Books published by E-International Relations

The 2014 Russia-Ukraine conflict has transformed relations between Russia and the West into what many are calling a new cold war. The West has slowly come to understand that Russia's annexations and interventions, interference in elections, cyber warfare, disinformation, assassinations in Europe and support for anti-EU populists emerge from Vladimir Putin's belief that Russia is at war with the West.This book shows that the crisis has deep roots in Russia's inability to come to terms with an independent Ukrainian state, Moscow's view of the Orange and Euromaidan revolutions as Western conspiracies and, finally, its inability to understand that most Russian-speaking Ukrainians do not want to rejoin Russia. In Moscow's eyes, Ukraine is central to rebuilding a sphere of influence within the former Soviet space and to re-establishing Russia as a great power. The book shows that the wide range of 'hybrid' tactics that Russia has deployed show continuity with the actions of the Soviet-era security services.

Numerous academics have researched Japan's dehumanizing comfort women system that, for decades, forced innocents into sexual slavery. Since 2010 a campaign has been in place to proliferate comfort women memorials in the United States. These memorials now span from New York to California and from Texas to Michigan. They recount only the Korean version of this history, which this text finds incomplete. They do not mention that, immediately following World War II, American soldiers also frequented Japan's comfort women stations. They say nothing of how, to the present day, GIs continue to patronize Asian women and girls organized in brothels near their barracks. The Korean narrative also ignores the significant role that Koreans played in recruiting women and girls into the system. Intentionally or not, comfort women memorials in the United States promote a political agenda rather than transparency, accountability and reconciliation.This book explains, critiques, and expands on the competing state and civil society narratives regarding the dozen memorials erected in the United States since 2010 to honor female victims of the comfort women system established and maintained by the Japanese military from 1937 to 1945.

When terms such as LGBT and queer cross borders they evolve and adjust to different political thinking. Queer became kvir in Kyrgyzstan and cuir in Ecuador, neither of which hold the English meaning. Translation is about crossing borders, but some languages travel more than others. Sexualities are usually translated from the core to the periphery, imposing Western LGBT identities onto the rest of the world. Many sexual identities are not translatable into English, and markers of modernity override native terminologies. All this matters beyond words. Translating sexuality in world politics forces us to confront issues of emancipation, colonisation, and sovereignty, in which global frameworks are locally embraced and/or resisted. Translating sexualities is a political act entangled in power politics, imperialism and foreign intervention. This book explores the entanglements of sex and tongue in international relations from Kyrgyzstan to Nepal, Japan to Tajikistan, Kurdistan to Amazonia.Edited by,Caroline Cottet and Manuela Lavinas Picq.Contributors,Ibtisam Ahmed, Soheil Asefi, Laura Bensoussan, Lisa Caviglia, Ioana Fotache, Karolina Kluczewska, Mohira Suyarkulova, Jo Teut, Josi Tikuna, Cai Wilkinson and Diako Yazdani.

The Middle East's geographical and strategic uniqueness has made every great power in history to seek to advance its interests in the region. Yet, the region constitutes the greatest single reserve of oil in the world, which has made it a regular source of foreign powers interference in the post-World War II era. In addition to its geographical and strategic uniqueness, the Middle East is the birthplace and spiritual center of the three most important monotheistic religions, namely Christianity, Judaism and Islam. Due to its geopolitical importance, any inter- and intra-state conflict in the Middle East has the potential not only for destabilizing the region as a whole or upsetting the regional balance of power but also affecting global stability. For these reasons, the Middle East has been a major center of world affairs; an economically, politically, and culturally sensitive area.This volume provides an account of international relations in the contemporary Middle East. After employing the Regional Security Complex Theory (RSCT) in order to define and delimit the region of the Middle East, individual chapters are dedicated to addressing the question of regional order, examining how regionalism and globalism feature in Middle Eastern integration processes, exploring regional bids for hegemony, and investigating the approaches and policies of major international actors, such as the United States, Russia, China, the European Union and the United Nations.ContributorsJonathan Cristol, Xi Chen, Ali G. Dizboni, Onur Erpul, Stefanie Georgakis Abbott, Spyridon N. Litsas, Allison Miller, Sofwat Omar and Ays¿egül Sever.

Thousands of people risk their lives daily by crossing borders in search of a better life. During 2015, over one million of these people arrived in Europe. Images of refugees in distress became headline news in what was considered to be the worst humanitarian crisis in Europe since 1945. This book provides a critical overview of recent migration flows and offers answers as to why people flee, what happens during their flight and investigates the various responses to mass migratory movements. Divided in two parts, the book addresses long-running academic, policy and domestic debates, drawing on case studies of migration in Europe, the Middle East and the Asia Pacific. Coming from a variety of different fields, the contributors provide an interdisciplinary approach and open the discussion on the reasons why migration should be examined critically.

Sounds of War is a book on the aesthetics of war experience in Chechnya. It includes theory on, and stories of, compassion, dance, children's agency and love. It is not simply a book to be read, but to be listened to. The chapters begin with the author's own songs expressing research findings and methodology in musical form.

The purpose of this collection is to present Samuel P. Huntington's 'Clash of Civilizations' thesis, and to appraise its validity and shortcomings 25 years after the publication of his landmark article. The notion of a 'clash of civilizations' is examined from a multidisciplinary perspective. First, the volume examines Huntington's contribution from a theoretical perspective, focusing on his ideas about politics and the concept of civilization. Second, the individual articles also consider Huntington's thesis in the light of recent events, including the conflict in Ukraine, the rise of ISIS, China-India relations, the electoral success of far-right movements in Europe, the refugee crisis in the Mediterranean and the activity of the International Criminal Court in Africa.In sum, this book offers a vibrant and multifaceted conversation among established and emerging scholars on one of the most important paradigms for the understanding of international politics.Edited by: Davide OrsiContributors: Ravi Dutt Bajpai, Gregorio Bettiza, Glen M.E. Duerr, Ian Hall, Jeff Haynes, Anna Khakee, Jan Lüdert, Kim Nossal, Fabio Petito, Erik Ringmar, Anna Tiido, Wouter Werner and Ana Isabel Xavier.

This book exposes a much needed discussion on the interconnectedness between objects, organisms, machines and elemental forces. It seeks to disturb dogmatic ontologies that privilege human life and successfully questions the separation between the natural and human worlds. By doing so, the collection confronts, challenges, and energises discussion beyond International Relations' traditional territorial lines. By revealing the fragility of mainstream narratives of the 'human,' each author in this collection contributes to an unsettling vision of a posthuman world. Questions of what the future beyond the Anthropocene looks like pervasively infiltrate the collection and move away from a system that all too often relies on binary relationships. In contrast to this binary view of the world, the book (re)entagles the innate complexities found within the world and brings forward a plurality of views on posthumanism. ContributorsOlaf Corry, Stefanie Fishel, Cameron Harrington, Carolin Kaltofen, Matt McDonald, Darian Meacham, Audra Mitchell, Delf Rothe, Elke Schwarz and Rafi Youatt.

'Nations under God: The Geopolitics of Faith in the Twenty-First Century' is a timely contribution to the on-going discussion on religion and politics. The volume brings together over thirty leading scholars from a variety of disciplines such as political science, international relations theory, sociology, theology, anthropology, and geography. Utilising case studies, empirical investigations, and theoretical examinations, this book focuses on the complex roles that religions play in world affairs. It seeks to move beyond the simplistic narratives and overly impassioned polemics which swamp the discourse on the subject in the media, on the internet, and in popular nonfiction, by acting as a vessel for scholarly research on religion. The book presents a balanced analysis of the multifaceted roles taken on by religions, and religious actors, in global politics.Contributors: Stephen Dawson, Jodok Troy, Gertjan Dijkink, John A. Rees, Mark S. Cladis, Fabio Petito, Linda Woodhead, Jonathan Fox, Brendan Sweetman, Don Handelman, Scott W. Hibbard, Ruy Llera Blanes, Fang-long Shih, Kaarina Aitamurto, Mona Kanwal Sheikh, Lee Marsden, Shireen T. Hunter, Nilay Saiya, Dan G. Cox, Pauline Kollontai, François Foret, James L. Guth, Brent F. Nelsen, Paul S. Rowe, J. Paul Martin, Allen D. Hertzke, Ishtiaq Ahmed, Jonathan Benthall, Elizabeth Shakman Hurd and Timothy Fitzgerald.