This book presents an interdisciplinary exploration of digital sovereignty in China, which are addressed mainly from political, legal and historical point of views. The text leverages a large number of native Chinese experts among the authors at a time when literature on China’s involvement in internet governance is more widespread in the so-called “West”. Numerous Chinese-language documents have been analysed in the making of this title and furthermore, literature conceptualising digital sovereignty is still limited to journal articles, making this one of the earliest collective attempts at defining this concept in the form of a book. Such characteristics position this text as an innovative academic resource for students, researchers and practitioners in international relations (IR), law, history, media studies and philosophy.

This book theorizes the ways in which states that are presumed to be weaker in the international system use the International Criminal Court (ICC) to advance their security and political interests. Ultimately, it contends that African states have managed to instrumentally and strategically use the international justice system to their advantage, a theoretical framework that challenges the “justice cascade” argument. The empirical work of this study focuses on four major themes around the intersection of power, states' interests, and the global governance of atrocity crimes: firstly, the strategic use of self-referrals to the ICC; secondly, complementarity between national and the international justice system; thirdly, the limits of state cooperation with international courts; and finally the use of international courts in domestic political conflicts. This book is valuable to students, scholars, and researchers who are interested in international relations, international criminal justice, peace and conflict studies, human rights, and African politics.

The result of a three-year project, this manual addresses the entire spectrum of international legal issues raised by cyber warfare.

This book explores discussions and practice around corporate governance in Russia from the early 1990s until 2018. It covers three major aspects of corporate governance theory and practice: a vision of corporate governance in Russia in the context of global trends and challenges, the general perception of corporate governance in Russia, and the real nature of Russia’s corporate community from the viewpoint of its corporate governance practices. It provides a unique complex analysis and detailed description of how corporate governance has been perceived by both Russian regulators and the business community, and how it has been applied in Russian companies. This analysis covers the period of over 25 years: from early attempts at directing transfer and implanting the Western model of corporate governance to the nascent Russian big private business, up to the period of resurgence of the state as the dominant player both in Russian society and its economy at large. It gives an understanding of what corporate governance is in Russia in the days of "sovereign democracy" and confrontation with the West. It explains how cultural, political, economic and institutional factors have shaped corporate governance in Russia. The authors provide insights into such aspects of Russian corporate governance framework and practices as regulatory philosophy and enforcement, ownership structure, the role of the state, the impact of unfriendly domestic business climate, how the value of corporate governance is perceived in Russian context, etc. Predominantly, the book paints an interesting picture of how the "sovereign corporate governance" model has been shaped in Russia. This book will be useful not just for experts in corporate governance and investors, but also for those who have an interest in modern Russia at large.

The political make-up of the contemporary world changes with such rapidity that few attempts have been made to consider with adequate care, the nature and value of the concept of sovereignty. What exactly is meant when one speaks about the acquisition, preservation, infringement or loss of sovereignty? This book revisits the assumptions underlying the applications of this fundamental category, as well as studying the political discourses in which it has been embedded. Bringing together historians, constitutional lawyers, political philosophers and experts in international relations, Sovereignty in Fragments seeks to dispel the illusion that there is a unitary concept of sovereignty of which one could offer a clear definition. This book will appeal to scholars and advanced students of international relations, international law and the history of political thought.

Though they shared a state for most of the twentieth century, when the Czechs and Slovaks split in 1993 they founded their new states on different definitions of sovereignty. The Czech Constitution employs a civic model, founding the state in the name of "the citizens of the Czech Republic," while the Slovak Constitution uses the more exclusive ethnic model and speaks in the voice of "the Slovak Nation." Defining the Sovereign Community asks two central questions. First, why did the two states define sovereignty so differently? Second, what impact have these choices had on individual and minority rights and participation in the two states? Nadya Nedelsky examines how the Czechs and Slovaks understood nationhood over the course of a century and a half and finds that their views have been remarkably resilient over time. These enduring perspectives on nationhood shaped how the two states defined sovereignty after the Velvet Revolution, which in turn strongly affected the status of the Hungarian minority in Slovakia and the Roma minority in the Czech Republic. Neither state has secured civic equality, but the nature of the discrimination against minorities differs. Using the civic definition of sovereignty offers stronger support for civil and minority rights than an ethnic model does. Nedelsky's conclusions challenge much analysis of the region, which tends to explain ethnic politics by focusing on postcommunist factors, especially the role of opportunistic political leaders. Defining the Sovereign Community instead examines the undervalued historical roots of political culture and the role of current constitutional definitions of sovereignty. Looking ahead, Nedelsky offers crucial evidence that nationalism may remain strong in Slovakia and the Czech Republic, even in the face of democratization and EU integration, and is an important threat to both.

Available for the first time in English, this book examines and reinterprets class struggle within Marx and Engels’ thought. As Losurdo argues, class struggle is often misunderstood as exclusively the struggle of the poor against the rich, of the humble against the powerful. It is an interpretation that is dear to populism, one that supposes a binary logic that closes its eyes to complexity and inclines towards the celebration of poverty as a place of moral excellence. This book, however, shows the theory of class struggle is a general theory of social conflict. Each time, the most adverse social conflicts are intertwined in different ways. A historical situation always emerges with specific and unique characteristics that necessitate serious examination, free of schematic and biased analysis. Only if it breaks away from populism can Marxism develop the ability to interpret and change the world.

Secession and the Sovereignty Game offers a comprehensive strategic theory for how secessionist movements attempt to win independence. Combining original data analysis, fieldwork, interviews with secessionist leaders, and case studies on Catalonia, the Murrawarri Republic, West Papua, Bougainville, New Caledonia, and Northern Cyprus, Ryan D. Griffiths shows how the rules and informal practices of sovereign recognition create a strategic playing field between existing states and aspiring nations that he terms "the sovereignty game." To win sovereign statehood, all secessionist movements have to maneuver on the same strategic playing field while varying their tactics according to local conditions. To obtain recognition, secessionist movements use tactics of electoral capture, nonviolent civil resistance, and violence. To persuade the home state and the international community, they appeal to normative arguments regarding earned sovereignty, decolonization, the right to choose, inherent sovereignty, and human rights. The pursuit of independence can be enormously disruptive and is quite often violent. By advancing a theory that explains how sovereign recognition has succeeded in the past and is working in the present, and by anticipating the practices of future secessionist movements, Secession and the Sovereignty Game also prescribes solutions that could make the sovereignty game less conflictual.

Contesting conventional assumptions of the modern nation-state, this book challenges us to rethink the segmentation of the political realm and its underlying economic and social processes. Cognizant of the historical context of systemic change, Lilyblad reconstructs how illicit social order arises from agonistic competition over territory, authority, and institutions. Immersive empirical investigation traces this bottom-up process in local conflict zones, detailing how spontaneous configurations of violence, socioeconomic resources, and legitimacy transcend the divide between public and private. Ultimately, the analytical vantage of global governance assesses the sobering implications for sovereignty to more accurately reflect the world we have, not the one we may want. By showing how these inherently local illicit social orders develop apart from – not below – the state within a global anarchic society, this book will be of interest to a wide range of scholars, including political scientists, economists, sociologists, geographers, as well as researchers in interdisciplinary fields such as International Development, International Political Economy, and Global Governance.