Because of severe domestic labor shortages, Japan has recently joined the increasing number of advanced industrialized nations that have begun importing large numbers of immigrant workers since the 1980s. Although the citizenship status of foreign workers is the most precarious in such recent countries of immigration, the national governments of these countries have become increasingly preoccupied with border enforcement, forcing local municipalities and organizations to offer basic rights...

The essays in this collection address issues significant to labor within regional, national and international contexts. Themes of the chapters will focus on managed labor migration; organizing in multi-ethnic and multi-national contexts; global economics and labor; global economics and inequality; gender and labor; racism and globalization; regional trade agreements and labor.

Written by an international team of experts from the US, UK, Hong Kong, China, Korea and Canada, this important and interesting book examines and explores the relationship between the international political and economic system, and China’s economic and political transition.Exploring international relations theory with a China-centric view, the book addresses key and significant questions such as:Has the outside world shaped China’s position within the global polity a...

Bringing together leading planning and urban scholars, and including fascinating international case studies, this unique book investigates urban planning across the world and in different cultures.

Though the proportion of women in national assemblies still barely scrapes 16% on average, the striking outliers – Rwanda with 49% of its assembly female, Argentina with 35%, Liberia and Chile with new women presidents this year – have raised expectations that there is an upward trend in women’s representation from which we may expect big changes in the quality of governance. But getting women into public office is just the first step in the challenge of creating governance and accountabil...

The debate on international migration and development currently focuses on South-North migration, transnationalism, remittances and knowledge transfer. The potential positive role of migration for countries and regions the emigrants originate from has recently been acknowledged by, among others, the World Bank, United Nations Commissions and the International Organisation for Migration (IOM). This volume addresses the question: to what extent and under what conditions does international mi...

Mapping BRICS Media is the first comprehensive and comparative study of the emerging media landscape in the world’s most dynamic and fastest growing markets. This pioneering collection focuses on one of the key topics in contemporary international relations - the emergence of BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) - a grouping that includes some of the world’s largest populations and fastest growing economies.The volume brings together leading scholars, main...

A complete guide for how small states can be strikingly successful and influential--if they assess their situations and adapt their strategies. Small states are crucial actors in world politics. Yet, they have been relegated to a second tier of International Relations scholarship. In A Small State's Guide to Influence in World Politics, Tom Long shows how small states can identify opportunities and shape effective strategies to achieve their foreign policy goals. ...

Why have some developing country states been more successful at facilitating industrialization than others? An answer to this question is developed by focusing both on patterns of state construction and intervention aimed at promoting industrialization. Four countries are analyzed in detail - South Korea, Brazil, India, and Nigeria - over the twentieth century. The states in these countries varied from cohesive-capitalist (mainly in Korea), through fragmented-multiclass (mainly in India), ...

Humanitarian crises - resulting from conflict, natural disaster or political collapse – are usually perceived as a complete break from normality, spurring special emergency policies and interventions. In reality, there are many continuities and discontinuities between crisis and normality. What does this mean for our understanding of politics, aid, and local institutions during crises? This book examines this question from a sociological perspective. This book provides a qualitative inquir...

This book critically assesses the human security challenges faced by states, focusing on how and to what extent the state is influenced by global structures and operations.Having grown rapidly since the 1990s, the field of human security has spawned a wide variety of academic research. This research has helped to reconceptualize the notion of security, both broadening and deepening it, and it has created a space where unconventional and multidimensional forms of security inform int...

First published in 2011. Lawyers and the Rule of Law in an Era of Globalization focuses on the national and transnational processes transforming both the rule of law and the role of lawyers. The book draws on a framework that emphasizes the relationship between the national the international, the strategies of lawyers at various political levels, and the circulation of ideas and people. As such, it considers the 'rule of law', not as a normative ideal that has to be accomplished and realiz...