This book seeks to replace a comforting European narrative of British missed opportunities with a chronicle of the complexity of UK/EC-EU relations. After nearly a decade of Brexit (2016), it revisits the historical evolution of the relationship between Britain and Europe since the 1970s. Building on an in-depth study of primary and secondary sources, the author sheds new light on the intricacies of that relationship.

The book is structured in six chapters, the first of which reflects on the causes of the UK's lack of engagement in the early and crucial developments of the European Community. The second chapter revisits ten years of stop-go diplomacy of accession, and the meaning of the first enlargement for Britain and its partners. The third chapter argues that in the early years, entry represented for Britain an opportunity to deliver change, working with France and Germany inside the EC; and, as an EC member, building new relationships with countries outside, including in the Commonwealth. The fourth chapter focuses on the dawning realisation that EC membership meant for Britain joining its partners on a journey towards an unknown destination in search of whatever-closer Union would mean. The Fifth chapter concentrates on the 1980s, when, on the one hand, the British government was to the fore in the creation of a single market; while on the other it openly challenged an agreed-upon narrative, among the continental member states. This narrative was one which sought to reshape European values and relationships, together with its culture, geography and history, round a commitment to greater integration. The final chapter is an epilogue that examines the political decisions of the last four British prime ministers: Major, Brown, Blair and Cameron, in confronting and reacting to the reality of European Union, from the Maastricht Treaty (1992) onward. This examination suggests that, rather than political continuity, discontinuity, led the UK, through Prime Minister David Cameron's efforts at renegotiation in the EU, to Brexit, and his instant resignation.

This book invites readers to rethink, refine, and challenge the dominant narrative of Britain as a predictable, permanent outsider condemned to irrelevance in the EC/EU. It will appeal to scholars of international relations and political history, as well as political decision-makers, both in Britain and the EU.

This open access book discusses conditions of conflict resolution over the Russo-Ukrainian War and analyzes requirements for long-term durable peace for Ukraine. What are the impacts of the Russo-Ukrainian War? Do we really know them? The authors examine this question from various perspective including conflict resolution theories, international relations theories, geopolitical theories, domestic and regional politics, regional security system, public opinion and national identity of Ukraine, etc. In so doing, the authors identify the war as a complex crux of many theoretical and practical issues like the merger of the Donbas War from 2014 with the full-scale invasion by Russia in Ukraine as a typical example of "internationalized internal-wars". The authors also seek to develop their findings to ask a question, what are the agendas for durable peace for Ukraine? The authors argue that the agendas should include ripeness theory, security guarantees, deterrence mechanisms, geopolitical arrangements, domestic national identity formation, etc. The authors do not necessarily address the question about the way the war can be terminated, while the mode of the termination is within the scope of their investigation. In any case, however, the authors seek to highlight the basic framework for durable peace in Ukraine.

This book analyzes the roots of widespread disenchantment with American government. While blame often falls on the individuals in office, they are not operating in isolation. Rather they are working within a system designed by the Framers with one goal in mind, protectionism. Although the Framers got much right, their commitment to protection of liberty led them to design a system replete with divisions of power. Whatever its merits at the founding, the government today is frequently described as dysfunctional and far too often unresponsive to the majority, unaccountable, and unable to deliver for its people. For those disillusioned with the current state of government and committed to effectuating meaningful change, this book advocates in favor of a fundamental reassessment of the system's primary objectives, followed by deliberation as to how it should be restructured accordingly. It not only presents specific reform proposals, but it ends with a stark warning: until and unless we embrace reasoned structural reform, we cannot be surprised if at some point the people become so frustrated that they either disengage, fight back, or seek solace in autocratic alternatives.

This new edition includes audiobook files created by a state of the art text-to-speech tool at the chapter level.

This open access book explores how to build a gender-just peace in which women's political citizenship is foregrounded through a case study of Northern Ireland. It addresses the role that civil society can play in peacebuilding and in political life in deeply divided transitional societies. It specifically focuses on women's groups, and, as such, studies what grassroots peacebuilding across an ethnic divide can look like in practice. Further, it analyses what it means to build a gender equal citizenship based on the lived expertise and experiences of women's activism, political participation and interethnic cooperation during and after conflict. Based on material collected through interviews, participant observation and official documents, the book explores the potential for gender-just political citizenship but also the risk of backlash in terms of women's rights during a transition from armed conflict to peace. Essential reading for students and researchers in Political Science, Gender Studies, Peace and Conflict Studies, and Transitional Justice.

Exploring why, when and under which circumstances individuals decide to take up arms mobilizing for pro-government militias, Huseyn Aliyev draws on insights from long-standing ethnographic fieldwork among former and active members of Ukraine's pro-government volunteer battalions, and an original database of militias' obituaries, to offer this complex and in-depth explanation of the phenomenon of pro-government mobilization.
Revealing the patterns and dynamics of individual mobilization into pro-government militias, this study is critical to understanding how the Ukrainian nation succeeded in repelling Russian aggression both in 2014-15 and in 2022, but also essential to explaining how and why hundreds of pro-government militias emerge in the context of armed conflicts in different parts of the world.

This is the first comprehensive analysis of the oft-divergent paths taken by Montenegro and Serbia in the tumultuous period between the late 1980s and the present day. Utilising both primary and secondary sources, many previously unpublished in English, this book provides a detailed examination of the complex relations between Montenegro and Serbia in the Yugoslav context and their bilateral relationship since they parted ways in 2006.

Montenegro and Serbia: A Velvet Divorce? offers a broader overview of the internal political developments in both countries, their interactions and the forging of their own distinct, and ultimately divergent, domestic and foreign policies.

Kenneth Morrison and Vesko Garcevic also explore the relationships that Montenegro and Serbia have had, and continue to have, with Russia, China, the EU and NATO, making this a highly relevant study for those interested in global power politics, as well as contemporary political dynamics in the Western Balkans.

This book brings new insight from social psychology to explore migrant integration in Western Europe. Through a series of survey studies it illustrates the importance of sociopolitical conditions, such as political polarization and discriminatory climates, for understanding cross-national variation in migrant integration outcomes. The author investigates how migrants integrate; what factors facilitate or hinder successful integration; and how successes and failures along the way affect subsequent integration outcomes. An inspiring read for researchers and students alike interested in migration studies, political behaviour, social psychology, and international policy, this book aims to promote more effective migrant integration policies within the European Union and elsewhere.

What do Russians really want? Do they want authoritarianism and are they prepared to go along with a war of conquest and destruction? Or do they want something else?

A landmark contribution to the field, Morris is the only social researcher to have carried out fieldwork in Russia since the invasion of Ukraine, engaging with communities in Moscow, regional cities, as well as rural areas to bring perspectives on Russian everyday lives that are now entirely inaccessible to the West. Everyday Politics in Russia uses the lens of micropolitics, defined not as politics in miniature but instead as taking seriously the political content of people's normal lives revealed in their practices, interactions and discussions. Based on decades-long interactions with people from a diverse cross-section of society in Russia - from security service officers to factory workers, from unemployed young men to citizen journalists and activists, this is the most comprehensive insight to date into the complexity of Russian attitudes toward war, their government and the post-1991 political trajectory.

The evolutionary biologist Julian Huxley (1887-1975) attempted to promote a "religion for the future," which he would come to refer to as Transhumanism. Transhumanism was an attempt to unite a more traditional humanistic view of the human as containing some form of core essence or potential with an evolutionary point of view of humans as a work in progress. Before humans, natural selection had been responsible for the transformation of life. Through its ordering principles and through chance, it had given rise to humankind, which had ushered in a new phase of evolution. Humanity stood on the threshold of yet another critical point in evolution: The consciously purposive phase of evolution. This open access book explores the history of transhumanism by analyzing how Julian Huxley's transhumanism develops and why it does at this particular point in time, by placing it firmly within the context of his specific scientific and sociopolitical milieu, starting roughly in the interwar years and stretching over the Second World War to the 1970s. Continuing, the study then focuses on the new transhumanists of the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s and investigates continuity in mode of thinking, contributing to a more coherent understanding of transhumanism, its history and of modern projects of human enhancement. The book captures how scientific and technological development in relation to society and social order shapes images and expectations of the future and of what future is desirable.

After the outbreak of the 2011 Syrian War, a number Syrian-Armenians who had lived in the territory for generations, fled to the Republic of Armenia. This book traces the experiences of Syrian-Armenian women as they navigated their changing and gendered identities from their adopted 'homeland' to their socially constructed new 'ancestral' home in Armenia. The rich ethnographic research conducted over 6 years by the author reveals how women adjusted to new lives in Armenia, supported themselves through gendered work such as embroidery production, yet mostly challenge simple identities such as 'refugee' or 'repatriate,' existing in a state of what the author terms "painful belonging". The book further reveals crucial insight into how experiences and traumatic memories of war in Syria and the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict reciprocally shape each other in the minds of the women interviewed.

This volume provides a broad analysis of feminist movements--both historical and present-day--in Europe. It will fill the gap in the literature on feminist mobilizations through a systematic analysis of European third wave feminism from a cross-national perspective (covering Denmark, France, Greece, Italy, Poland, Slovenia, Spain, and Turkey) and a cross-time perspective (covering the time frame 2010-2021). In doing this, the authors also single out the different constellations of feminist movements as related to specific national political opportunities and networks of alliance and opposition. This book will be of interest to students and scholars in gender studies, feminist theory, and social movement studies.

The end of the Cold War, the acceleration of globalization, and "the rise of the rest" posed serious challenges to the existing international order based on World War II settlements and Cold War modifications. The Global Financial Crisis of 2008 provided an opportunity to address this problem, as evidenced by the emergence of the G20 at the leadership level, but this adjustment, reflecting a sea change in international economic and political realities, was by no means a smooth process. Domestically, in many advanced industrial countries, there was a populist/nativist backlash as increasing socioeconomic disparities and interaction with the outside world produced economic anxiety and status anxiety. Politicians who promised to take back control appealed to a large number of voters, using "us vs. them" rhetoric to divert attention from socioeconomic inequality. Thus, even before the outbreak of COVID-19, the combination of international power shift and populist/nativist backlash made global cooperation a precarious proposition, even though the proliferation of global value chains, climate change, and infectious diseases made global cooperation more imperative than ever before.

The pandemic has accelerated the pre-existing trends of increasing inequality at home and decreasing inequality among countries, especially U.S.-China competition. It is evident that these accelerating trends cannot lead to stable outcomes, as they exacerbate the risks of crisis and conflict if they continue. This book explores how domestic and international transformation can address these problems. Domestically, instead of blaming "the global elite" and "outsiders," investing in people should receive priority, given the challenges of automation and globalization. Unless workers and the middle class feel secure enough, governments would find it difficult to push for international initiatives. Internationally, a new order should reflect changing economic and political realities, with guardrails to prevent conflict and mechanisms to promote global cooperation.

How is it possible that Donald Trump, a champion of racist and anti-immigrant policies, has only attracted more minority voters since 2016? Drawing on extensive statistical analysis, this book challenges the conventional wisdom on Black, Latino, and Asian American voters.

Positing a host of theoretical innovations based on diverse data sources, The Emerging Republican Minorities establishes that some of the most heated debates of the Trump era-race, immigration, and relations with China-had effects on minority voters that challenged a paradigm ascribing their automatic loyalty to the Democrats. For Black, Latino, and Asian American constituents, much like for their white counterparts, minority-hostile positions are critical in explaining how members of those same minority groups vote, even for candidates who prima facie should not win any of their support.

Udi Sommer and Idan Franco analyze detailed regression models and conduct robust empirical tests to demonstrate how minority constituencies are more ideologically diverse than commonly thought, even on such issues where we would expect near unanimity, such as opinions toward their own communities. Moreover, this diversity complicates the way we think and theorize not only about minority political behavior but also about democracy and its vitality in the Trump and post-Trump eras.

This edited book aims to offer a comprehensive analysis of the preceding and ongoing development of the Israel-Gaza war, using a multidisciplinary approach. The chapters, written by scholars of the Middle Eastern studies, political science, anthropology, and international law, investigate the root causes of the eruption of the war, taking a viewpoint from within. Hamas's attack on Israel on October 7, 2023 caused deep shockwaves throughout the world. While the developments seemed unprecedented, the question remains whether it was an unpredictable total surprise. Given the context surrounding Palestine and Israel, it is likely that there were inherent elements in the preceding political environment that led to the current humanitarian disaster and quagmire of the battle. The assumption is that the existence of "fragile stability" might have caused the October 7 attack. What kind of fragility and robustness of the framework existed in the political, social, legal, and international conditions? How did these conditions affect the conduct of the actors in this region ultimately leading to the current situation? What challenges are likely to emerge in this region in the near future? This book addresses these questions from various perspectives. For the best clarification of the questions, authors include experts in American studies who discuss the diplomatic intervention of the United States, a former judge of the International Criminal Court who explores the role of international law in the conflict, and a legal advisor to the Oslo Peace Process who provides understanding the deep roots of the conflict. The analysis of this volume will provide an in-depth understanding of the background of the October 7 attack and contributes to the theoretical development of the concept of "fragile stability," which can be applied to examine other cases of conflict.

"Fragile Stability provides a compelling and in-depth historical account of the background that proceeded Hamas' assault on October 7, 2023, and how it led to an unprecedented upsurge of violence in Gaza, one of the darkest moments in human history. A must-read for those who wish not only to understand the Palestinian-Israeli conflict but also to envision ways of resolving it."

--- Sari Hanafi, Professor, American University of Beirut, Lebanon

This topical edited volume includes a very important collection of essays addressing the political background and general context that led to the catastrophic Israel-Hamas War of 2023-2025, providing clues to make sense of the Hamas assault of October 7, 2023, followed by the Israeli military reaction in the Gaza Strip and the spread of the war in the region. Its unique contribution stems from different levels of analysis: several chapters refer to the domestic political landscapes in both Israel and Palestine, examining the numerous cleavages among and within both societies. In addition, the scope of the analysis broadens by referring also to international law and other relevant international actors, including the United States and Iran.

--- Arie M. Kacowicz, Professor, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel

This volume showcases the critical insights and scholarship of Japanese scholars of the Middle East about the causes and consequences of the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel and the war which followed. With close studies of both Palestinian and Israeli politics, Fragile Stability makes a compelling case for an analytical framework which helps make sense of both dramatic changes and remarkable continuities in the conflict.

--- Marc Lynch, Professor, The George Washington University, Washington, DC, USA

This book seeks to deepen empirical understandings of herder-farmer conflicts in Africa from the perspective of peacebuilding. Thus, the focus of the book is on the manifestations, causes, consequences and management of these conflicts (responses) by both state and non-state actors and lessons for sustainable peacebuilding.

By adopting a comparative approach spanning five countries (Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Nigeria, Sudan and Togo), our study seeks not only to fill the gap, but also expand the frontier of knowledge on the subject, exploring important cross-cutting issues such as human rights, rule of law, gender and youth. The interconnections between these conflicts and security, safety and development at all levels underscore the urgency and pertinence of this study.

Focusing on French controversies about wokisme-a literal translation of the American word wokeism-this book reflects on France's ongoing transformation into a multicultural society and the divisions this change has caused.

In the wake of the murder of George Floyd in 2020 and following the Black Lives Matter and #MeToo movements, American debates on race, gender, and equity reverberated throughout France. While some welcomed progressive ideas on identity, gender, and race, others perceived them as the expression of a new form of American cultural imperialism incompatible with France's universal model, which rejects distinctions among citizens based on culture, race, religion, ethnicity, sex, or gender.

Given that wokisme is seen by many in France as a facet of American soft power, this book delves into French ambivalence toward Americanization. Combining analysis of political, academic, and journalistic discourse with international relations approaches, it unpacks the topic of French anti-Americanism, especially in the context of recent debates on U.S.-style woke ideology, intersectionality, and cancel culture.

This book examines the political, diplomatic, and financial responses to the Russo-Ukraine War through the lens of Realist international relations theory. Analyzing the origins and ongoing dynamics of the conflict, the book sheds light on how the West - especially the EU and NATO - has reacted to the war and discusses the implications of its strategy. It critically explores the influence of national populism and internal disunity within the West, particularly against the background of rising Trumpism.

The book offers a fresh perspective on the geopolitical shifts reshaping power dynamics and traditional international relations. From Ukraine's military struggles to NATO's challenges, it analyzes how the conflict has disrupted existing political norms. The book makes a case for rethinking the global political framework as the war continues to evolve and will appeal to students, scholars, and researchers of international relations and geopolitics.

"This book offers a timely analysis of the Russo-Ukraine War and its transformative impact on global geopolitics. Examining the conflict's origins, strategies, and broader implications provides essential insights into shifting international dynamics and challenges to traditional geopolitical paradigms, making it an invaluable resource for understanding the current crisis and evolving frameworks of global relations."

Lisheng Dong, Emeritus Professor at the University of Tartu and former Visiting Professor at the University of Zurich

"The West's Response to the Ukraine War is a bravura performance. Highly recommended for public and academic libraries."

Joseph M. Siracusa, Professor of Global Futures, Curtin University, Perth Australia

This new edition covers everything students need to know about the key institutions, people, parties and policies in Russian government and politics, as well as covering political behaviour, participation and communication. Revised to offer coverage and analysis of recent events, this new edition offers:

- Discussion of new developments related to the war in Ukraine and its consequences (geopolitical, political, economic, social, psychological, etc.) for Russia, Europe, Eurasia, and the world.

- Expanded critical discussion of the Russian political system and its pivot toward authoritarianism.

- Detailed discussion of social and cultural issues and their interaction with politics; to further underline the role of individual personalities and the political impact of informal political and business arrangements in Russia.

- New research and statistical updates including opinion polls, expert opinions, and other sources relevant to Russian government and politics.

This is the ideal text for upper-level undergraduate and postgraduate students studying Russian politics or comparative government and politics more broadly.