He continues to explore an East-South turn as the centerpiece of global restructuring as he anticipates further varieties of development and capitalism: another eagerly-awaited masterpiece." — Timothy Shaw, University of Massachusetts Boston, Global Studies

"This is the book we need to understand the contemporary crisis of globalization. I hope it will be assigned in courses, and read by citizens, all around the world." — Craig Murphy, International Relations, Wellesley College; University Massachusetts Boston

"This is an outstanding book that demonstrates the need to understand globalization with a radically new register, in light of the momentous shifts around the emerging economies in Asia and the global South." — Fazal Rizvi, Professor of Global Studies in Education, The University of Melbourne

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The authors deal with comparative aspects of contemporary authoritarianism. Authoritarian tendencies have appeared in several “old democracies” but their main successes take place in several states which departed from dictatorial regimes recently. The book contains case-studies of contemporary Hungarian, Kenyan, Polish, Russian and Turkish regimes. 

[From the introduction by the Editor, Jerzy J. Wiatr:]

"The theme of this volume is “new authoritarianism”. It refers to the emergence of hybrid regimes which combine electorally expressed will of the people with the centralization of state power in the hands of the supreme leader and/or in the hands of the ruling oligarchy and with the destruction of the rule of law, the cornerstone of which are independent courts. Such systems have been called by various names, like “controlled democracy” (Peter Anyang Nyong’o), “delegative democracy” (Guillermo O’Donnell), “electoral authoritarianism” (Ilter Turan), “illiberal democracy” (Fareed Zakaria). In this issue we have opted for the term “new authoritarianism” to underline both the continuity with the older forms of authoritarianism and the novelty of the current phenomenon, which – unlike “old” authoritarianism – is not based on a naked power but successfully seeks public support expressed in contested elections.

In the present century several states have been moving in the direction of new authoritarianism. They belong to the large category of countries which had departed from dictatorial regimes in not too distant past. There are, however, authoritarian tendencies in old democracies, as manifested in several recent elections in Europe and America."

Contents page:

From the Editor 

• Populism, Right-Wing Extremism and Neo-Nationalism 

• A Conceptual History of Political Regimes: Democracy, Dictatorship, and Authoritarianism 

• Some of the Foremost Challenges to the Status Quo 

• The Massive Exchange of Elites as a Mean of Formation of the Authoritarian Regime 

• The Rise of Populist Electoral Authoritarian in Turkey: a Case of Culturally Rooted Recidivism

• Opposition as a Mirage of Political Field in Russia 

• From Horthy to Orbán: Neo-Authoritarianism in Hungary 

• Authoritarianism with the Electoral face in Africa 

• Authoritarian Tendencies in the Polish Political System 

• New and Old Authoritarianism in a Comparative Perspective 

Index  

List of Contributors

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One year after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the war has exacerbated the rift between Russia and the “collective West”. While Western governments have been steadfast in punishing Russia for the invasion, other countries around the world have been more ambiguous, at times even choosing to side with Moscow politically or economically. These dynamics have revived the idea of a shift towards multipolarity along an anti-Western trajectory. Are we really heading in that direction? Are we facing increasing fragmentation due to the war or a re-consolidation of longstanding alliances? What principles underlie the formation of these blocs? What are the consequences of these dynamics for global security and the global economy? This Report aims to shed light on these questions, while also outlining the war’s possible future implications for the Russian Federation, the “West”, and the international order. 

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The book critically analyzes the ongoing changes in the regional, intra-regional, and global dynamics of cooperation, from a multi-disciplinary and pluralist perspective. It is based on the insight that in a post-hegemonic world the formation of regions and the process of globalization can be largely disconnected from the orbit of the US, and that a plurality of power and worldviews has replaced US hegemony. In spite of these changes, most existing analyses of current changes in the world order still rely upon Western-centered approaches, and Westphalian thinking. Against this backdrop, the book proposes to advance a truly global IR understanding of the post-hegemonic world, and weaves together the pluralist and multi-disciplinary perspectives of scholars located all around the world. 

The book explores different questions, for example the status and role of BRICS in the changing international order; how countries in the Global South can use regionalism to change the world order; the competing worldviews that manifest themselves in the institutional variety of regionalism; and, most importantly, how all these changes push International Relations as a field to become more global, or at least to go beyond Westphalian thinking – thus bringing the role of multilateralism back to the discussion.

Contents page:

Notes on contributors 

List of abbreviations

Acknowledgements 

Introduction: An elusive changing international order

PART 1 - Emergence and Challenges of Regionalism 

1. Africa and World War II: The emergence of an imposed regionalization 

2. The emergence of BRICS: An extension of interregionalism to the Global South 

3. BRICS and the emergent countries in the twenty-first century: Discussing contemporary perspectives 

4. Regionalism as resistance? South Africa’s utopia of Souths 

PART 2 - Contemporary Regionalism in Practice 

5. Bilateralism and multilateralism: Obstacles to sub-regionalism in the Maghreb 

6. Coping with the changing world order: The case of Russia 

7. From competitive to inclusive trade regionalism: How to consolidate economic cooperation through a revival of ‘ambitious RTAs’ between major trading nations 

8. Foot in the Door: China’s Investments in the Arctic Region

PART 3 - Theoretical Perspectives on the Changing World Order 

9. Beyond Ideology: a reassessment of regionalism and globalism in IR theory, using China as a case study

10. Liberal international order without liberalism: Chinese visions of the world order 

11. International Relations in the Finnish national epos, Kalevala: Encounters of historical epochs and civilizations in the changing international order 

Index

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This book studies the transformation of Russian domestic politics and foreign policy under Vladimir Putin. It asks what kind of political system ‘Putinism’ denotes. Engages with the scholarly and policy debate on the growth of illiberal politics and authoritarianism globally, in the post-Soviet space and in countries as diverse as Hungary, Egypt, Turkey and the Philippines 

The book uses contemporary case studies – including Russia’s legal system, the annexation of Crimea and Russian policy in Syria – to critically examine Russia’s political ideology. Why did Russia’s post-Soviet political system developed into a new form of authoritarianism? And how did its foreign policy came to pose such a profound challenge to the West? David G. Lewis goes beyond current polemical debates to address these questions. Lewis investigates the Russian understanding of key concepts such as sovereignty, democracy and political community. He analyses the Russian political system as a novel form of authoritarian political order, unpacking the ideological paradigm that underpins it. He reveals that Russia's new order is characterised by the consolidation of political and economic power around a sovereign leader, together with a willingness to take political decisions outside the law both at home and in international affairs.

Contents page:

Preface

1: Authoritarianism, Ideology and Order

• Understanding Russian Authoritarianism

• Order, smuta and the Russian State

• Russia as Weimar

• Carl Schmitt and Authoritarian Order

2: Carl Schmitt and Russian Conservatism

• Carl Schmitt in Moscow

• Schmitt in the Academy

• Dugin, Schmitt, and Neo-Eurasianist thought

• Remizov and the New Conservatives

• Normalising Schmitt

3. Sovereignty and the Exception

• The Centrality of Sovereignty

• Sovereignty in International Affairs

• Discursive sovereignty

• Domestic Sovereignty: Deciding on the Exception

• The Sovereign Leader

• The Sovereign and the Court

• Exception, Norms and ‘Manual Control’

• The Dual State

4: Democracy and the People

• Putinism and Democracy

• The Decline of Parliamentarianism

• Constructing a Majority

• A majority of values

5: Defining the Enemy

• Russia and its enemies

• Constructing the Enemy Discourse

• The Enemy Within: The fifth column

• Civil society and foreign agents

• The End of Consensus

6: Dualism, Exceptionality and the Rule of Law

• Law in Russia

• Conceptualising dualism

• Politicized justice

• Mechanisms of exception

• Prokuratura

• Security services

• Courts and judges

• The exception becomes the norm

7: The Crimean Exception

• Crimea: The sovereign decision

• Legality as imperialism

• Order and orientation

8: Großraum Thinking in Russian Foreign Policy

• A World of Great Spaces

• Russia’s Spatial Crisis

• Russia’s Spatial Projects

• Russia as Hegemonic Power

• The Political Idea

• Exclusion of Foreign Powers

• The new Schmittians

9: Apocalypse Delayed: Katechontic Thinking in late Putinist Russia

• Russian messianism

• Russia as contemporary katechon

• Katechontic thinking and the Syrian intervention

Conclusion

Bibliography

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Why are policymakers, scholars, and the general public so surprised when the world turns out to be unpredictable? World Politics at the Edge of Chaos suggests that the study of international politics needs new forms of knowledge to respond to emerging challenges such as the interconnectedness between local and transnational realities; between markets, migration, and social movements; and between pandemics, a looming energy crisis, and climate change. Asserting that Complexity Thinking (CT) provides a much-needed lens for interpreting these challenges, the contributors offer a parallel assessment of the impact of CT to anthropocentric and non-anthropocentric (post-human) International Relations. Using this perspective, the result should be less surprise when confronting the dynamism of a fragile and unpredictable global life.

Contents page:

List of Illustrations

Acknowledgments

Introduction: Inside/Outside and Around: Observing the Complexity of Global Life

Part I. Complexity Thinking and Anthropocentric International Relations

1. The Gardener and the Craftsman: Four Types of Complexity in Global Life

2. Theorizing International Relations: Emergence, Organized Complexity, and Integrative Pluralism

3. Musings on Complexity, Policy, and Ideology

4. Harnessing the Knowledge of the Masses: Citizen Sensor Networks, Violence, and Public Safety in Mugunga

5. Ascertaining the Normative Implications of Complexity Thinking for Politics: Beyond Agent-Based Modeling

Part II. Complexity Thinking and Nonanthropocentric International Relations

6. Complexifying International Relations for a Posthumanist World

7. Prologomena to Postanthropocentric International Relations: Biosphere and Technosphere in the Age of Global Complexity

8. The Good, the Bad, and the Sometimes Ugly: Complexity as Both Threat and Opportunity in National Security

9. Complexity and Stability in Human-Environment Interaction: The Transformation from Climate Risk Cascades to Viable Adaptive Networks

Conclusion: Complexifying IR: Disturbing the “Deep Newtonian Slumber” of the Mainstream

Contributors

Index

Reviews:

". ..provides the scientific community with a compilation of exemplary scholarship which addresses the responsibility institutions face in terms of managing complexity. " — International Journal on World Peace

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