The security landscape in Europe has changed dramatically in the 2020s. Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022, as well as the shifting transatlantic relations during the second Trump presidency, have challenged long-standing assumptions about stability and cooperation. This book examines these changes through the perspectives of authors from 23 countries across Europe and Central Asia.

Organized by region, the volume employs Robert Jervis's theory of perception and misperception as a unifying framework to demonstrate how states perceive and react to emerging risks and uncertainties. It shows how national security outlooks are shaped by local concerns and broader geopolitical shifts.

Additionally, the book examines how countries are repositioning themselves in relation to the European Union, NATO, and the OSCE, offering a timely and nuanced account of an increasingly complex security order.

This book explores complexities in Africa-Europe or Africa-EU relations. It considers how the relations are governed, function and how the increasingly complex and changing global system shapes them. The Ruso-Ukrainian war-in its second decade-has disrupted the global security and political order. The America-China tariff row and possibilities of similar tiffs between the EU and China disrupt international trade and economic landscapes. So too, potential impacts of game changers such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), changing climate and weather patterns, changing demographics, international migration and the consequences of these factors for nation-states' sovereignty and security. Africa and Europe find themselves in need of ways to relate and simultaneously navigate these complexities, disruptions and impacts, which precipitate great power competition and rivalry between the EU and countries such as the USA and China over Africa. The rivalries create new fault lines in global politics and prompt the question on how they impact Africa-EU relations.

Feminist ideas spread quickly while feminism remains unpopular by designIn contemporary China, feminism circulates widely across digital media, popular culture, and consumer markets, yet it remains politically precarious. Viral Dissent examines this paradox through an incisive study of feminist activism, misogyny, and gender politics in China's rapidly evolving digital landscape.

Drawing on interviews, ethnographic observation, and analysis of high-profile online controversies, Sara Liao traces the complex life of feminism in a system shaped by platform capitalism, techno-nationalism, and individual users. Feminist discourse spreads through social media campaigns, influencer culture, and viral debates, but its visibility-and survival-is carefully managed. Through case studies of #MeToo activism, anti-victim-blaming campaigns, online misogyny, and digital feminist groups, Liao conceptualizes "unpopular feminism," a feminism that operates as both a popular cultural genre and a stigmatized political project. Some forms of feminist expression are celebrated as part of the booming "sheconomy," while others-particularly those calling for collective action or structural change-face marginalization, censorship, harassment, and nationalist backlash.

Bridging media studies, gender studies, and transnational feminist theory, Viral Dissent offers a powerful account of how feminist struggle is reshaped at the intersection of capital, technology, state power, and everyday media use, illuminating the possibilities and limits of activism in an era of global platforms, commercialized visibility, and authoritarian governance.

Medicines travel, transform, and multiply meanings across Asia's markets, temples, texts, and bodiesWhat makes something a medicine? To answer this deceptively simple question, Global Lives of Medicines offers twelve richly detailed biographies of medicinal substances across Asian history. From ginseng and frankincense to aconite, radish, and live leeches, contributors trace how materials moved through markets, temples, courts, homes, and laboratories while continually acquiring new meanings and uses.

Across the chapters, familiar categories begin to dissolve. Substances may function simultaneously as food, poison, ritual tool, or sacred object. Healing agents may be plant roots, minerals, aromatics, or even living creatures. Through these diverse case studies spanning East and South Asia, Global Lives of Medicines demonstrates how the boundaries between medicine, technology, religion, and commerce were constantly negotiated in different historical contexts. By placing these biographies in dialogue, it offers a new approach to the history of medicine-one that foregrounds the materiality, mobility, and cultural transformation of therapeutic substances across Asia.

This book systematically presents a use-wear analysis of quartzite stone artifacts from the Chinese Paleolithic archaeological record. It provides raw data and images from experimental and archaeological studies, building a comprehensive reference for international archaeologists to understand lithic reduction technology and utilization of quartzite tools by prehistorical humans, and offers an in-depth interpretation of human adaptative strategies and behavior patterns. In addition, this book shows an example of a theory-driven case study that demonstrates the significance and application of computer science techniques in archaeological research, such as data mining and cluster analysis to establish meaningful connections between material and remains and behavioral information.

This book presents the latest discoveries from archaeological sites of Sanxingdui and Jinsha. As the most comprehensive and detailed compilation of the archaeological works summaries of a century with a focus on academic achievement, it brings together detailed excavation reports, with a particular focus on significant findings in recent years. This book systematically explores the ancient Shu civilization, examining its cultural expressions, resource utilization, social structures, and interactions with surrounding cultures. This book serves as an essential reference for archaeologists, historians, anthropologists, and specialists in cultural heritage, as well as for a broader readership with an interest in ancient Chinese civilization.

This book, as part of a book series on migration in Chinese history, explores migration that took place in the Liao, Song, Jin and Yuan dynasties. This series is a complete, systematic general history on migration in China, the first of its kind both in China and abroad. Though it falls into the category of East Asian History, it is actually an interdisciplinary academic work that looks into not merely history but also culture, customs and historical geography. For the migration of each sub-period, the book seeks to identify the causes, participants, times, destinations, origins, routes and directions of migration, as well as the process of settlement and effect. It also tries to make quantitative analysis and sum up underlying patterns. This book draws evidence from a broad spectrum of sources, including literature, social customs and linguistics, in addition to official histories. It is not only a monograph on historical migrations in China, but also offers an opportunity of interpreting historical transformations from the perspective of migration. This book is intended for academic readers who study migration, Chinese history and historical geography, as well as the general public who loves Chinese culture and wishes to view Chinese culture from a novel perspective.

Mandarin is one of the most-spoken languages in the world. But when it was codified as the new national language in China between the 1910s and 1930s, its artificiality was such that only a handful of people could speak it with any fluency. The state-led creation and spread of China's national language is thus arguably the largest instance of social engineering in human history. What took centuries to accomplish in Europe was compressed into a mere three decades in China. How did this national linguistic unification happen? And, more broadly, what can this process teach us about the role of language in society? Based on research conducted in libraries and archives across the United States, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and mainland China, Jeffrey Weng examines the Chinese state's efforts to codify and elevate a new national language during the transition from Classical Chinese to modern standard Mandarin in the early twentieth century.

The ultimate form of the language was not inevitable. It was the concatenation of a multitude of disputes and decisions made in the early years of the republic, and, as Weng argues, represents a particular vision of Chinese society: unitary and egalitarian. Weng both reconstructs and reinterprets events in early twentieth-century China to give us a fresh view of how social change take place and how nations are made through cultural reinvention.

Drawing on an impressive array of archival sources, from colonial criminal records to historical maps and expose journalism, this book brings to light the overlooked history of ethnic Chinese enclaves in Korea during the era of Japanese colonialism. Situated within a global circuit of Chinese migration, the Japanese empire produced a structure of anti-migrant violence unique to colonial Asia while reproducing racial ideas that shaped the Chinatowns of North America and Europe. Each chapter of the book analyzes a site of Chinese migration as a constitutive part of the Japanese colonial infrastructures of racialization: ships and ports that served as conduits for Chinese migrants; shophouses that spread across Asia to accommodate new types of colonial labor; writings that circulated Chinese racial archetypes; streets and homes vulnerable to ethnic violence and destruction; and Japanese police photographs created to surveil Chinese migrants and their environments.

The title of the book, Traveling Chinatowns, indicates the transimperial infrastructures of Asian racialization that made Chinatowns both material and ideological spaces across multiple continents. Locating Korea's Chinatowns within transnational histories of anti-migrant racism and violence, this book challenges the prevailing view that sees Chinatowns as exclusively the creation of white settler racism, and instead sheds light on the complexity inherent in Chinatowns as spaces that are reflective of histories of empire and labor migration that have linked people, goods, and ideas across continents.

How lens-based art from Southeast Asia offers alternative visions for ecological sustainability

A new paradigm of ecologically minded artistic practices is taking shape in Southeast Asia - one that at once tracks ecological destruction and works specifically to cultivate deeper feelings of empathy toward the environment. Examining a range of photography and video work, The Empathic Lens explores how these lens-based projects respond to increasingly urgent concerns related to climate disaster and capitalist acceleration.

In this analysis of work produced across Cambodia, Vietnam, and Singapore, Brianne Cohen highlights artists for whom rampant urban development, resource extraction, and environmental toxicity are close at hand. As each artist takes their lens to these realities, Cohen shows, they draw on Indigenous knowledge and local traditions that have long recognized the kinship of humans and nonhumans. Engaging often-censored discourses of Indigenous land relations and environmental justice in a region with a long history of colonial and neocolonial development, Cohen traces genealogies of empathy and animism to demonstrate how these works develop sustainable visions for the future coexistence of planetary life.

The first critical account of marginalized artworks that depict the centrality of the more-than-human in Southeast Asian Indigenous worldviews, The Empathic Lens makes a powerful case for the relevance of Southeast Asian lens-based art in contemporary media practice and the art of the Anthropocene.

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City Opaque is a book about how cities are produced-not just with plans, money, concrete and cranes, but through grey spaces that operate through erasure, ambiguity, and the overproduction of contradictory laws and regulations. Set in Ho Chi Minh City, widely known as Saigon, Hun Kim follows developers, state officials, investors, and residents as they navigate one of the fastest-growing urban economies in the world. Through years of close observation and lived encounters - from rooftop bars overlooking glittering construction sites to neighborhoods quietly erased by disappearing planning maps - he reveals a city shaped as much by what is hidden, revised, or forgotten as by what is planned and recorded.

Rather than treating corruption, legal ambiguity, and disorder as failures of development, this book shows how opacity itself is a form of governmental reason and a strategy for producing space in the city. Laws multiply but rarely clarify. Archives disappear. Plans are rewritten after the fact. These practices are born out of rationalities that enable land to be reassigned, capital to move, and futures to be reimagined - often at great cost to some residents, but with enormous payoff for others. Moving beyond familiar stories of "corruption" or "failed governance," City Opaque offers a new way of understanding urban development in Southeast Asia and beyond.

This book explores the life, artistry, and legacy of Razak Abdul Aziz one of Malaysia's pioneering contemporary composers-through his seminal vocal work, 10 Pantun Settings. This song cycle, composed between 1981 and 1990, reimagines traditional Malay pantun poetry through a Western art song framework, blending cultural heritage with compositional innovation. The book begins with a biographical portrait of Razak, tracing his multicultural upbringing, academic journey in the USA and UK, and his contributions to Malaysia's music education and composition landscape. It then delves into the compositional techniques behind 10 Pantun Settings, highlighting Razak's use of "Frankensteining"-a method of assembling disparate pantun texts into a cohesive musical narrative-and his rich use of musical imagery to evoke kampung life, childhood nostalgia, and emotional depth. Through musico-literary analysis, the monograph uncovers a deeper narrative embedded in the cycle: the emotional journey of an abandoned wife in a traditional arranged marriage. Beneath the playful surface of children's poetry lies a poignant commentary on emotional resilience, covert feminism, and symbolic resistance. The book also documents the performance history of the cycle, from its early academic presentations to full theatrical stagings in Malaysia, Japan, New Zealand, and the Czech Republic. Drawing on interviews, archival materials, and performance analysis, this work offers a multidimensional exploration of Razak's compositional voice and the cultural significance of 10 Pantun Settings. It invites readers to engage with Malaysian musical identity, gender narratives, and the transformative power of music as a vessel for storytelling and cultural preservation.

This book examines the role of civil society in guarding Indonesia's democracy, with a spotlight on the 2024 general elections. The 2024 election was characterized by the incumbent's significant influence in shaping electoral outcomes, even prior to election day, including bureaucratic involvement aimed at favouring specific candidates aligned with the regime, thereby undermining procedural democratic norms. Within this context, this book considers how far civil society plays a role in safeguarding Indonesia's democracy. This book is guided by two main considerations: the general picture of Indonesia's democracy based on the 2024 general elections process, and the role of civil society in guarding the electoral process of the 2024 general elections. It looks at participation in electoral political competition vis-a-vis identity politics, such as affiliations with Islamic figures or leveraging Chinese ethnic identity, and the actions of Indonesian religious organizations such as Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) and Muhammadiyah, as well as, the role of women's NGOs in ensuring implementation of the quota for women's representation in the 2024 elections. It also illustrates how young Muslims, utilizing digital platforms and contemporary cultural movements, have rejuvenated Islamism into a dynamic and adaptable force that effectively responds to modern challenges while upholding democratic ideals, which are marked by inclusivity, justice, and civic engagement. The central finding, however, is that this broad civic action is undermined by fragmentation within an increasingly closed and transactional political system. Ultimately, the book concludes that this diversity within civil society, despite its challenges, represents the most distinctive opportunity for safeguarding and revitalizing Indonesian democracy beyond 2024.

This book offers a comprehensive overview of all general elections held in Burma/Myanmar from 1922 to 2020. It provides essential information on the five constitutions - two in the colonial period and three after independence - and on the crucial issue of the interest representation of the many ethnic groups vis-a-vis the majority community of Burmese who, from the beginning of the independence struggle against colonial rule onwards, have constituted the country's civilian and military elite. A focus lies on the role of Buddhism in shaping the understanding of legitimate rule and the factor of political contingency. The book is chiefly intended for scholars interested in the evolution of democracy in post-colonial countries, especially political scientists and experts dealing with Southeast Asian affairs. It also offers a valuable resource for diplomats, government officials and visitors of the country interested in the causes of Myanmar's painful history.

This book examines how inequality has become a defining feature of Australian social life, challenging enduring narratives of the 'fair go' and 'mateship'. Using a political economy lens and the capability approach, Alan Morris traces how disparities in income and wealth intersect with housing insecurity, unequal educational opportunity, health inequities, incarceration and gender inequality.

Across eight chapters, the book synthesises evidence from official statistics, policy reports and academic research, showing how advantage and disadvantage accumulate over the life course and are amplified by neoliberal reform, privatisation and the financialisation of housing. Particular attention is paid to Indigenous Australians who experience the most severe disadvantage, including exceptionally high rates of incarceration. The concluding chapter sets out practical policy directions-from tax and transfer settings and income support adequacy to investment in housing, education, health and justice reform-arguing that reducing capability deprivation is central to social cohesion and ensuring a decent life for all.

Written for researchers, students and policy audiences in sociology, social policy, public policy, criminology, housing and urban studies, and Australian studies, this book provides a rich, comprehensive and clear evidence-based account of contemporary inequality and what might be done to address it.

The book provides a grounded and interdisciplinary analysis of the effectiveness of community participation in urban planning practice in multicultural Australia. The book engages with existing and emerging debates on participation in urban planning and provides fresh evidence to show how and why community participation is problematic, particularly in the context of the status quo of top-down decision-making, neglect of social capital, and marginalisation of diverse community groups. The book provides ways to empower local communities, particularly disadvantaged groups, to ensure representation and accountability in planning practice. The book offers critical guidance on effective community participation for multicultural communities, planners, and development practitioners.

This book introduces the concept and scope of AI safety and analyzes the security issues involved in AI as well as their governance strategies and solutions from different perspectives such as theoretical technology, technical standards, the industrial ecology, and laws. In addition to the overview, this book describes the methods of using trusted computing technology to solve AI safety problems, as well as the safety of unmanned systems, strong AI based on brain - like computing and its safety, the application safety of AI in intelligent manufacturing and smart cities, network security, the construction of an industrial ecosystem for AI safety and controllability, AI safety standards and risk assessment and early warning. Overall, this book not only outlines the general attributes of AI safety issues, but also analyzes the special security problems in AI systems, as well as their risk assessment, prediction, governance approaches and solutions from different perspectives and in different typical application fields.

This book provides new perspectives on the history of the philosophy of science in the twentieth century, through the exploration of the intellectual roots of the thought of Paul K. Feyerabend (1924-1994) in Austrian philosophy. In addition to new research papers on the connection between Feyerabend and thinkers such as Boltzmann, Mach, Wittgenstein, Frank, Neurath, and Popper, the volume offers rich and as yet unpublished manuscripts and correspondence of archival origins by Feyerabend, Naess, Shapere and Finocchiaro. This collection pays specific attention to Feyerabend's problematic reception of Wittgenstein and Ordinary Language Philosophy; influences, convergences and resonances of Feyerabend's evolving philosophical work with different trends within the Vienna Circle; and the controversial Feyerabend-Popper relationship. Following Feyerabend's 2024 centennial, the volume provides historians of the philosophy of science and intellectual historians with a deeper, more articulated and stimulating view of the far-reaching ramifications and global impact of Austrian philosophy in the twentieth century.