The shift in international relations towards multipolarity has had profound implications across the world, but particularly in highly penetrated regions, such as the Middle East. This book explores the rivalry between the United States, Russia, and China in the region, investigating its effects and assessing the influence of regional actors and issues. Each chapter offers a comprehensive analysis of three core questions: how does global power competition manifest itself?; how does it impact regional political, economic, and security dynamics?; and how do regional actors and issues influence the trajectory and dynamics of global power competition? Expert international contributors take a country case study approach to consider these questions and investigate the most pressing contemporary events, issues, and trends in Middle Eastern politics. Tackling transregional and global issues and themes they analyse the convergence, divergence, and competition between global powers in managing threats and interests such as terrorism, energy and cyber security, nuclear non-proliferation, conflict resolution, and warfare. This volume will appeal to scholars and students of international relations, great power competition, China, Russia, the USA, and the Middle East.

"The shift in international relations towards multipolarity has had profound implications across the world, but particularly in highly penetrated regions, such as the Middle East. This book explores the rivalry between the United States, Russia, and China in the region, investigating its effects and assessing the influence of regional actors and issues. Each chapter offers a comprehensive analysis of three core questions: how does global power competition manifest itself?; how does it impact regional political, economic, and security dynamics?; and how do regional actors and issues influence the trajectory and dynamics of global power competition? Expert international contributors take a country case study approach to consider these questions and investigate the most pressing contemporary events, issues, and trends in Middle Eastern politics. Tackling transregional and global issues and themes they analyse the convergence, divergence, and competition between global powers in managing threats and interests such as terrorism, energy and cyber security, nuclear non-proliferation, conflict resolution, and warfare. This volume will appeal to scholars and students of international relations, great power competition, China, Russia, the USA, and the Middle East"--

There is a rumor that it is very difficult to understand the Middle East. However this is not true. It is difficult to understand the Middle East only when the emphasis is not on oil and natural gas. If oil and natural gas are taken into account it is very easy to analyze the Middle East. Because the Middle East is simply a region where the local players are fighting to sell their oil and natural gas, and the foreign players are fighting to buy this oil and natural gas. It might sound naïve, but that’s what the Middle East is about. It is only academics and specialists that need to know more about the Middle East. For the general reader who simply wants to understand the Middle East wars, oil and natural gas will do the trick. And that’s what this booklet is about. It clearly explains how the US, Russia and China are trying to control the oil and natural gas of the Middle East, and how Saudi Arabia, Iran, Qatar and Iraq are trying to sell their oil and natural gas. After reading the booklet, the reader will know the exact causes of the wars in Syria, Iraq and Libya. No prior knowledge is required.

This report details the political, economic, and military interests and activities of China and Russia in the Middle East and identifies where those efforts contest, intersect, or complement U.S. interests and activities.

The Ashgate Research Companion to Chinese Foreign Policy draws out the full range of topics and issues that characterise China's external affairs. The volume is intended to provide an overview of Chinese foreign policy that will be relevant both to experts in the field as well as those that are just starting to grapple with Beijing's international outlook. The investigation of Chinese foreign policy offered by the volume is divided into seven parts: - Part I focuses on the historical evolution of Chinese foreign policy by detailing the specific traditions and the altering paradigms of Beijing's external outlook proffered for the explanation and understanding of Chinese foreign policy - Part II discusses the different analytical perspectives proffered for the explanation and understanding of Chinese foreign policy - Part III considers the domestic sources of Chinese foreign policy - Part IV analyses the international impact of Beijing's outreach - Part V of the volume begins the exploration of China's relations with specific international actors - Part VI investigates the regional interactions of Chinese foreign policy - Part VII of the volume draws attention to several issues impacting both the practice and the understanding of Chinese foreign policy This Companion draws a vivid picture of the full spectrum of topics, issues, and relationships that define China's international interactions. The collection therefore provides a relevant point of departure for anyone interested in learning about Beijing's external affairs. Owing to the wide range of themes and ideas, this volume is essential reading for students of Chinese foreign policy.

This book explores, at a time when several powers have become serious players on the continent, aspects of African agency, past and present, by African writers on foreign policy, representative of geography, language and state size. In the past, African foreign policy has largely been considered within the context of reactions to the international or global “external factor”. This groundbreaking book, however, looks at how foreign policy has been crafted and used in response not just to external, but also, mainly, domestic imperatives or (theoretical) signifiers. As such, it narrates individual and changing foreign policy orientations over time—and as far back as independence—with mainly African-based scholars who present their own constructs of what is a useful theoretical narrative regarding foreign policy on the continent—how theory is adapted to local circumstance or substituted for continentally based ontologies. The book therefore contends that the African experience carries valuable import for expanding general understandings of foreign policy in general. This book will be of key interest to scholars and students of Foreign Policy Analysis, Foreign Policy Studies, African International Relations/Politics/Studies, Diplomacy and more broadly to International Relations.

Democratization is the first textbook to focus on the "global wave of democratization" that has been occurring since around 1970. Bringing together leading authors from diverse international backgrounds, it introduces students to the theoretical and practical dimensions of the subject in an authoritative, accessible, and systematic way. The book takes into account the international factors that affect politics at the level of the nation state, showing students the direction in which the discipline is moving. It is accompanied by an innovative companion website that provides numerous resources for students and instructors. Democratization covers several key themes including: 1. Theories of democratization and their relation to democratic theory; 2. Critical prerequisites and driving social forces of democratic transition; 3. Pivotal actors and institutions involved in democratization; 4. Conditions for democratic survival, the consolidation of newly democratized countries, and the analysis of failed democratization; 5. Demonstrations of how these factors have played a role in the different regions in which the global wave of democratization has transplaced authoritarian and communist systems; 6. Possible futures of democratization worldwide.

Survival, the IISS’s bimonthly journal, challenges conventional wisdom and brings fresh, often controversial, perspectives on strategic issues of the moment. In this issue: Barry Posen argues that Europe is better placed to defend itself militarily than many, including the IISS, have portrayed it to be Kori Schake examines the prospects of Republican politics in a post-Trump America Daniel Byman and Aditi Joshi call for protocols to curb the abuse of social media by malign agents and states Nigel Gould-Davies explains Russia’s stance on Belarus with reference to Moscow’s long history of involving itself in its neighbours’ affairs And nine more thought-provoking pieces, as well as our regular book reviews and Noteworthy column. Editor: Dr Dana Allin Managing Editor: Jonathan Stevenson Associate Editor: Carolyn West Assistant Editor: Jessica Watson

The structure of corporate governance has made significant progress in OECD countries but it remains imperfectly linked to the activities of many businesses. Its advance on the global stage will be hesitant and slow until its practice in OECD countries is more consistent and convincing. Weaknesses in corporate governance and law enforcement are impeding the investment needed to build the global economy to its full potential. The Globalisation of Corporate Governance: The Challenge of Clashing Cultures, explores the challenges of making corporate governance effective for all participants in a global economy. The tasks of: o reappraising the purpose of corporate governance in a global context; o reassessing ownership and the "agency principle" in a global context; o potential clashes of culture and how they may affect corporate governance; o understanding human motivation and how it can help to drive better governance; o relating corporate governance to a changing and uncertain external world; o coping with a lack of effective global institutions to underpin the globalisation of corporate governance and enforce the rule of law; and o using corporate governance to build resilience and sustainable success; need to be met if corporate governance is to succeed in driving globalisation and encouraging investment worldwide.