International Relations

Long-term social and demographic changes – and the conflicts they create – continue to transform British politics. In this accessible and authoritative book Sobolewska and Ford show how deep the roots of this polarisation and volatility run, drawing out decades of educational expansion and rising ethnic diversity as key drivers in the emergence of new divides within the British electorate over immigration, identity and diversity. They argue that choices made by political parties from the New Labour era onwards have mobilised these divisions into politics, first through conflicts over immigration, then through conflicts over the European Union, culminating in the 2016 EU referendum. Providing a comprehensive and far-reaching view of a country in turmoil, Brexitland explains how and why this happened, for students, researchers, and anyone who wants to better understand the remarkable political times in which we live.

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Is the West prepared for a world where power is shared with China? A world in which China asserts the same level of global leadership that the USA currently assumes? And can we learn to embrace Chinese political culture, as China learned to embrace ours?

Here, one of the world’s leading voices on China, Kerry Brown, takes us past the tired cliches and inside the Chinese leadership – as they lay out a roadmap for working in a world in which China shares dominance with the West.

From how, and why, China as a dominant superpower has been inevitable for many years, to how the attempts to fight the old battles are over, Brown digs deeper into the problematic nature of China’s current situation – its treatment of dissent, of Xinjiang, Hong Kong, and the severe limitations on its management of relations with other cultures and values. These issues impact the way the West sees China, China sees the West, and how both see themselves.

There are obstacles to the West accepting a more prominent place for China in the world – but just because this will be a difficult process does not mean that it should not happen. As Kerry Brown writes: history is indeed ending, but not how the West thought it would.

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– How does politics affect you in everyday life?
– What is power and who has it?
– Has the age of empire come to an end?
– Is capitalism the only viable economic system?

Politics is all around us. Global Politics: Myths and Mysteries teaches students that their understanding of the political world is already theoretical, and equips them with the tools to become critical and independent thinkers. Unlike other textbooks on the market, students are invited to actively engage with the questions that shape international politics, such as ‘what power relations are you taking part in?’; ‘which actors besides the state are important at the global level?’ and ‘what power do you have to bring about change in global politics?’.

This innovative pedagogical approach unveils a series of entrenched myths and mysteries in global politics in an accessible and engaging way. The text is structured into eleven chapters that cover key issues or ‘myths’ relating to global politics; students are invited to think critically and theoretically about each of these, whilst drawing on their existing knowledge of politics.

A range of learning features throughout, such as integrated case studies, and reflective activities, help readers to build a foundational knowledge of key concepts in international relations. In addition, a suite of accompanying online resources – including web links, additional case studies and reading lists – help students to take their learning further.

Digital formats and resources
Global Politics: Myths and Mysteries is available for students and institutions to purchase in a variety of formats, and is supported by online resources.
· The e-book offers a mobile experience and convenient access along with hyperlinks to carefully selected lists of web-links, and an additional reading list, to help you broaden your knowledge and understanding of international relations: www.oxfordtextbooks.co.uk/ebooks
· Student resources: a library of web links, an annotated reading guide, and additional case studies are available online.
Lecturer resources: seminar questions and activities, essay questions, and PowerPoint slides for each chapter are available online.

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A dramatic new telling of the dawn of modern East Asia, placing Korea at the center of a transformed world order wrought by imperial greed and devastating wars.

In the nineteenth century, Russia participated in two “great games” one, well known, pitted the tsar’s empire against Britain in Central Asia. The other, hitherto unrecognized but no less significant, saw Russia, China, and Japan vying for domination of the Korean Peninsula. In this eye-opening account, brought to life in lucid narrative prose, Sheila Miyoshi Jager argues that the contest over Korea, driven both by Korean domestic disputes and by great-power rivalry, set the course for the future of East Asia and the larger global order.

When Russia’s eastward expansion brought it to the Korean border, an impoverished but strategically located nation was wrested from centuries of isolation. Korea became a prize of two major imperial conflicts: the Sino-Japanese War at the close of the nineteenth century and the Russo-Japanese War at the beginning of the twentieth. Japan’s victories in the battle for Korea not only earned the Meiji regime its yearned-for colony but also dislodged Imperial China from centuries of regional supremacy. And the fate of the declining tsarist empire was sealed by its surprising military defeat, even as the United States and Britain sized up the new Japanese challenger.

A vivid story of two geopolitical earthquakes sharing Korea as their epicenter, The Other Great Game rewrites the script of twentieth-century rivalry in the Pacific and enriches our understanding of contemporary global affairs, from the origins of Korea’s bifurcated identity–a legacy of internal politics amid the imperial squabble–to China’s irredentist territorial ambitions and Russia’s nostalgic dreams of recovering great-power status.

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Russia’s brutal February 2022 invasion of Ukraine has attracted widespread condemnation across the West. Government and media circles present the conflict as a simple dichotomy between an evil empire and an innocent victim. In this concise, accessible and highly informative primer, Medea Benjamin and Nicolas Davies insist the picture is more complicated.

Yes, Russia’s aggression was reckless and, ultimately, indefensible. But the West’s reneging on promises to halt eastward expansion of NATO in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union played a major part in prompting Putin to act. So did the U.S. involvement in the 2014 Ukraine coup and Ukraine’s failure to implement the Minsk peace agreements. The result is a conflict that is increasingly difficult to resolve, one that could conceivably escalate into all-out war between the United States and Russia―the world’s two leading nuclear powers.

Skillfully bringing together the historical record and current analysis, War In Ukraine looks at the events leading up to the conflict, surveys the different parties involved, and weighs the risks of escalation and opportunities for peace. For anyone who wants to get beneath the heavily propagandized media coverage to an understanding of a war with consequences that could prove cataclysmic, reading this timely book will be an urgent necessity.

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