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"This book argues that China's Belt and Road Initiative should be seen more as a geopolitical project and less as a global economic project, with China aiming to bring about a new Chinese-led international order. It contends that China's international approach has two personas - an aggressive one, focusing on a nineteenth century-style territorial empire, which is applied to Taiwan and the seas adjacent to China; and a new-style persona, based on relationship building with the political elites of countries in the Global South, relying on large scale infrastructure projects to help secure the elites in power, a process often leading to lower democratic participation and weaker governance structures. It also shows how this relationship building with elites leads to an acceptance of Chinese norms and to changes in states' geopolitical preferences and foreign policies to align them with China's geopolitical interests, with states thereby joining China's emerging international order. Overall, the book emphasises that this new-style, non-territorial "empire" building based on relationships is a major new development in international relations, not fully recognised and accounted for by international relations experts and theorists"--

"Globalizations from Below uses a Constructivist International Relations approach that emphasizes the centrality of normative power to analyze and compare the four globalizations 'from below'. These are: (1) the counter-hegemonic globalization represented by the 'movement of movements' of alter-globalization transnational social activists, who try to put an end to the Neoliberal nature of the Western-centered globalization 'from above;' (2) the non-hegemonic globalization enacted by 'ant traders' that are part of the transnational informal economy; (3) the partially similar Chinese-centered globalization, whose entrepreneurial migrants are strongly influenced and instrumentalized by the Chinese state; and (4) the first wave globalization 'from below' that paralleled (and outlived) the 1870-1914 globalization 'from above.' This book identifies their common features and uses them to define the concept of globalization 'from below' as a set of socio-economic or socio-political processes that involve large transnational flows of people, goods, and/or ideas characterized at least in part by informality. They are enacted by entrepreneurial or activistic individuals who either take advantage of the normative power of the hegemon at the origin of an international order and an associated globalization 'from above,' or - explicitly or implicitly - transgress, contest, and try to redefine dominant economic, legal, political, and socio-cultural norms, thus challenging the existing international order and globalization 'from above.' By constructing a unified theoretical framework, this book attempts to open a new field of interdisciplinary research that should take globalizations 'from below' out of their current scholarly marginality. This is one of the first scholarly works to collectively present more than one globalization 'from below,' and will be of great interest to students, scholars, and researchers of International Relations, International Political Economy, Development Studies, Economic History, Anthropology, Diaspora Studies, and Chinese Studies"--

"This book analyzes the Chinese-centered globalization 'from below' brought about by China's entrepreneurial migrants and conceived of as a projection of Chinese power in the Belt and Road Initiative partner states. It identifies the features of this globalization 'from below,' scrutinizes its mutually reinforcing relationship with China's globalization 'from above,' and shows that these two globalizations are intrinsically related to the construction of a Chinese-centered international order. It outlines how the actors in China's globalization 'from below' include Chinese emigrants who are located in informal transnational economic networks. It reveals that Beijing has enacted many laws that concern these emigrants and their duty to contribute to the development of their country of origin; and that China is ready to impose harsh punitive actions on political elites in partner states which fail to protect its migrants or limit their economic activities. Finally, it argues that China's globalization 'from below' is fundamentally different from the non-hegemonic globalization 'from below' represented by, among others, Lebanese and East Indian traders, and that rather China's globalization 'from below' is a self-interested national strategy intended to support the construction of a Chinese-centered international order."

Globalizations from Below uses a Constructivist International Relations approach that emphasizes the centrality of normative power to analyze and compare the four globalizations from below.' These are: (1) the counter-hegemonic globalization represented by the movement of movements' of alter-globalization transnational social activists, who try to put an end to the Neoliberal nature of the Western-centered globalization from above'; (2) the non-hegemonic globalization enacted by ant traders' that are part of the transnational informal economy; (3) the partially similar Chinese-centered globalization, whose entrepreneurial migrants are strongly influenced and instrumentalized by the Chinese state; and (4) the first wave globalization from below' that paralleled (and outlived) the 1870-1914 globalization from above.' This book identifies their common features and uses them to define the concept of globalization from below' as a set of socio-economic or socio-political processes that involve large transnational flows of people, goods, and/or ideas characterized at least in part by informality. They are enacted by entrepreneurial or activistic individuals who either take advantage of the normative power of the hegemon at the origin of an international order and an associated globalization from above,' or -explicitly or implicitly -transgress, contest, and try to redefine dominant economic, legal, political, and socio-cultural norms, thus challenging the existing international order and globalization from above.' By constructing a unified theoretical framework, this book attempts to open a new field of interdisciplinary research that should take globalizations from below' out of their current scholarly marginality. This is one of the first scholarly works to collectively present more than one globalization from below,' and will be of great interest to students, scholars, and researchers of International Relations, International Political Economy, Development Studies, Economic History, Anthropology, Diaspora Studies, and Chinese Studies.

This book analyzes the combined consequences of Brexit and of the new US foreign policy under President Trump on the geopolitical situation of Eastern Europe. It perceives the evolution of the East European regional security complex as a struggle between the European Union's Kantian, win-win geopolitical vision and Russia's neoclassical geopolitics, also promoted by President Trump. In the most probable scenario, the latter approach will have the upper hand. The EU's post-Brexit control by the Franco-German axis will likely be followed by the geopolitical irrelevance of the EU due to the renationalization of member states' foreign policy, with Germany becoming the main West European actor. Consequently, Eastern Europe will be turned into the arena of a mainly three-cornered neoclassical geopolitics rivalry opposing Russia, the Franco-German axis and then Germany, and the US in alliance with the post-Brexit UK and certain East European states. The book will appeal to scholars across the fields of International Relations, Geopolitics, European Studies, and Area Studies

This article introduces the concept of a "valve" state as an instrument in the study of transit migration. A "valve" state is defined as a transit state that, due to its geographical position, to a specific regional political and geopolitical configuration and to key changes in its migration control policies, can play a decisive role in significantly shaping regional transit migratory flows. The case study of the 2015 Balkan migratory wave is used to show that this phenomenon was triggered by policy changes in two "valve" states, Greece and Macedonia, that challenged the externalisation and securitisation policies of the European Union. Developments in the first part of 2016 are also taken into consideration in order to show the role of "valve" states in putting an end to the migratory wave. Critically, this was due to the creation of a new "valve" state, Turkey, as part of Brussels' regime of influence.

This article tries to advance the theoretical study of non-alignment through the use of a political psychology-based approach related to the important but seldom mentioned influence of political leaders' personality traits on the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM). Key non-aligned leaders were highly charismatic and voluntaristic individuals whose personality features clearly impacted the creation and development of the NAM. The article analyses the case of Fidel Castro, whose efforts to shape the non-alignment process were particularly important during the 1960s and the 1970s. A close causal relationship is identified between the features of Castro's revolutionary totalitarian personality—which include revolutionary spirit, charisma, narcissistic desire for power and prestige, and 'evangelistic' foreign policy style—and his actions intended to radicalize non-alignment. The case study of the Cuban leader suggests that the systematic analysis of the personality traits of key non-aligned leaders would provide a useful perspective on the evolution of the NAM.

Using the concept of reciprocal socialization, this article argues that the Damascus–Moscow partnership has been since 1970 a reciprocal constitutive relation that has influenced considerably the actions, interests, and identities of the two partners. During the last two decades of the Cold War it represented an almost ideal-type example of a relationship between a super-power and its regional ally that, through its complex consequences, shaped significantly the two partners themselves, the Middle Eastern political and security environment, and the international system as a whole. Post-2003 developments and especially the present Syrian crisis also have influenced considerably the two states' identity-building processes. After the US invasion of Iraq, the patterns of renewed bilateral cooperation have mirrored, at least in part, the Cold War ones. The Arab Spring enforced this trend. Yet, today the International Relations identity of Russia is quite different from the Soviet era one. The main consequence is that Moscow's new identity prevents it from supporting the regime in Damascus at any cost. If military operations take a turn threatening seriously the survival of that regime, it is likely that the Kremlin will not escalate its pro-al-Asad involvement, thus accepting the possible fall of its Middle Eastern ally.

This article compares the surprisingly similar personalities and political trajectories of Adolf Hitler and Fidel Castro in order to define a specific, 'revolutionary totalitarian' type of personality. This is a union of authoritarian personality, revolutionary tendencies, and genuine charisma. Moreover, it can develop only in a modern context allowing the creation of an effective personality cult. Politically, its outcome is a revolutionary transformation of state and society leading to the establishment of a new system of values paralleled by the imposition of a new, totalitarian order. Ironically, the consolidation of the new regime leads to the complete dissolution of the leader's revolutionary tendency, which is preserved only in foreign policy. There, however, it can lead to extremely serious military consequences.