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This chapter examines how environmental issues have become increasingly prominent on the international agenda over the last five decades. It considers whether globalization and development must come at the expense of the physical environment, whether state governments can cooperate to protect the planet, and whether climate justice is possible. The chapter first provides a brief history of the development of an international environmental agenda before discussing the functions of international environmental cooperation. It then explores efforts to address the problem of climate change through the establishment of an international climate regime and highlights the neglect of environmental issues in traditional and realist international relations theory. Two case studies are presented, one dealing with the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) and the other the geopolitics of Arctic climate change.

This chapter examines international feminism, focusing on whether feminist international relations theories are necessary for understanding international politics, what basis feminist international relations theories provide for understanding international politics, and how feminist international relations theories have influenced the practice of international politics. The chapter proceeds by explaining feminism and feminist international relations theory as well as feminist conceptions of gender and power. It also discusses four feminist international relations theories: liberal feminist international relations, critical feminist international relations, postcolonial feminist international relations, and poststructural feminist international relations. Two case studies of women's organizations are presented: the Women's International League of Peace and Freedom and the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan.

This chapter provides a broad overview of the international system between the end of the cold war—when many claimed that liberalism and the West had triumphed—through to the second decade of the twenty-first century, when the West itself and the liberal economic order it had hitherto promoted appeared to be coming under increased pressure from political forces at home and new challenges abroad. But before turning to the present, the chapter looks at some of the key developments since 1989—including the Clinton presidency, the George W. Bush administration's foreign policy following the attacks of 9/11, the 2008 financial crash, the crisis in Europe, the transitions taking place in the global South, the origins of the upheavals now reshaping the Middle East, the political shift from Barack Obama to Donald Trump, the emergence of Asia, and the rise of China. The chapter then concludes by examining two big questions: first, is power now shifting away from the West, and second, to what extent does the current wave of populism in the West threaten globalization and the liberal order?

This chapter examines the power of gender in global politics. It considers the different ways in which gender shapes world politics today, whether men dominate global politics at the expense of women, and whether international—and globalized—gender norms should be radically changed, and if so, how. The chapter also discusses sex and gender in international perspective, along with global gender relations and the gendering of global politics, global security, and the global economy. The first case study in this chapter considers the Kurdish Yekîneyên Parastine Jin (Women's Protection Units) and the role of women in political violence. The second case study examines neo-slavery and care labour in Asia.

This chapter looks at public health on a global scale and examines how crucial this topic has become since the recent Covid-19 pandemic. Global political interest in pandemics, the chapter argues, is about much more than just the threat to health and lives. It is also about the knock-on impact health emergencies, such as the recent pandemic, have on economics and society including social welfare and education, but also socio-economic, gender, and racial equality. The chapter starts with an examination of how health became a global issue with reference in particular to the relationship between war and disease. In addition to this, health became a global issues as a result of the growth in world trade and the resultant economic globalization. Two case studies are presented in this chapter. The first consider the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1308 and the second delves into the relationship between Covid-19 vaccinations and intellectual property rights.

This chapter introduces the field of international political economy (IPE), the themes and insights of which are reflected in the global political economy (GPE), and what it offers in the study of contemporary globalization. It begins with three framing questions: How should we think about power in the contemporary global political economy? How does IPE help us to understand what drives globalization? What does IPE tell us about who wins and who loses from globalization? The chapter proceeds by discussing various approaches to IPE and the consequences of globalization, focusing on IPE debates about inequality, labour exploitation, and global migration. Two case studies are presented, the first looking at global value chains (GVCs) and global development and the second dealing with globalization and child labour.

This chapter explores important issues in the conduct of global trade and global finance. In particular, it looks at how the Covid-19 pandemic has changed the experience of global trade and global finance in recent years. It asks why the global economy is so good at allowing some people to own untold riches while many others have too little money to meet basic subsistence needs, and whether the world would be better or worse off without the institutions of global economic governance. After discussing the globalization of trade and finance, the chapter considers the regulation of global trade and global finance. Two case studies are presented, one dealing with the Covid-19 vaccination programme and global economic recovery and another looking at US President Joe Biden's proposed global minimum corporate tax rate.

This chapter examines the characteristics of contemporary globalization and how they are reshaping world politics. It argues that both the Covid-19 pandemic and climate change are indicative of just how deeply enmeshed the fate of communities and societies across the world has become, not to mention how globalization simultaneously unifies and divides the world. It explains why globalization challenges some of our traditional ways of thinking and theorizing about world politics. It asks whether there are limits to globalization or whether it is inevitable. It also considers the extent to which globalization is responsible for the emerging shift in the structure of world power, namely the ‘decline of the West’ and the ‘rise of the rest’. Two case studies are presented: one is about global food security and the other is about multicentric globalization.

This chapter looks at human rights, analysing the structure and politics of human rights in the twenty-first century. In particular, the chapter examines the influence of liberal internationalism on human rights and how this is shaped by the legacies of colonialism, slavery, apartheid, and engagements with sexual, religious, and racial differences. The chapter encourages questions about whether rights are universal instruments of emancipation, or whether the rights are more complex, contradictory, and contingent in their functioning. The chapter also sets out the dominant understandings of human rights as progressive, universal, and based on a common human subject. Human rights advocates sometimes differ on the strategies to be adopted to address violations; these can have material, normative, and structural consequences that are not always empowering. These competing positions are illustrated through two case studies: one on the Islamic veil bans in Europe and the second on same-sex, queer relationships, LGBTQ rights, and colonial laws.

This chapter examines the role of humanitarian intervention in world politics. It considers how we should resolve tensions when valued principles such as order, sovereignty, and self-determination come into conflict with human rights; and how international thought and practice has evolved with respect to humanitarian intervention. The chapter discusses the case for and against humanitarian intervention and looks at humanitarian activism during the 1990s. It also analyses the responsibility to protect principle and the use of force to achieve its protection goals in Libya in 2011. Two case studies are presented in this chapter. The first one looks at Myanmar and barriers to intervention. The second one centres on the role of Middle Eastern governments in Operation Unified Protector which took place in 2011 in Libya.

This chapter examines whether international relations, especially in an era of increasing globalization, are likely to be as violent in the future as they have been in the past. It asks whether globalization increases or decreases international security, which international relations theories best help to provide an understanding of global security and insecurity, and what are the most important contemporary threats to international security. The chapter first considers existing disagreements about the causes of war and whether violence is always likely to remain with us. It then discusses traditional/classical realist and more contemporary neorealist and neoliberal perspectives on international security, along with a range of alternative approaches. It also explores recent debates about globalization and geopolitics. Case studies in this chapter explore insecurity in the post-cold war world and tension in the South and East China Seas.

This chapter focuses on some of the principal developments in world politics from 1900 to 1999: the development of total war, the advent of nuclear weapons, the onset of cold war, and the end of European imperialism. It shows how the confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union became the key dynamic in world affairs, replacing the dominance of—and conflict among—European states in the first half of the twentieth century. It also examines the ways that the cold war promoted or prevented global conflict, how decolonization became entangled with East–West conflicts, and how dangerous the nuclear confrontation between East and West was. Finally, the chapter considers the role of nuclear weapons in specific phases of the cold war, notably in détente, and then with the deterioration of Soviet–American relations in the 1980s.

This chapter examines debates surrounding the nature and efficacy of modern international law. It begins by discussing the reasons why international societies construct institutions, and why different sorts of institutions have emerged in different historical contexts. It then considers the nature and origins of the modern institution of international law, its relationship with the practice of multilateralism, and the recent cosmopolitanization of the global legal order. It also explores the laws of war and concludes with an overview of different theoretical approaches to international law such as realism, neoliberal institutionalism, and constructivism. Two case studies are presented: the first is about whether international law is an expression of Western dominance and the second is about individual criminal accountability in non-Western countries.

This chapter examines the role that international organizations play in world politics. It explains what international organizations are, whether we need international organizations in international relations, and what constraints and opportunities exist for international organizations to achieve their mandates. The chapter also considers the reasons why states create international organizations and how we can analyse the behaviour of such organizations. Two case studies are presented: the first looks at Africa's premier financial institution which is the African Development Bank which was created in 1964 to facilitate regional cooperation and financial autonomy and the second considers ‘non-liberal’ IOs with a specific examination of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation.

This chapter introduces the text which offers a comprehensive analysis of world politics in a global era. The text examines the main theories of world politics— realism, liberalism, Marxism, social constructivism, poststructuralism, post-colonialism, and feminism. It reviews the main structures and processes that shape contemporary world politics, such as global political economy, international security, war, gender, and race. Furthermore, it addresses some of the main policy issues in the globalized world, including poverty, human rights, health (with particular emphasis on the recent global pandemic), and the environment. This introduction offers some arguments both for and against seeing globalization as an important new development in world politics. It also explains the various terms used to describe world politics and the academic field, particularly the use of ‘world politics’ rather than ‘international politics’ or ‘international relations’. Finally, it summarizes the main assumptions underlying realism, liberalism, Marxism, social constructivism, post-structuralism, post-colonialism, and feminism.

This chapter examines the core assumptions of liberalism regarding world politics. It explores why liberals believe in progress, what explains the ascendancy of liberal ideas in world politics since 1945, and whether liberal solutions to global problems are hard to achieve and difficult to sustain. The chapter also considers central ideas in liberal thinking on international relations, including internationalism, idealism, and institutionalism. It concludes with an assessment of the challenges confronting liberalism. Two case studies are presented. The first case study looks at the rise and fall of what it terms ‘the indispensable nation’, in other words the old liberal world order, lead by the United States. The other case study examines the African concept of sovereignty: sovereignty as responsibility.

This chapter examines the contribution of Marxism to the study of international relations. It first considers whether globalization is a new phenomenon or a long-standing feature of capitalist development, and whether ‘crisis’ is an inevitable feature of capitalism, and if so, whether capitalism contains the seeds of its own destruction. The chapter proceeds by discussing a number of core features common to Marxist approaches as well as the internationalization of Karl Marx's ideas by Vladimir Lenin and subsequently by writers in the world-system framework. It also explains how Frankfurt School critical theory, and Antonio Gramsci and his various followers, introduced an analysis of culture into Marxist analysis. Two case studies are presented, the first relating to capitalist developments in Communist China, the second looks at the global Covid-19 pandemic and considers the social impact and patterns of impact in a global setting.

This chapter examines the role of nationalism and national self-determination (NSD) in shaping the major institution of modern international relations: the nation-state. It considers different types of nationalism and how they vary from one another, whether the commonly accepted sequence of nation > nationalism > nation-state is actually the reverse of the normal historical sequence, and whether the principle of NSD is compatible with that of state sovereignty. The chapter also explores the contribution of nationalism to the globalization of world politics and the changing meanings of NSD since 1918. Three case studies of nationalism are presented: Germany, India, and Yugoslavia. There follows one more case study that focuses on nationalisms in South Africa, making a distinction from South African nationalism.

This chapter examines the role of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in world politics. It considers what distinguishes NGOs from other actors in international politics, what types of influence NGOs exert in international relations, and whether NGOs contribute to more democratic policy-making at the international level. The chapter also discusses the growing importance of NGOs and presents two case studies that illustrate how they have contributed to the emergence of new norms through their engagement with international governmental organizations (IGOs). The first case study pitches Friends of the Earth against Royal Dutch Shell to show how NGOs have impacted on climate change law. The second case study focuses on the #BlackLivesMatter movement.