Political Science - General

In Benedict XVI and the Politics of Modernity, distinguished scholars from North America and Europe examine Pope Benedict XVI's searching reflections on the challenges and prospects facing modern Western society. For more than five decades, Joseph Ratzinger/Pope Benedict XVI has made the subject of...

This edited book introduces students and scholars to Comparative Political Thought. Featuring contributions from an excellent international line-up of esteemed scholars it examines some of the following issues: Is political theory 'Western-centric'? What can we learn from non-Western traditions of political thought? How do...

Exploring the way urbicide is used to un/re-make Palestine, as well as how it is employed as a tool of spatial dispossession and control, this book examines contemporary political violence and destruction in the context of colonial projects in Palestine. The broader framework of...

By examining the sometimes surprising and unexpected roles that culture and religion have played in mitigating or exacerbating conflicts, this book explores the cultural repertoires from which Southeast Asian political actors have drawn to negotiate the pluralism that has so long been characteristic of...

Ranging from the time of the infallible Imams, to the contemporary era, this book provides a comprehensive overview of Shi'i religious and political authority, focusing on Iran and Lebanon, without limiting the discourse to Khomeini's version of an Islamic State.Utilising untapped Arabic and Persian...

This book addresses issues surrounding the evolution of the Arab Spring in North Africa. After a general introduction and explanation of the events on a region-wide basis, it turns to examine aspects of each of the countries concerned. The role of the Muslim Brotherhood...

Orientalism refers to the imitation of aspects of Eastern cultures in the West, and was devised in order to have authority over the Orient. The concept of Re-Orientalism maintains the divide between the Orient and the West. However, where Orientalism is based on how...

This book explores the interplay between sovereignty, politics and law through different conceptualizations of sovereignty. Despite developments such as European integration, globalization, and state failure, sovereignty proves to be a resilient institution in contemporary international politics. This book investigates both the continuity and change...

The growing field of popular culture studies in Taiwan can be divided into two distinct academic trends; a different analytical framework is used to examine either locally oriented popular culture or transnational pop culture. This volume combine these two academic trends, firstly by revealing...

Unrecognized states are territories that have achieved de facto independence, yet have failed to gain international recognition as independent states. These territories constitute anomalies in the international system of sovereign states and often present significant challenges to policy makers, as evidenced by the war...

One of the most challenging environmental threats to the ten countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has been the haze, the sickening and deadly cloud of smoky pollution caused by widespread burning of land and forests in Indonesia. This book examines...

Much of the former Soviet bloc has become a destination for new Chinese migrants. Throughout Russia, Eastern Europe and Central Asia, Chinese migrants are engaged in entrepreneurial activities, primarily as petty merchants of consumer goods in unsteady economies. This book situates these migrants within...

The Maastricht Treaty in 1992 was based on neoliberal ideas of a market-driven European economy and democracy, and continues to be seen as a step towards a new stage of unification: towards a more federal Europe based on market integration. The authors demonstrate that...

Taiwan has been hailed as a successful case of democratization. Compared with many other nations, the transition from authoritarian rule occurred in a rather orderly fashion. Group consciousness emerged as a reaction to the decades-long suppression of cultural diversity under martial law as different...

Common discourse on Jewish identity in Israel is dominated by the view that Jewish Israelis can, and should, be either religious or secular. Moving away from this conventional framework, this book examines the role of secularism and religion in Jewish society and politics. With...

This bestselling introduction to Chinese society uses the themes of resistance and protest to explore the complexity of life in contemporary China. An interdisciplinary and international team of China scholars draw on perspectives from sociology, anthropology, psychology, history and political science and covers a...

Gender and Transitional Justice provides the first comprehensive feminist analysis of the role of international law in formal transitional justice mechanisms. Using East Timor as a case study, it offers reflections on transitional justice administered by a UN transitional administration. Often presented as a...

Exploring violent confrontation between the state and the population in colonial and postcolonial India, this book is both a study of the many techniques of colonial coercion and state violence and a cultural history of the different ways in which Indians imbued practices of...

This book deals with the controversies on developmental aspects of large dams, with a particular focus on the Narmada Valley projects in India. Based on extensive ethnographic fieldwork and research, the author draws on Marxist theory to craft a detailed analysis of how local...

The encounter between the West and India in the modern period has also been an encounter between Western modernity and the traditions of classical Indian thought. This book is the study of one aspect this encounter, that between Western scholasticism and one classical Indian...

This volume guides the reader through a detailed examination of the text to an understanding of Locke's political ideas in relation to his writings on philosophy, education, religion and economics and the influence these ideas had upon eighteenth-century political theorists. The author shows how...

Sociological and psychiatric studies on suicide based on Western ideas about human nature see suicide as social or individual disorder. Suicide in China, however, should be understood differently. By analyzing 30 cases, Wu Fei studies the dynamics of suicide in terms of family politics...

This book presents a historical account of plantations in India in the context of the modern world economy. It brings history up to the present, thereby showing how history can assist in explaining contemporary conditions and trends. The author focuses on labour and economic...

The volatility of climate change is increasing. It is bad news, and many climatologists, policy analysts and environmental groups regard the West as the largest contributor to the problems caused by climate change. This book raises questions concerning the systemic and cultural reasons for...

Inspired by egalitarian doctrines, the Dalit communities in India have been fighting for basic human and civic rights since the middle of the nineteenth century. In this book, Shailaja Paik focuses on the struggle of Dalit women in one arena - the realm of...

This book outlines the construction, interpretations and understanding of US strategy towards Africa in the early twenty-first century.No single issue or event in the recent decades in Africa has provoked so much controversy and unified hostility and opposition as the announcement by former President...

This book examines the concept of globalised identities and the way in which agency is exercised over identity construction by women working in India's transnational call centre industry. Drawing on qualitative empirical data and extensive original fieldwork, the book provides a nuanced analysis of...

South Asia's diaspora is among the world's largest and most widespread, and it is growing exponentially. It is estimated that over 25 million persons of Indian descent live abroad; and many more millions have roots in other countries of the subcontinent, in Pakistan, Bangladesh...

This book is about media content analysis in the English language print media in South Asia, with reference to certain contemporary issues. It is written from the perspective of the need to analyze media discourses and the ways in which their circulation creates a...

This volume unravels the politics surrounding behind China's hegemonic project of heritage tourism development in Lijiang. It provides a compelling study of the dialectical relationships between global and domestic capital, the state, tourists and locals as they collude, collaborate and contest one another to...

Every political aspirant and activist knows the media are important. But there is little agreement on how an increasingly diversified media operate in post-authoritarian transitions and how they might promote, or impede, the pathways to a sustainable liberal democracy in the 21st century. This...

This book examines Muslims in Singapore, analysing their habits, practices and dispositions towards everyday life, and also their role within the broader framework of the secularist Singapore state and the cultural dominance of its Chinese elite, who are predominantly Buddhist and Christian. Singapore has...

Since gaining independence in 1956, Sudan has endured a troubled history, including the longest civil war in African history in Southern Sudan and more recent conflicts such as the humanitarian crisis in Darfur. This book explores this history of ensuing conflict, examining why Sudan...

Despite widespread persecution, Orthodox churches not only survived the Cold War period but levels of religiosity in Orthodox countries remained significant. This book examines the often surprising relations between Orthodox churches and political regimes. It provides a comprehensive overview of the dynamics between Eastern...

In contemporary Japan there is much ambivalence about women's roles, and the term "feminism" is not widely recognised or considered relevant. Nonetheless, as this book shows, there is a flourishing feminist movement in contemporary Japan. The book investigates the features and effects of feminism...

This book offers a fresh and comparative approach in questioning what education is being used for and what the effects of the politicisation of education are on Asian societies in the era of globalisation. Education has been used as a political tool throughout the...

This book provides a comprehensive and systematic analysis of the various schools of Qur'anic exegesis, from the earliest periods through to the present day.Employing a comparative-contrastive methodology, the author examines traditional and rational schools of thought - such as the Mu'tazili, Shi'i, Ibadi, Sufi,...

This book examines the role played by the media in China's cultural transformation in the early years of the 21st century. In contrast to the traditional view that sees the Chinese media as nothing more than a tool of communist propaganda, it demonstrates that...

This book examines reform of the Russian military since the end of the Cold War. It explores the legacy of the Soviet era, explaining why - at the time of the fall of the Soviet Union - radical reform was long overdue in the...

Available for the first time in English language translation, this is the long-awaited second volume of the three part set on Totalitarianism and Political Religions, edited by the eminent Professor Hans Maier. This represents a major study, with contributions from leading scholars of political...

Russia is one of the few countries in the world where intellectuals existed as a social group and shared a unique social identity. This book focuses on one of the most important and influential groups of Russian intellectuals - the 1960s generation of shestidesyatniki...

Petroleum taxation is the universal instrument through which governments seek to determine the crucial balance between the financial interests of the oil companies and the owners of the resource. This book addresses how governments have and continue to approach this problem, the impacts of...

This collection addresses the present and the future of the concept of intersectionality within socio-legal studies. Intersectionality provides a metaphorical schema for understanding the interaction of different forms of disadvantage, including race, sexuality, and gender. But it also goes further to provide a particular...

Conventional political science depicts legitimate elections as rational affairs in which informed voters select candidates for office according to how their coherently presented aims, ideologies and policies appeal to the self-interest of the electorate. In reality elections, whether in first world democracies, or in...

This volume addresses the emergence of multiple legal and law-like arrangements that alter the interaction between states, their delegated agencies, international organizations and non-state actors in international and transnational politics.Political scientists and legal scholars have been addressing the 'legalization' of international regimes and international...

The Caucasus is a strategically and economically important region in contemporary global affairs. Western interest in the Caucasus has grown rapidly since 1991, fuelled by the admixture of oil politics, great power rivalry, ethnic separatism and terrorism that characterizes the region. However, until now...

Despite traditionally being a strong research topic in urban studies, inter-city relations had become grossly neglected until recently, when it was placed back on the research agenda with the advent of studies of world/global cities. More recently the 'external relations' of cities have taken...

Maid in China is the first systematic, book-length investigation of internal rural migration in post-Mao China focused on the day-to-day production and consumption of popular media. Taking the rural maid in the urban home as its point of departure, the book weaves together three...

This new volume develops a conceptual framework for considering and evaluating the roles played by the EU in international politics, drawing upon the literatures of role analysis, international relations and European integration.It pays particular attention to five aspects of role analysis: role conceptions, origins...

Taking a theoretical and multidisciplinary perspective, the essays in this collection provide compelling insight into contemporary Cambodian culture at home and abroad. The book represents the first sustained exploration of the relationship between cultural productions and practices, the changing urban landscape and the construction...