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The Eastern International traces how the concept "East" (Vostok) was used by the world's first communist state and its mediators to project, channel, and contest power across Eurasia. It highlights the roles played in this process by Jewish activists, Arab intellectuals, and Central Asian politicians and artists.

Drawing on new data from 100 recent elections, post-election surveys, and original experimental evidence, Alessandro Nai and Jürgen Maier provide the first large-scale comparative investigation into the "darker" sides of human personality in politicians. They show that dark traits are acutely present in populists, go hand in hand with more aggressive forms of campaign rhetoric, and are particularly appreciated by voters with dark personality traits. Dark traits can sometimes be electorally successful, and tend to be associated with a better economic performance. However, dark leaders can lead to increased cynicism in the public, democratic deconsolidation, and even a poorer response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Overall, Dark Politics provides a new way to understand contemporary politics by looking at the crucial role of dark personality traits in leaders and voters

"This book is a comprehensive exploration of the multifaceted nature of China's presence in Southeast Asia, shedding light on not only the influences it exerts on the region, but also the unintended consequences that have arisen as a result. It argues that to truly understand China's relationship with Southeast Asia and the implications of that relationship, it is necessary to delve beyond a narrow focus on the Chinese state and instead examine the everyday forms of China's presence in the region. The book contends that traditional state-level analyses often overlook the impact of non-state actors from China, such as private businesses and Chinese migrants, whose actions can significantly influence perceptions of China in Southeast Asia. By broadening the scope of analysis to include these actors, the book seeks to offer a more nuanced understanding of China's presence in the region. In addition, the book highlights the importance of considering the unanticipated consequences that have resulted from China's presence in Southeast Asia. By exploring the unexpected ways in which China's actions have affected the region, the book emphasizes the need for a more holistic and nuanced approach to understanding China's relationship with Southeast Asia. Overall, the book seeks to offer a more comprehensive and nuanced perspective on China's complex presence in Southeast Asia, highlighting the need to look beyond the Chinese state and take into account the everyday actions of non-state actors, as well as the unanticipated consequences that have arisen as a result of China's presence in the regioy n."

Although the world has experienced many epidemics, the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) is exactly that - novel. The impacts on society's way of life, education, family, and economy are drastic. As a result, people seek explanations that have answers rooted in social science. 'The Social Science of the COVID-19 Pandemic' draws on theories derived from the social sciences to address the multitude of questions raised by the pandemic and to inspire a future generation of researchers. This book focuses specifically on the social science of a pandemic. While medical, health, and other sciences are critical to understanding a pandemic, so, too, is understanding the role of society and person. Together, psychology and society shape every aspect of life, and the COVID-19 pandemic is no exception to this pattern. Parts of society - and science - will be forever affected.

In When Peacekeeping Missions Collide, Paul F. Diehl, Daniel Druckman, and Grace B. Mueller provide an original and comprehensive assessment on how different peacekeeping missions intersect with one another in contemporary conflicts. They begin by documenting the patterns of peacekeeping missions in 70 UN operations, noting the dramatic increase in number and diversity of operations since the end of the Cold War as well as the shift to conflicts with a substantial internal conflict component. They then turn to the overarching question of the book: how do individual peacekeeping missions impact the outcomes of other missions within the same operations? To answer this, the authors have developed a novel dataset of UN peace operations from 1946-2016 to assess mission compatibility. Moreover, the authors utilize five detailed case studies of UN peacekeeping operations featuring mission interdependence and then measure the results against their theoretical expectations.

"This introductory chapter opens with a description of the National Center for Transgender Equality's (NCTE) work on the day President Donald J. Trump announced his ban on transgender military service. In doing so, it illustrates in brief the range of communicative activities practiced by NCTE and how they fit together into a coherent set of strategic practices aimed at saturating the communication system with voices in support of transgender equality. Building on this example, the chapter analyzes how the transition to a networked public sphere and related changes in the structure of the contemporary communication system have required social movements to develop of new activism strategies. In encapsulating the system-level argument in one extended case, this chapter sets the stage for the rest of the book to unfold by taking apart and deeply analyzing the system's component pieces"--

"Flexible Authoritarianism examines the nature of regimes that incentivize individual personal growth and creative thinking while simultaneously repressing political freedom. Both neoliberal techniques and authoritarian practices inform the governmental style that characterizes this kind of regime. The book conveys the look and feel of flexible authoritarianism in Russia and its reception by those who experience the regime first-hand. It demonstrates how flexible authoritarianism is stabilized ideologically by the insignia of cool start-up capitalism, by familiar cultural forms such as the summer camp, and by the authoritarian practices of actors in politics, business, and civic life. The author's approach combines bottom-up and top-down perspectives, drawing on field observations, in-depth interviews, and analyses of documents and video clips. The book critically evaluates how loyalty to a flexible authoritarian regime is produced and contested in Russia among young people who appear likely to occupy key positions in politics, business, the public sector, and creative industries, and who thereby may support the regime in the future. While these potential strategic elites strive to attain the kinds of conveniences enjoyed by middle classes in economically prosperous states and are outspoken in their critique of corruption and favoritism in their country, they also accept and amplify the Russian government's practice of blaming poverty and slow development on passivity, indifference to the common good, and a lack of patriotism among ordinary citizens, rather than on self-serving indifference in the higher echelons of power"--

In recent years fewer young people make a smooth and linear transition to adulthood, and their lives seem to be characterised by instabilities and lack of commitment. However, when approaching the age of 30, the majority of young people are likely to have settled down. This book addresses how the gap between the instabilities and fluctuations of the 20s and the settling down when approaching the 30s is bridged.

International Cooperation Against All Odds: The Ultrasocial World recasts how we understand international relations through an examination of how the human evolutionary predisposition to be "ultrasocial" as a species impacts which political ideas succeed, transform, manipulate, and inspire on a global scale. At a time when pessimism about our current world order is at an all-time high, this book overturns widespread assumptions that international relations is mainly about conflict, power, and national self-interest. In the last 10-20 years, scientists have discovered that as a species, we are biologically hard-wired, soft-wired, and pre-wired to be other-regarding and cooperative. Humans are an ultrasocial species, and yet this predisposition is completely ignored in governments across the world. Political leaders, experts, and the media have cultivated a myopic vision of global conflict, feeding an obsession on crises of the moment, rather than recognizing frequent and significant breakthroughs in peaceful cooperation and overall trends in the decline of violence. This book shows how time and time again our ultrasocial predisposition has pushed us towards big ideas that inspire and bring us together around the power of possibility. Featuring original research on international cooperation in outer-space exploration, European Union integration, nuclear weapons, and climate change, among other examples, Mai'a K. Davis Cross shows ultrasociality at work in a range of contexts. Tracing the path from social neuroscience and evolutionary biology (among others) to the power of ideas to international agreements, International Cooperation Against All Odds opens up an entirely new understanding of world politics. If we recognize our nature as a species and the potential we have to work together, we can start to transform institutions, and devise policies that take advantage of this. The book ends with a roadmap to promote more international cooperation, and eventually, a more stable, peaceful world order.

"Most of us chose social work because of our interest in improving how we treat one another in our society and helping individuals reach their potential. In short, we want to change situations for the better. Change is a critical part of social work. Change is a process that social workers help individuals, communities, or systems we work with go through so that we can evolve into a better place. But what is "better?" We will likely have different opinions on what form change for the better should take. Yet we are all social workers - shouldn't we have the same vision or strive for the same goals?"--

In "Repression in the Digital Age", Anita R. Gohdes provides an in-depth look into the relationship between digital technologies and state violence. Drawing on original data, Gohdes argues that mass access to the Internet presents governments who fear for their political survival with a set of response options, which in turn support different forms of violence by state forces. As digital communication has become a bedrock of modern opposition and protest movements, Repression in the Digital Age breaks new ground in examining state repression in the information age.

"Foreign services globally are undergoing fundamental and rapid gendered change, spurred on by shifting social and governance norms and even the adoption of an explicit feminist foreign policy in some stages. For some, this has resulted in women's rapidly increasingly representation at the frontlines of global governance. Yet, compounded by COVID-19, a rise in right-wing misogyny and extremism, and sometimes archaically slow-moving institutions, progress is marred by women's continued, entrenched under-representation in leadership and devastating experiences of challenges that have in some cases increased, not decreased, in recent years. Women remain frequently side-lined, marginalised, under-valued, and overlooked in international affairs. In short, international affairs has a gender problem, and remains one of the worst-performing sectors of the state. After studying women's leadership and gender relations across four international affairs agencies spanning diplomacy, defence, national security, policing, and intelligence, this book contributes empirical data from the last 30+ years on women's representation in a leading case context - Australia - to understand the disconnect between pockets of progress and undercurrents of resistance. Australia is a global leader in terms of representation of women and policy supports for gender equality in governance. Yet, Australia also demonstrates how deeply gendered, racialized, and heteronormative international institutions remain. Through in-depth interviews with almost 80 global leaders, including with Australia's first female prime minister, Julia Gillard, and first female foreign minister, Julie Bishop, this book delivers a much-needed Intersectional Feminist Institutionalist approach to trace the evolution of inequalities in international affairs and interrogate why women still remain under-represented in international affairs"--

In 'Farmed Out', Clare R. Brock uses U.S. agricultural policy as a vehicle to explain how the rapidly polarising political environment has altered the role of interest groups in Washington. Drawing on over two decades of lobbying behaviour data in the agricultural sector, Brock argues that polarisation has given interest groups greater influence over policy content, particularly among their ideological and partisan allies. Brock makes an important and original contribution to our understanding of how interest groups now operate within a context of heightened partisanship, lengthened time horizons, and declining institutional capacity.