This edited volume examines the relationship between journalism, democracy, and disinformation in contemporary Europe.

Drawing on original empirical research with journalists and media regulators, it provides a timely analysis of the European Union's evolving regulatory response to disinformation and media pluralism, while foregrounding the perspectives of those directly involved in interpreting and implementing these changes. Through a comparative study of seven countries-Spain, Italy, Norway, Iceland, Croatia, Poland, and Bulgaria-the book explores how media actors across diverse political, institutional, and regulatory contexts understand and respond to post-truth politics. In doing so, it investigates whether a shared European normative space around journalism, media freedom, and democracy is beginning to take shape.

This book will be of interest to students, scholars, and practitioners in European studies, media studies, journalism, political communication, and cultural sociology.

Thinkers for a Complex Age offers a sustained engagement with key figures in modern and contemporary political and social thought in order to address one of the central problems of our time: how normative judgement remains possible after the collapse of philosophical foundations. Moving from Kant, Nietzsche, and Heidegger through Foucault, Deleuze, Butler, and Latour, and on to contemporary debates in political theory, ecology, and governance, the book reconstructs a mode of critical inquiry that is at once genealogical, relational, and normatively oriented.

Organised into six thematic sections, the book traces a clear conceptual progression across traditions and debates, from genealogies of the modern subject through poststructural, materialist, ecological, and institutional approaches to contemporary questions of justice and freedom. Each chapter provides a focused engagement with a major thinker, identifying both their key contributions and their limits, while contributing to an overarching argument. The book's modular structure and its substantial annotated bibliography also make it especially well suited for advanced teaching, offering readers a coherent orientation across complex intellectual terrain.

Against both foundational moral theory and post-foundational scepticism, it advances a distinctive account of "life continuance" as an immanent basis for ethical and political judgement-one grounded not in universal principles, but in the conditions that sustain agency, institutions, and collective life over time. Bringing together insights from continental philosophy, political theory, and contemporary social thought, this book offers a compelling framework for thinking ethics, freedom, and governance in an age marked by ecological crisis, technological transformation, and global interdependence. It will be of interest to scholars and students in political theory, philosophy, education, and the social sciences more broadly.

This book explores the evolution and impact of deliberative democracy in East Asia, focusing on Taiwan, South Korea, and Japan through a deliberative systems framework.

Democratization and democratic development in the region are intertwined with social movements, public participation, institutional reform, and deliberative innovation. The book highlights how deliberative democracy can transform politics, inform policymaking, and strengthen democratic governance, while also exploring the integration of deliberation with digital technologies and artificial intelligence to advance democratic innovations. Drawing on practical experiences, it demonstrates how democratic deliberation can shift public attitudes, shape policy, and address complex challenges.

Essential reading for students and scholars of East Asian politics and deliberative democracy, The Transformative Power of Deliberative Democracy in East Asia is also invaluable for political and social scientists interested in comparative democracy, public governance, and public participation in science and technology.

With this book, Morris Bosin offers a phenomenological approach to understanding democracy, not as a static system of institutions, but as a lived experience shaped by perception, participation, and meaning making. In an era marked by polarization, civic disengagement, and algorithmic influence over public discourse, this perspective provides a fresh lens for exploring how individuals and communities experience democratic life. Rather than focusing solely on laws and procedures, the book examines how citizens feel freedom, legitimacy, and collective will in everyday contexts and how alienation from these experiences fuels disaffection.

Drawing on continental philosophy, Bosin engages thinkers such as Levinas, Merleau-Ponty, Husserl, and Arendt to illuminate the existential dimensions of democratic theory. He argues that repairing democracy requires more than institutional reform; it demands attention to how democracy is lived. Through narrative, case studies, and conceptual analysis, Bosin explores how phenomenology can help bridge divides, foster dialogue, and uncover shared meaning across ideological lines.

Aimed at scholars in political theory, philosophy of democracy, critical theory, and existential thought, this interdisciplinary work contributes to a growing field of inquiry. It invites readers to rethink democracy not just as a structure, but as a dynamic, felt reality, one that must be understood to be renewed.

Nondualism in International Relations: A Methodological Reconstruction Beyond Binaries examines how International Relations (IR) has long been structured by binary thinking-inside/outside, self/other, West/non-West, hierarchy/anarchy, and theory/practice. While recent approaches, including Global IR, have sought to pluralise the field, they often retain a methodological commitment to separability, treating analytical units as pre-given or historically constituted discrete entities.

The book uses Global IR as an entry point, arguing that overcoming binary thinking requires not the addition of new perspectives but a reorientation at the level of methodology. Advancing nondualism as a basis for the methodological reconstruction of IR, the volume brings together contributions that develop distinct nondualist methodological models across core domains of enquiry, including space, time, meaning, logic, order, ethics, gender, and identity. Each chapter follows a shared analytical sequence: identifying dualist limitations, developing a nondualist methodological model, and demonstrating its practical implications. These approaches are illustrated through engagements with issues such as territoriality, temporal ordering, cross-cultural interpretation, environmental governance, international order, conflict and reconciliation, gendered political processes, migration, and uneven global development. By shifting the focus from epistemic pluralism to methodological reconstruction, the book advances a Lakatosian nondualist IR research programme with implications beyond the discipline, extending to wider debates across the social sciences and humanities. It offers a systematic approach to analysing complex political formations without reducing them to fixed categories or either-or logics.

Nondualism in International Relations will be of interest to scholars and students of International Relations and Global IR, as well as those working in political theory, sociology, anthropology, history, philosophy, and human geography.

Key Features:

• Delineates the Schengen territory, including the status of associated countries
• Analyses the institutional framework of Schengen, its enlargement, and its substantive scope
• Explains the historical tensions and controversies surrounding Schengen as a laboratory for European integration and its integration into the EU legal framework
• Provides an in-depth analysis of all instruments forming part of the Schengen acquis, including internal border controls, databases such as the Schengen Information System, and walls and fences at the EU's external borders, as well as police cooperation

The Law of Schengen is an invaluable resource for lawyers specialising in European law and NGO professionals looking to develop their understanding of the Schengen acquis. EU officials from the European Commission, the Council of the European Union, and the European Parliament, as well as European law practitioners, will similarly benefit from its comprehensive analysis.

Discourses of War, Media and Politics in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict examines how language, media, and political narratives shape understandings of one of the world's most contested conflicts.

Moving beyond military and diplomatic analyses, this book explores the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a struggle over meaning, legitimacy, and historical interpretation. Through interdisciplinary approaches to discourse analysis, the contributors investigate how terms such as "occupation," "terrorism," "resistance," "security," and "genocide" have been contested, reframed, and politicised across different historical moments. The volume demonstrates how discourse does not simply describe political realities, but actively constructs them by shaping public perceptions, moral evaluations, and the boundaries of political possibility. Bringing together established and emerging scholars from around the world, the book provides critical analyses of the narratives, media representations, and ideological frameworks that continue to influence debates surrounding violence, justice, and human rights in Israel/Palestine.

This book will appeal to scholars and students of media studies, political communication, discourse analysis, Middle East politics, and conflict studies, as well as readers interested in the relationship between language, power, and representation in contemporary global conflicts.

Drawing on regional case studies and spatially differentiated impacts, this book counters one-size-fits-all solutions, capturing the diversity of transition pathways, risks and opportunities across the EU. Expert authors evaluate the effectiveness of EU policies, emphasizing practical governance strategies, monitoring approaches and deliberative democracy as key factors in achieving sustainable and resilient regional development outcomes. Engaging with case studies from across Western and Eastern Europe and key governance challenges, this book proposes pathways for advancing transitions in future EU programming cycles.

Academics and students of human geography, public policy, environmental governance, EU studies and sustainability will appreciate the conceptual debates and empirical case studies this book offers. With its practical insights and evidence-based recommendations, policymakers and practitioners will also find it a useful tool for policy implementation.

Voluntarism and Self-Interest: Psychological Foundations and Panarchist Visions in Libertarian Anarchism investigates a central question in political philosophy: what, if anything, makes political authority legitimate? The book argues that theories of political legitimacy should be evaluated primarily in terms of their practical relevance-whether individuals have instrumental reasons to endorse them. Drawing on findings from experimental psychology about the prevalence of selfish motivations, it develops the claim that the most compelling theory of legitimacy must be one that effectively serves predominantly selfish desires.

Through a systematic analysis of competing accounts of legitimacy, the book argues that express consent theory offers the strongest fit with this motivational structure. It then explores the institutional implications of this conclusion by examining panarchist proposals for voluntary, non-territorial systems of governance that follow from a consistent application of consent theory.

Bringing together analytic political philosophy, conceptual analysis, experimental psychology, and the history of libertarian thought, this book will be of interest to scholars and students of political theory, political philosophy, anarchist studies, and libertarianism, as well as readers concerned with the foundations and future of political authority.

Adopting a spiritual history approach, this book traces the evolution of the concept of "New Women," which first emerged in China during the 1920s and 1930s. It reveals the profound significance of this concept, as well as the inherent tensions and losses involved in the creation of a modern Chinese identity.

Taking "leaving home" as its analytical starting point, the study examines the life histories and spiritual trajectories of "New Women" in Republican China. Although leaving home initiated their quest for independence, the question of "belonging" remained an ever-present shadow. Through a rigorous analysis of notable figures such as Ding Ling, Xie Bingying, and Xu Guangping, the book explores how this tension unfolded during significant historical events, including student movements, romantic relationships, revolutions, and material culture. The book argues that when "New Women" left home to resist arranged marriages, they sought alternative emotional support in new social relationships yet confronted new challenges. Ultimately, their spiritual history often led to two typical trajectories: Sublimation of the self through dedication to a "greater self" or a collective, or a descent into material consumption and the "bodily utopia" of self-decoration.

This volume will serve as an invaluable reference for scholars and students of modern Chinese history, Chinese feminism, and Chinese social history.

Cultivating the mystical experience and the contemplative traditions that underpin it can have profound ethical consequences.

By taking this path, alongside or instead of the analytic post-enlightenment route more familiar in the West, mysticism can shape the way that we relate our consciousness to our lived experience.

Contemporary society is a hostile place in which to hold onto ideas of hope, not least from an ethical standpoint. The anxiety that pervades this point in our shared history squeezes the opportunities to find escape or to reach a place beyond the immediate. Mysticism and Embodiment uses the body as a site from which to argue for a new understanding of this reality, framing transcendent experience in the context of existential phenomenology. In this context, the role of the mystical imagination comes to the fore, showing its immense value for individual and social healing, as well as our understanding of the other and how we can talk about new possibilities in ethical philosophy.

This handbook examines the implementation of the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda in the context of a rapidly evolving global security landscape.

Shifting away from 'hard security' models, this book demonstrates how gender-inclusive governance predicts state stability. Providing a truly global scope, with insights from nearly fifty countries, the work bridges theory and practice, showing that gender-responsive approaches are fundamental to security sector development, democratic institution-building, and navigating state fragility. Beyond traditional frameworks, the handbook addresses emerging challenges such as tech-facilitated online violence, AI, and climate change. It also offers critical analysis of the erosion of international human rights, highlighting the implications for national security and the protection of civilians. A core focus remains the integration of gender perspectives within military operations and security sector reform. The volume evaluates both international peacebuilding and military interventions, examining the practical complexities of operationalizing WPS in active conflict. Notably, the volume rejects gendered tropes to examine the full spectrum of women's agency-from institutional leaders and grassroots organizers to participants in political violence as insurgents and terrorists. By exploring these multifaceted realities, the volume reflects the true complexity of women's influence in global peace and conflict.

This book will be of much interest to students of peace and conflict studies, security studies, defence studies. gender studies and International Relations, as well as to defense and security practitioners.

By employing empirical evidence and diverse research methods, Wan highlights how concepts such as competition and selection, as well as evolutionary game theory, can be drivers within international relations. Chapters identify the global system and domestic politics, including political actors and political problems, as evolutionary products. Using the USA as an example, Wan also demonstrates an evolutionary narrative of institutional change and continuity. Finally, the book presents a compelling use case for this framework by adopting an evolutionary paradigm to discuss implications for the USA-China strategic rivalry.

Evolutionary Theory of International Politics provides valuable insights for scholars and students of international relations seeking a more in-depth understanding of global politics and the theories used to comprehend it. Specialists in international relations and political theory will also benefit from the evolutionary framework's treatment of pressing international issues.

Japanese Joinery and the Future of Timber: Fibre to Fibre explores the rich legacy of Japanese timber joinery and examines how advanced robotic timber fabrication methods can benefit from the ancient art of wood-only connections. It blends historical insights with captivating imagery and interviews with industry experts.
The book is split into three chapters, with each chapter further subdivided into sections. The first chapter reveals the secrets of traditional Japanese joinery, featuring ancient temples and expert craftsmen. The second chapter studies advanced fabricators and engineers in Europe who operate in the world of engineered timber construction but also choose to exploit timber-only connections in their work. The first two chapters contain case studies of two 7th century Japanese buildings and two 21st century Swiss buildings, the comparisons between them revealing similarities across the millennia. The third and final chapter features conversations with luminaries from the industry, including Pritzker Prize-winner Shigeru Ban, renowned architect Kengo Kuma, and Japan's most revered carpenter Mitsuo Ogawa. The book advocates for merging old techniques with new, aiming to design sustainable timber structures devoid of nails or screws. This approach not only reduces carbon footprint but also facilitates easier disassembly and reassembly, prolonging the lifespan of buildings and simplifying maintenance.
Japanese Joinery and the Future of Timber: Fibre to Fibre promises to enlighten readers with its poetic narrative, vivid photography, and engaging interviews, inspiring architects, engineers, and craftsmen to embrace timber-only joinery for a more sustainable future.

This book explores the possible routes to transform the current hostile dynamic between North Korea and South Korea into a lasting peace on the Korean Peninsula.

Through critical assessments of the current political and security conditions in the Korean Peninsula and Northeast Asia the book presents innovative ideas for peacebuilding, with a particular focus on denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula. Focusing on issues such as North Korea's nuclear proliferation, strategies for peaceful coexistence and a peace regime between the two Korean states, and the quest for peace and stability in Northeast Asia, the chapters examine the interests of the four surrounding powers concerning the Korean issue and their roles in establishing a peaceful regime in the Korean Peninsula and Northeast Asia. Providing expert scholarship from the United States, Korea, and Japan it provides novel information, diverse viewpoints, thoughtful analysis, and valuable insights on the issues surrounding the Korean Peninsula and security in Northeast Asia.

Highlighting the plausible pathways to establish a peace regime in both Korea and Northeast Asia, whilst considering the roles of neighbouring powers in this process this will be a valuable resource to students and scholars of Korean Politics, Security Studies, Peace Studies.

Is America in the midst of an electoral transformation? What were the sources of victory in 2024, and how do they differ from Republican and Democratic coalitions of the past? Does the Republican victory signal a long-term decline for Democrats' chances in presidential elections?
Change and Continuity in the 2024 Elections attempts to answer those questions by analyzing and explaining the voting behavior in the most recent election, as well as setting the results in the context of larger historical trends and patterns in elections studies. This top-notch author team meticulously explains the latest National Election Studies data and discusses its importance and impact. Readers will critically analyze a variety of variables such as the presidential and congressional elections, voter turnout, and the social forces, party loyalties, and prominent issues that affect voting behavior. Readers will walk away with a better understanding of this groundbreaking election and what those results mean for the future of American politics.

Russian Nationalism and the Russian-Ukrainian War, the first edition of which was published before Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, was the first book to integrate the roots of Russian military aggression against Ukraine and genocidal policies towards Ukraine with a study of Russian imperial nationalism. The text of this second, revised, updated and extended edition, provides a historical and contemporary understanding behind President Vladimir Putin Russia's obsession with Ukraine and the roots of Russia's invasions of Ukraine in 2014 and 2022.

The book investigates the inability of Russian imperial nationalism, from the time of the Tsarist Empire, throughout the era of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), and since the dissolution of the latter in 1991, to accept Ukraine as an independent country and Ukrainians as a people distinct and separate from Russians. The book highlights the sources of this lack of acceptance in a mythical pan-Russian nation composed of Great, Little, and White Russians (Russians, Ukrainians, Belarusians respectively). The book analyses why these Russian imperial nationalist myths led to the Kremlin's mistaken belief in a quick three-day victory of its so-called special military operation, which rather led to years of full-scale war.

Since the Civil Rights Movement of the mid-twentieth century, US election law has been characterized by an oft-bipartisan consensus that 1) the expansion of voting rights was a positive indicator of a healthy democratic republic and government, and 2) elections at the national, state, and local levels were well-protected from voter fraud and other electoral mischief.

Both of those long-held beliefs, though, are topics of heated national debate today. Many Americans have been misled about the facts by sustained campaigns of media misinformation and political partisanship. This book addresses that confusing state of affairs by detailing and explaining the objective facts and relevant laws concerning voter suppression, voter fraud, and disenfranchisement in America, past and present.

Emphasising the importance of intra-household investigation, contributors incorporate a range of methodological theories to address fundamental consumer topics. They demonstrate that consumer decisions are essential for correctly deriving economic quantitative evidence for social and policy issues. Illustrating how individual consumption habits can influence patterns on a regional and national level, entries provide an intergenerational overview of both household and population economics.

The Elgar Encyclopedia of Consumption is an essential resource for economists and sociology scholars, particularly those focusing on consumption and economic theory. It will also be of interest to market researchers and managers seeking to better understand the intricacies of consumer behaviour.

Key Features:

• Explores the economic and social impacts of consumer patterns
• Addresses methodological issues for economists attempting to analyse consumer behaviour
• Presents interdisciplinary entries that combine economic insights and their consequences on household social dynamics
• Evaluates topics from retirement to migration to provide an inclusive overview of purchaser behaviour

This book explores the existing limits of State aid law within the European Union. By examining the State aid acquis, the book provides a critical analysis of interpretative approaches to two key areas essential to the functioning of the State aid control system: when a measure constitutes State aid and the identification and assessment of its effects.

It argues that the perception of what law can realistically achieve is limited by the assumption that all processes are steerable and that lawmakers are entirely capable of achieving their results as long as they correctly identify causal links, as well as by an implied belief in the continued relevance of interpretative approaches even when they no longer fit evolving realities. The focus is on assessing how well-established interpretative approaches to Article 107 TFEU continue to function and whether they produce unintended consequences as economic conditions and forms of State interventionism evolve. It determines whether the identified limits of law are truly impassable in a complex environment and, where they are not, formulates realistic solutions to improve the functioning of the control system.

The book will be of interest to researchers and practitioners in the field of State aid law, competition law, economics and EU law.

This book offers a groundbreaking exploration of postqueer politics within the Indian context, reimagining queer theory and activism through an intersectional lens. Moving beyond the binary of queer and straight, it examines how queer epistemologies can address broader sociopolitical challenges, including majoritarian nationalism, caste and class stratification, Islamophobia, environmental crises, and mental health.

By interrogating colonial disruptions of indigenous sexual cultures and envisioning a postcolonial future of egalitarian coexistence, the book advocates for collaborative engagements between queer and non-queer actors to reshape India's social and political fabric. A key highlight is its innovative approach to queer theory, positioning queer perspectives as tools for disrupting mainstream norms and fostering inclusivity. The book introduces postqueer politics as a non-queer-inclusive worldview, emphasizing collaboration and intersectionality to liberate the most marginalized. It critiques exploitative hierarchies and advocates for queer futurism aligned with broader social justice commitments. Through nuanced analysis, it demonstrates how queer knowledge can empower individuals to challenge socio-cultural unfreedom and create a more equitable society.

Essential for those interested in sexuality, gender, and Indian politics, this book is a valuable resource for students in Gender and Sexuality Studies, Sociology, Political Science, Minority Studies, and Cultural Studies, particularly in courses on identity politics and intersectionality.

This collection of over fifty essays provides a comprehensive overview of the Pacific theater of World War II. Scholars and practitioners from around the globe unite their expertise to explore the interaction of the belligerents, with multiple chapters co-written by Japanese and American authors.

Part I provides the political, economic, military, strategic, and legal backdrop. Part II highlights operational and strategic concepts and approaches: assessment, deterrence, strategic culture, war gaming and planning, access and anti-access campaigns, cumulative and sequential operations, strategic and operational intelligence, and logistics. Part III focuses on turning points: the Axis alliance, wartime mobilization, naval buildups, the key campaigns of Malaya, Midway, Guadalcanal, and Leyte Gulf, unrestricted submarine warfare, and aerial bombing. Part IV turns to the warzone societies with chapters on Australia, China, Indonesia, India, Indochina, Japan, Malaysia, and the Philippines. Part V concludes with the war's diverse legacies: the Communist victory in China, suspicions of a Pearl Harbor coverup, the transformation of international law, the fate of veterans, the teaching of the war, its operational and doctrinal lessons, and the many movies and museums about it.

The handbook offers original and enduring analyses that will interest scholars, students, policymakers, and history buffs alike.