This book rethinks meritocracy as a form of coloniality, namely, a social imaginary that reproduces narratives of ethnic and racial difference between European centres and peripheries, and between Europe and its others.

Drawing on interviews with working and middle class, white and Black Italians who moved to Britain after the 2008 economic crisis, the book explores the narratives of Northern meritocracy and Southern backwardness that inform migrants' motivations for moving abroad, and how these narratives are experienced within classed, racialised and gendered migrations.

Connecting decolonial theory with the sociology of Pierre Bourdieu, this book provides innovative insights into the relationships between meritocracy, coloniality and European whiteness, and into the social stratification of EU migrations.

This book examines the operational and political challenges facing UN peace operations deployed in countries where civil war and protracted violence have given rise to the complex and distinctive political economies of conflict.

The volume explores the nature and impact of such political economies - informal systems of power and influence formed by the interaction of local, national, and region-wide war economies with the political agendas of conflict actors - on the course of UN peace operations. It focuses in detail on the UN's long-running peace operations in the Democratic Republic of Congo, South Sudan, Afghanistan, Sierra Leone, Mali, and Somalia. The book is centrally concerned with the interaction of UN missions with the power structures and local conflict dynamics that shape individual mission settings, and the challenges these pose for mediation, protection of civilians, and other tasks. It also offers a critical assessment of the various ways in which the UN 'system', from its headquarters in New York to the field, has confronted the policy challenges posed by political economies of conflict-affected states, societies, and regions. It advances a pragmatic set of policy recommendations aimed at improving the UN's ability to confront predatory and exploitative war economies. At the same time, the volume makes it clear that political and institutional obstacles to more effective UN action are certain to remain profound and are unlikely ever to be fully overcome let alone eradicated. Despite making some progress since the 1990s to better understand the political economy of civil wars, the UN has struggled with how to tackle informal networks of power and their consequences for efforts to end wars.

The book will be of special interest to students of war and conflict studies, statebuilding, political economy of conflict, UN interventionism and peacebuilding, and IR/Security in general.

This book offers readers a collection of 50 short chapter entries on topics in the philosophy of language. Each entry addresses a paradox, a longstanding puzzle, or a major theme that has emerged in the field from the last 150 years, tracing overlap with issues in philosophy of mind, cognitive science, ethics, political philosophy, and literature. Each of the 50 entries is written as a piece that can stand on its own, though useful connections to other entries are mentioned throughout the text. Readers can open the book and start with almost any of the entries, following themes of greatest interest to them. Each entry includes recommendations for further reading on the topic.

Philosophy of Language: 50 Puzzles, Paradoxes, and Thought Experiments is useful as a standalone textbook, or can be supplemented by additional readings that instructors choose. The accessible style makes it suitable for introductory level through intermediate undergraduate courses, as well as for independent learners, or even as a reference for more advanced students and researchers.

Key Features:

• Uses a problem-centered approach to philosophy of language (rather than author- or theory-centered) making the text more inviting to first-time students of the subject.
• Offers stand-alone chapters, allowing students to quickly understand an issue and giving instructors flexibility in assigning readings to match the themes of the course.
• Provides up-to-date recommended readings at the end of each chapter, or about 500 sources in total, amounting to an extensive review of the literature on each topic.

In turbulent global times, your study of this subject is increasingly necessary and urgent.

Featuring a new chapter on critical theories, and revised to take a less Eurocentric approach to concepts and case studies, this new edition allows you to tackle global politics' important concepts, debates and problems:

-How can theories help us to understand the politics of a global pandemic?
-Do we live in a 'post-truth' world of 'fake news' and disinformation?
-Does international aid work?
-Does the United States remain a global hegemon?
-What is the Anthropocene and how does it shape global politics?
-Are global politics constrained by a 'North-South' divide?
-What are the possible futures of global politics - and the politics of outer space?

Delving into topics as diverse as anarchy, intersectionality, Confucianism, and neoconservatism, boxed features give you confidence in political analysis:

-Focus on: learn more about the global colour line or the tragedy of the commons
-Key figures: discuss the ideas of Hans Morgenthau, Frantz Fanon or bell hooks
-Debating: argue whether the United Nations are obsolete, or whether nuclear weapons promote peace
-Global politics in action: apply your learning to the migration crisis in Europe or the Arab Spring
-Approaches to: consider human rights or the Covid-19 pandemic from the perspective of realist, liberal, postcolonial, Marxist, feminist, constructivist and post-structuralist theory
-Global actors: understand the significance of Black Lives Matter, Amnesty International or the International Monetary Fund.

Spanning the development of global politics, from the early origins of globalization through to the return of multipolarity in the twenty-first century, this is an essential text for undergraduates studying global politics and international relations.

Inked is a social history of common soldiers of the Song Dynasty, most of whom would have been recognized by their tattooed bodies. Overlooked in the historical record, tattoos were an indelible aspect of the Song world, and their ubiquity was tied to the rise of the penal-military complex, a vast system for social control, warfare, and labor.

Although much has been written about the institutional, strategic, and political aspects of the history of the Song and its military, this book is a first-of-its-kind investigation into the lives of the people who fought for the state. Elad Alyagon examines the army as a meeting place between marginalized social groups and elites. In the process, he shows the military to be a space where a new criminalized lower class was molded in a constant struggle between common soldiers and the agents of the Song state. For the millions of people caught in the orbit of this system-the tattooed soldiers, their families, and their neighbors-the Song period was no age of benevolence, but one of servitude, violence, and resistance. Inked is their story.

The Palestinian national liberation movement - or the Palestinian revolution as it is known in Arabic - emerged during the 1960s as an iconic cause of the global Left. This volume highlights the different practices of international solidarity that characterised this period, and how they shaped and were shaped by the global trajectory of the Palestinian movement.
Bringing together scholars with versatile linguistic and interdisciplinary skills, Palestine in the World puts the Palestinian movement into conversation with the models of transnational politics that emerged through the revolutionary period. From participation in a vibrant sphere of intellectual and cultural production, the work of travelling revolutionaries as delegates, volunteers, and militants, and the connected mobilisations that took place in different corners of the world, international solidarity with and from the Palestinian movement was integral to its ascendance on the global stage. By treating the Palestinian revolution as a world phenomenon - with cases from Cuba, France, the US, the GDR, Japan and more - this volume reveals the forms of solidarity that shaped the rise of the movement and their afterlives today. It illuminates the rich connected histories of international solidarity that positioned the Palestinian movement as an iconic anticolonial struggle.

Compare any two political maps, one from the early twentieth century and one from the present, and you will notice that the world now contains more democracies than it used to.

How and why did democracy spread around the world? How do we recognize democracies when we see them? And what does the future of democracy look like?

This book shows you how to define and measure democracy, and to identify what democracies have in common. It evaluates important recent trends in democratization and the challenges that face it including:

- Democratic decay
- Populism, authoritarianism and the far right
- Threats posed by global terrorism and sectarian violence
- The rise of 'illiberal democracies'
- Declining civic participation.

Analysing economic development, education, industrialization and other factors, Democratization shows you the internal political, economic and social conditions that help or hinder democratization. Looking at globalization, political aid, military intervention and the 'neighbourhood'-effect, it also explains how external factors put pressure on democratic reform.

Covering key theories, such as modernization and democratic peace theory, and with case studies from Indonesia to the Zapatista movement, this is the ideal text for those studying democratization for the first time.

This book provides a comprehensive overview of the United Nations peace operations in Africa with a focus on civil-military coordination and state-building. With case studies from Sudan, South Sudan, and Congo, it examines themes like the colonization of Africa and long-term conflicts; United Nations peace operations in Africa from 1956-1964; and United Nations' return to Africa in the 1990s and 2000s. The author investigates how modern civil-military coordination gradually becomes an effective tool to assist in national-level state-building in conflict-ridden countries. The volume also discusses the organizational culture of civilian and military entities as well as civil-military cooperation in health, agriculture, energy, sports, and education to showcase the strategic direction for long-term peace in the region. Rich in ethnographic analysis, this book will be an essential read for scholars and researchers of African Studies, UN studies, peace and conflict studies, defence and strategic studies, international relations, and military studies.

This book critically discusses the vulnerabilities and local adaptation actions of the traditional marine fishers of the tsunami-hit coastal regions of South India to climate change and risks, with an emphasis on their local institutions. Thereby, it offers a comprehensive account of the ways in which marine fishers live and respond to climate change.

The Coromandel coastal regions of South India are known for their rich sociocultural history and enormous marine resources, as well as their long history of vulnerability to climate change and disasters, including the 2004 tsunami. By drawing cases from the tsunami-hit fishing villages of this coast, this book demonstrates that indigenous knowledge systems, climate change perceptions, sociocultural norms, and governance systems of the fishers influence and contest the local adaptation responses to climate change. By foregrounding the real picture of vulnerability and adaptation actions of marine fishers in the face of climate change and disasters, this book also challenges the conventional understanding of local institutions and fishers' knowledge systems. Underlining that adaptation to climate change is a sociopolitical process, this book explores the potentials, limits, and complexities of local adaptation actions of marine fishers of this coast and offers novel insights and climate change lessons gleaned from the field to other coasts of India and around the world.

This book will be of great interest to students, scholars, and policymakers in climate change, fisheries, environmental sociology, environmental anthropology, sustainable livelihoods, and natural resource management.