This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 international license. It is free to read on Oxford Academic and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations. Authoritarianism is on the rise globally, with more than twice as many countries experiencing democratic decline as democratic enhancement in recent years. This has been occurring simultaneously with unprecedented rates of urbanization in many parts of the world, raising quest...

Tensions between the US and China have escalated as both powers seek to draw countries into their respective political and economic orbits by financing and constructing infrastructure.Wide-ranging and even-handed, this book offers a fresh interpretation of the territorial logic of US–China rivalry, and explores what it means for countries across Eurasia, Africa, and Latin America. The chapters demonstrate that many countries navigate the global infrastructure boom by articulating n...

This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International licence. It is free to read on the Oxford Academic platform and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations. Despite the rise of global technocratic ideals of city-making, cities around the world are not merging into indistinguishable duplicates of one another. In fact, as the world urbanizes, urban formations remain diverse in their socioeconomic and spatial characteris...

For the first time in human history more people now live and towns and cities than in rural areas. In the wealthier countries of the world, the transition from predominantly rural to urban habitation is more or less complete. But in many parts of Africa, Asia and Latin America, urban populations are expanding rapidly. Current UN projections indicate that virtually all population growth in the world over the next 30 years will be absorbed by towns and cities in developing countries...

This comprehensive, up to date and theoretically informed text examines the full range of the European Union's external relations including the Common Foreign and Security Policy. It look at the increasingly important part the EU plays in global politics. The authors argue that the EU's significance cannot be grasped by making comparisons with traditional states. Issues covered include: · the status, coherence, consistency and roles of the EU as an actor, and what being an actor means in p...

‘Global governance’ has become a key concept in the contemporary study of international politics, yet what the term means and how it works remains in question.Governing the World: Cases in Global Governance takes an alternative approach to understanding the concept by exploring how global governance works in practice through a set of case studies on both classical issues of international relations such as security, labour and trade, and more contemporary concerns such as the enviro...

Through mapping the rights discourse and the transformations in transnational finance capitalism since the world wars, and interrogating the connections between the two, Radha D'Souza examines contemporary rights in theory and practice through the lens of the struggles of the people of the Third World, their experiences of national liberation and socialism and their aspirations for emancipation and freedom.Social movements demand rights to remedy wrongs and injustices in society. B...

Langan reclaims neo-colonialism as an analytical force for making sense of the failure of ‘development’ strategies in many African states in an era of free market globalisation. Eschewing polemics and critically engaging the work of Ghana’s first President – Kwame Nkrumah – the book offers a rigorous assessment of the concept of neo-colonialism. It then demonstrates how neo-colonialism remains an impediment to genuine empirical sovereignty and poverty reduction in Africa today. It does thi...

This book analyses the rapidly increasing role of African states, leaders and other political actors in international politics in the 21st Century.In contrast to the conventional approach of studying how external actors impacted on Africa’s international relations, this book seeks to open up a new approach, focusing on the impact of African political actors on international politics. It does this by analysing African agency – the degree to which African political actors have room t...

This Handbook provides in one volume an authoritative and independent treatment of the UN's seventy-year history, written by an international cast of more than 50 distinguished scholars, analysts, and practitioners. It provides a clear and penetrating examination of the UN's development since 1945 and the challenges and opportunities now facing the organization. It assesses the implications for the UN of rapid changes in the world - from technological innovation to shifting forei...

Historically, African political institutions such as constitutions, legislatures and judiciaries have been seen as weak and vulnerable to manipulation, leading some to claim that the continent is 'institutionless'. However, recent developments including the consolidation of presidential term limits in a number of countries demonstrate that this depiction is no longer tenable. By drawing attention to how institutions can shape the practice of politics, this book demonstrates that electoral ...