Global Standards of Market Civilization brings together leading scholars, representing a range of political views, to investigate how global 'standards of market civilization' have emerged, their justification, and their political, economic and social impact. Key chapters show how as the modern state system has evolved such standards have also developed, incorporating the capacity for social cooperation and self-government to which states must conform in order to fully participate as legitimate members in international society. This study analyzes their justification, and their political, economic and social impact. Civilization is a term widely used within modern political discourse its meaning, yet it is poorly understood and misused. part I explores the idea of a ‘standard of civilization’, its implications for governance, and the use of such standards in political theory and economic thought, as well as its historical application part II presents original case studies that demonstrate the emergence of such standards and explore the diffusion of liberal capitalist ideas through the global political economy and the consequences for development and governance; the International Monetary Fund’s capacity to formulate a global standard of civilization in its reform programs; and problems in the development of the global trade, including the issue of intellectual property rights. This book will be of strong interest to students and scholars in wide range of fields relating to the study of globalization including: international political economy; international political theory; international relations theory; comparative political economy; international law; historical sociology; and economic history.

Global Standards of Market Civilization brings together leading scholars, representing a range of political views, to investigate how global 'standards of market civilization' have emerged, their justification, and their political, economic and social impact. Key chapters show how as the modern state system has evolved such standards have also developed, incorporating the capacity for social cooperation and self-government to which states must conform in order to fully participate as legitimate members in international society. This study analyzes their justification, and their political, economic and social impact. Civilization is a term widely used within modern political discourse its meaning, yet it is poorly understood and misused. part I explores the idea of a ‘standard of civilization’, its implications for governance, and the use of such standards in political theory and economic thought, as well as its historical application part II presents original case studies that demonstrate the emergence of such standards and explore the diffusion of liberal capitalist ideas through the global political economy and the consequences for development and governance; the International Monetary Fund’s capacity to formulate a global standard of civilization in its reform programs; and problems in the development of the global trade, including the issue of intellectual property rights. This book will be of strong interest to students and scholars in wide range of fields relating to the study of globalization including: international political economy; international political theory; international relations theory; comparative political economy; international law; historical sociology; and economic history.

This volume focuses on the constitutive politics of civilizational identity, examining the practices through which notions of civilizational identity are produced and reproduced in different contexts, including the global credit regime, modernity debates, and the "war on terrorism".

A highly original and readily accessible examination of the cultural dimension of international politics, this book provides a sophisticated and nuanced account of the relevance of cultural categories for the analysis of world politics. The book’s analytical focus is on plural and pluralist civilizations. Civilizations exist in the plural within one civilization of modernity; and they are internally pluralist rather than unitary. The existence of plural and pluralist civilizations is reflected in transcivilizational engagements, intercivilizational encounters and, only occasionally, in civilizational clashes. Drawing on the work of Eisenstadt, Collins and Elias, Katzenstein’s introduction provides a cogent and detailed alternative to Huntington’s. This perspective is then developed and explored through six outstanding case studies written by leading experts in their fields. Combining contemporary and historical perspectives while addressing the civilizational politics of America, Europe, China, Japan, India and Islam, the book draws these discussions together in Patrick Jackson’s theoretically informed, thematic conclusion. Featuring an exceptional line-up and representing a diversity of theoretical views within one integrative perspective, this work will be of interest to all scholars and students of international relations, sociology and political science.

The idea of civilization recurs frequently in reflections on international politics. However, International Relations academic writings on civilization have failed to acknowledge the major 20th-century analysis that examined the processes through which Europeans came to regard themselves as uniquely civilized – Norbert Elias’s On the Process of Civilization. This book provides a comprehensive exploration of the significance of Elias’s reflections on civilization for International Relations. It explains the working principles of an Eliasian, or process-sociological, approach to civilization and the global order and demonstrates how the interdependencies between state-formation, colonialism and an emergent international society shaped the European 'civilizing process'.

From the bestselling author of The Ascent of Money and The Square and the Tower “A dazzling history of Western ideas.” —The Economist “Mr. Ferguson tells his story with characteristic verve and an eye for the felicitous phrase.” —Wall Street Journal “[W]ritten with vitality and verve . . . a tour de force.” —Boston Globe Western civilization’s rise to global dominance is the single most important historical phenomenon of the past five centuries. How did the West overtake its Eastern rivals? And has the zenith of Western power now passed? Acclaimed historian Niall Ferguson argues that beginning in the fifteenth century, the West developed six powerful new concepts, or “killer applications”—competition, science, the rule of law, modern medicine, consumerism, and the work ethic—that the Rest lacked, allowing it to surge past all other competitors. Yet now, Ferguson shows how the Rest have downloaded the killer apps the West once monopolized, while the West has literally lost faith in itself. Chronicling the rise and fall of empires alongside clashes (and fusions) of civilizations, Civilization: The West and the Rest recasts world history with force and wit. Boldly argued and teeming with memorable characters, this is Ferguson at his very best.

This volume explores the work of Robert W. Cox across International Relations, International Political Economy, and International Historical Sociology. Robert W. Cox has been a key figure in so-called critical approaches to world politics, contributing to the inter-paradigm debate in IR, pioneering the Gramscian approach to IPE, developing key insights into international institutions, and the changing nature of capitalism and the state. His more recent work on intercivilizational encounters and intersubjectivity has been no less influential. This comprehensive collection provides an entry-point into Cox’s work across these themes of history, theory, political economy, and civilizations, offering a way for researchers and students to engage with Robert W. Cox’s rich legacy and deploy the many insights of his thought into contemporary scholarship.This book will be of interest to undergraduate and postgraduate students as well as academics working within world politics. This book was originally published as a special issue of the journal Globalizations.

By examining in detail the material life of pre-industrial peoples around the world, Fernand Braudel significantly changed the way historians view their subject. Originally published in the early 1980s, Civilization traces the social and economic history of the world from the Middle Ages to the Industrial Revolution, although his primary focus is Europe. Braudel skims over politics, wars, etc., in favor of examining life at the grass roots: food, drink, clothing, housing, town markets, money, credit, technology, the growth of towns and cities, and more. Volume I describes food and drink, dress and housing, demography and family structure, energy and technology, money and credit, and the growth of towns.

The Globalization of Liberalism demonstrates that liberalism is more deeply embedded in the structure of modern international political and economic order than is usually realised, and that at present there is a contested process of the 'globalization of liberalism'. As well as exploring liberalism's usefulness for understanding how international relations work, the contributors offer critical perspectives on the liberal structure of modern international society and places international liberalism into a global context by examining responses to liberalism in China, India and the Middle East.

Ravi Dutt Bajpai examines some of the pivotal episodes in the modern history of China and India to argue that their behaviours reflect the self-identity of a civilization-state. The book starts from the progression of China and India into putatively modern polities during the colonial period, as the two indigenous societies imagined their national identities and nationalist aspirations primarily by contrasting their civilizational attributes with the Western colonial occupiers. As newly independent nation-states, both believed that their international status flowed from their civilizational glories. Therefore, despite their material and institutional fragility, China and India decided to pursue complete autonomy to manage their domestic and foreign affairs. Indian Prime Minister Nehru's policy of non-alignment, envisioning an alternate world order beyond the great power competition, was inspired by Indian civilizational ethos. The book also examines the Sino-Indian war of 1962 from a civilization-state perspective and argues that Tibet represented a conflict of civilizational influence. Chapters also explore some of the more recent developments, such as the Indian nuclear test of 1998, China's ambitious Belt and Road (BRI) infrastructure project aimed at reviving the ancient Silk Road, and India's campaign to regain its civilizational status of Vishwa Guru, as the continued manifestations of the two civilization-states endeavouring to regain their past glories in the contemporary world.