In post-Cold War international relations, strategic partnerships are an emerging and distinct analytical and political category critical in understanding the dynamics of contemporary strategic cooperation between states and International Organizations. However, the idea of strategic partnerships has remained under-theorized and overshadowed by the alliance theory. Addressing this clear-cut gap in the International Relations/Foreign Policy Analysis literature, this book originally endeavors to theorize and empirically test the analytical model of strategic partnerships as a new form of sustainable international cooperation in times of globalized interdependence and turbulence.

This collection of essays focuses on the changing role of firms and states in shaping international competition. The way in which industry responds to this situation by forming strategic alliances both within industrial sectors and across national borders is examined.

This handbook offers a unique approach to the question: How do scholars write the future of global politics? Written in futur antérieur style, around the 200-year anniversary of the birth of International Relations (IR) as an academic discipline, the contributions engage in world-building and imagine different futures of IR. Set in a multiverse, 23 chapters draw on a range of possible themes and imaginaries, for instance post-pandemic conditions, the Anthropocene, and not least academic practices and the role of researchers. A concluding chapter anchors these explorations in contemporary discussions. The book mirrors the format and style of existing handbooks, combining outlines and discussions of theories, structures, processes, and core issues in IR with an academic science fiction account of how these might play out over the course of the next century. In doing so, the book challenges IR and provides alternative imaginaries, rather than predicting future conditions for all humanity. The book invites readers to reflect on how thinking about the future has become an increasingly radical, but more than ever necessary act.

This book provides a critical and updated analysis of the nature of the EU’s strategic partnership diplomacy, and of the partnerships themselves, in times of power shift and contestation. It links with key aspects of the EU’s Global Strategy; it brings together a strong list of experts who work within a clear framework for analysis; and it deals not only with the substance of the policy but also with the ways in which the policy as a whole has emerged, is conducted and might develop in the future. In offering an inclusive set of case studies and diverse perspectives, this book aims to advance both conceptualization and analysis of the implementation of the established EU partnerships. The book highlights the notion of strategic partnership as a foreign policy instrument to support EU external action in a context of multilevel change and crisis; its policy dimension as a gradually separated, but not separable policy within the Union’s external action; the institutional component given the emergence of SPs as a sort of self-preserving institutional platform allowing for denser and deeper cooperation in various policy areas; and the implications for the EU’s self-conception as an international actor with a global identity and role.

Since its independence in 1947, India's leaders have sought to grasp the greatness that the country seemed destined for. India's first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, articulated these aspirations early on but, overwhelmed by development challenges, his successors focused largely on domestic concerns rather than on global leadership. The post-1991 era saw India positioned for the first time in many decades as an economic success, suggesting that it was on the cusp of breaking out as a global player. The twenty-odd years following the 1991 reforms were heady for India. Based on the expectation that India was now poised to ascend as a major power, Prime Minister Narendra Modi-less than a year after he first took office in May 2014-expressed his desire that India assume a leading role: completing the transformation from being merely an influential entity into one whose weight and preferences are defining for international politics. Grasping Greatness explores the various tasks pertaining to this push for eminence in world affairs. It elaborates the economic, state-building, and international dimensions of this ambition. Eminent thinkers like Rakesh Mohan, Ila Patnaik, Surjit Bhalla, Arjun Subramanian, and others reflect upon the tasks at hand and the desirable routes to achieve them. Edited by Ashley J. Tellis, Bibek Debroy and C. Raja Mohan, Grasping Greatness is an important contribution to the intellectual debates as India enters into a new era on the world stage.

This book provides an in-depth analysis of the relations between China and the EU, tracing the development of this complex, yet intriguing, relationship between two substantially different actors. To uncover a deeper understanding of this unlikely partnership, the authors analyze the partnership through the prism of contending norms and worldviews. The China-EU strategic partnership has evolved through fits and starts but despite continuous trade disputes and severe diplomatic misunderstandings, the EU and China pledge to uphold, even deepen, the partnership. Policy experts and scholars will learn how such contending bilateral relationships can be managed and establish a better understanding of deep-seated conceptual differences between these two entities.

The term "middle power" is conceptually fragile. Some scholars have even argued for abandoning it. This book argues that the concept needs to be analysed more profoundly and that new analytical tools need to be developed to better understand the phenomenon. The traditional approach, based on Western states, is insufficient and has become increasingly irrelevant in a transformed global environment. Instead of drawing from a single theory of international relations, the contributors have chosen to build upon a wide range of theories in a deliberate demonstration of analytic eclecticism. A pluralistic approach provides stronger explanations while remaining analytically and intellectually rigorous. Many of the theory contributions are reconsidering how the largely "Western" bases of such theorising need revising in light of the "emerging middle powers", many of which are in Asia. Presenting a strong argument for studying middle powers, this book explores both the theory and empirical applications of the concept by rethinking the definition and characteristics of middle powers using a range of case studies. It examines changes in the study of middle powers over the last decade, proposing to look at the concept of middle powers in a coherent and inclusive manner. Finally, it aims to further the discussion on the evolution of the international system and provides sound conclusions about the theoretical usefulness and empirical evolution of middle powers today.

As competition among the traditional great powers in the Asia region intensifies, Canada faces a stark choice: Should it align its foreign policy with the US-led free and open Indo-Pacific strategy? Shared values give Canada a clear incentive to follow the lead of the United States and Western-aligned democracies, but Jeffrey Reeves presents the case for a foreign policy based on understanding how Asia sees itself. He draws on Asian sources to demonstrate Western misunderstandings of regional developments and to outline alternative, regionally based policy options. Follow the Leader, Lose the Region urges the Canadian government to pivot away from the policies of its Western allies in order to chart an independent course that better serves its interests.

Draws on the theories and methods of International Relations and Foreign Policy Analysis to study India's contemporary Gulf policy.

This edited volume brings together some of the most important scholarly perspectives – in the form of both journal article reprints and original contributions – on the structure and dynamics of the EU’s multi-layered relations with its Eastern neighbours within the Eastern Partnership (EaP) framework and beyond. In May 2019, the EU’s EaP – an ambitious and sophisticated policy framework, conjoining elements of cooperation and integration, with the EU’s six eastern neighbours, i.e. Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova, Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan – turned ten years. This anniversary, in conjunction with repeatedly voiced critique by scholars and policy-makers alike regarding the framework’s effectiveness and utility, led the EU to submit the EaP to a fundamental auditing and revision. Structured around both enduring and emerging issues in the broader EU-Eastern neighbourhood framework, this book provides a retrospective analysis of key structural and relational challenges, unfolding regional dynamics, distinctive forms of bilateral/multilateral engagement, whilst also offering a critical perspective on the contested future relations between the EU and its Eastern neighbours. Looking backwards and providing a critical and thorough assessment of the first ten years of the EaP in practice, this book thinks forward and gauges its many potential future avenues. This comes at a crucial moment, as the EU and its six Eastern neighbours are in search of new and mutually acceptable forms of association.