The end of the Cold War gave rise to much talk of a 'new' global order and debate about just how new or orderly it was and would be. Attempts to analyse the nature of this order have been many and various. This important new text assesses the main approaches and offers its own analysis arguing that, while chaos and raw anarchy are not on the cards, each of the major domains of power - security, economics, institutions and values - contains elements of potentially major instability. Interstate war may be receding, but there are no simple solutions to comprehensive violent conflict inside fragile states, and the non-democratic great powers continue to have major regional ambitions. There is a global liberal market economy, but it is increasingly unequal and its financial infrastructure remains fragile and crisis-prone. There is a comprehensive set of international institutions but they are rather weak and in need of reform. Liberal values are nominally endorsed by most states but they are in internal conflict and make up no firm basis for a stable world order. Finally, world order is threatened from within because the social compacts, political infrastructures, and national economic capacities of many states will decline. This will have negative consequences for the willingness to bring about effective global governance. The result may be a destructive dynamic which might take us towards a Hobbesian world in ways which Hobbes himself had never imagined.

Stunning shifts in the worldviews of states mark the modern history of international affairs: how do societies think about—and rethink—international order and security? Japan's "opening," German conquest, American internationalism, Maoist independence, and Gorbachev's "new thinking" molded international conflict and cooperation in their eras. How do we explain such momentous changes in foreign policy—and in other cases their equally surprising absence?The nature of strategic ideas, Jeffrey W. Legro argues, played a critical and overlooked role in these transformations. Big changes in foreign policies are rare because it is difficult for individuals to overcome the inertia of entrenched national mentalities. Doing so depends on a particular nexus of policy expectations, national experience, and ready replacement ideas. In a sweeping comparative history, Legro explores the sources of strategy in the United States and Germany before and after the world wars, in Tokugawa Japan, and in the Soviet Union. He charts the likely future of American primacy and a rising China in the coming century. Rethinking the World tells us when and why we can expect changes in the way states think about the world, why some ideas win out over others, and why some leaders succeed while others fail in redirecting grand strategy.

This book facilitates exchanges between scholars and researchers from around the world on China-Eurasia relations. Comparing perspectives and methodologies, it promotes interdisciplinary dialogue on China’s pivot towards Eurasia, the Belt and Road initiative, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, Beijing’s cooperation and arguments with India, the EU, Western Balkans and South Caucasus states and the Sino-Russian struggle for multipolarity and multilateralism in Eurasia. It also researches digitalization processes in Eurasia, notably it focuses on China's Silk Road and Digital Agenda of Eurasian Economic Union. Multipolarity without multilateralism is a dangerous mix. Great power competitions will remain. In the Asian regional system more multilateral cushions have to be developed. Scholars from different nations including China, India, Russia, Austria, Armenia, Georgia, United Arab Emirates and Montenegro introduce their own, independent research, making recommendations on the developments in China-Eurasia relations, and demonstrating that through joint discussions it is possible to find ways for cooperation and for ensuring peaceful coexistence. The book will appeal to policymakers and scholars and students in Chinese, Eurasian, International and Oriental Studies.

Rethinking Globalization offers an extensive collection of readings and source material on critical global issues.

The key values of the Open Society – freedom, justice, tolerance, democracy, and respect for knowledge – are increasingly under threat in today’s world. As an effort to uphold those values, this volume brings together some of the key political, social and economic thinkers of our time to re-examine the Open Society closely in terms of its history, its achievements and failures, and its future prospects. Based on the lecture series Rethinking Open Society, which took place between 2017 and 2018 at the Central European University, the volume is deeply embedded in the history and purpose of CEU, its Open Society mission, and its belief in educating skeptical, but passionate citizens.

The world currently faces a number of challenges that no single country can solve. Whether it is managing a crisis-prone global economy, maintaining peace and stability, or trying to do something about climate change, there are some problems that necessitate collective action on the part of states and other actors. Global governance would seem functionally necessary and normatively desirable, but it is proving increasingly difficult to provide. This accessible introduction to, and analysis of, contemporary global governance explains what it is and the obstacles to its realization. Paying particular attention to the possible decline of American influence and the rise of China and a number of other actors, Mark Beeson explains why cooperation is proving difficult, despite its obvious need and desirability. This is an essential text for undergraduate and postgraduate students studying global governance or international organizations, and is also important reading for those working on political economy, international development and globalization.

This book presents a radical new picture of natural order. The Newtonian idea of a cosmos ruled by universal and exceptionless laws has been superseded; replaced by a conception of nature as a realm of diverse powers, potencies, and dispositions, a 'dappled world'. There is order in nature, but it is more local, diverse, piecemeal, open, and emergent than Newton imagined. In each chapter expert authors expound the historical context of the idea of laws of nature, and explore the diverse sorts of order actually presupposed by work in physics, biology, and the social sciences. They consider how human freedom might be understood, and explore how Newton's idea of a 'universal designer' might be revised, in this new context. They argue that there is not one unified totalizing program of science, aiming at the completion of one closed causal system. We live in an ordered universe, but we need to rethink the classical idea of the 'laws of nature' in a more dynamic and creatively diverse way.

History is both the past and our accounts of the past. In Rethinking World War Two, Jeremy Black explores the contesting accounts and interpretations of the war, critically examining the leading controversies surrounding the conflict, its aftermath and its ongoing significance in the modern world. The first half of the book considers controversies surrounding the course of the war, with chapters looking at the importance of military history, the causes of the war, politics and grand strategy and domestic politics. The second half goes on to consider the memory of the war and its echoes in political and military spheres, with chapters devoted to the memory of the war in Europe and in Asia. A detailed further reading section provides guidance on how to take study of various topics further. Rethinking World War Two is unique in offering a survey of both the events of the conflict and the various debates surrounding its memory. It will be an invaluable resource for any student of World War Two, particularly those seeking a better understanding of its continuing legacy in the postwar world.