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This introduction frames the papers in this volume with a brief critique of how and why the dominant approaches to understanding world affairs obscure our understanding of the chief developments that have marked our age, and a discussion of the resources geopolitical economy can draw on to address the resulting deficiencies of understanding. It then goes on to discuss how the papers that follow demonstrate the gains from putting the geopolitical economy framework to work. They interrogate and challenge conventional wisdom in three broad areas – the international monetary system, world trade and the requirements for successful combined development historically and today, when China’s own stunning combined development confronts other developing countries with new possibilities and constraints. The introduction closes with some necessarily brief reflections on the vast agenda for future research and discussion that remains to be tackled.

This introduction to the essays that follow argues that the chief problem with the dominant understanding of world affairs in the disciplines of International Relations and International Political Economy, including their Marxist versions, is an a historical, non-contradictory and economically cosmopolitan conception of capitalism. In their place, geopolitical economy is a new approach which returns to the conception of capitalism embodied in the culmination of classical political economy, Marxism. It was historical in two senses, distinguishing capitalism as a historically specific mode of social production involving by value production and understanding that its contradictions drive forward capitalism’s own history in a central way. This approach must further develop and specify uneven and combined development as the dominant pattern in the unfolding of capitalist international relations, one that is constitutive of its component states themselves. Secondly, it must understand the logic of the actions undertaken by capitalist states as emerging from the struggles involved in the formation of capitalist states and from the contradictions that are set in train once capitalism is established. Finally, it must see in the ways that class and national struggles and resulting state actions have modified the functioning of capitalism the possibilities of replacing the disorder, contestation and war that are the spontaneous result of capitalism for international relations the basis for a cooperative order in relations between states, an order which can also be the means for realising the permanent revolution and solidifying its gains on the international or world plane.

From these findings, one speculation is that the emerging model of nationhood and citizenship described in this book and neo-institutional thinking (e.g., Meyer, 2009) is the one that is most likely to prevail. Alternative plausible models are hard to imagine. Democracy, equality, and human rights all currently have more plausibility than alternative institutions that are currently on the scene. Witness the current “revolutions” in the Middle East. This example also indicates that modern nations are not path dependent. In a globalized world, they are becoming more and more open as systems. Internal institutional constraints must now face global opportunities that are strongly backed by both their own citizens and other nations. This picture does not rule out conflict and competition between particular models and countries. Nor does it envisage placid transitions to democratic forms of governance and pluralistic societies. There are many contradictions within emerging global models of society and between them and the realities of many existing societies. But it does suggest that the reigning models empirically are those that neo-institutional theory has identified as forces constructing the modern world.

India became a NWS (Nuclear Weapons State) most reluctantly in May 1998 despite her demonstration of nuclear weapons capability 24 years earlier in May 1974. Having assumed the new status as the sixth overt nuclear weapons state, India also declared her principled policy governing use of nuclear weapons in the event of a national security threat. The Indian Nuclear Doctrine was called “minimum deterrence” by the BJP-led NDA government, but the Congress-led UPA government in 2004 renamed it as “credible deterrence.”

But the heart of the vibrant Indian nuclear doctrine is its commitment to No First Use (NFU) of nuclear weapons. Nuclear weapons were invented by the United States (U.S.). First-ever use of atom bomb is also made by the Americans and a philosophic foundation for the discussion on NFU was also laid in the U.S. However, having put the NFU in the philosophic parlance, the U.S. in the Cold War International environment professed the doctrine for First Use (FU) of nuclear weapons. It is China that made a first public commitment to the NFU after it became the fifth nuclear weapons state.

This chapter proposes to discuss Indian commitment to NFU as a first step on the long path toward global nuclear disarmament—or No Use (NU) of nuclear weapons. India saw Partial Test Ban treaty of 1963 as a step toward NU and also saw the discussions on NPT as another step toward nuclear disarmament as much as it wanted the big powers to see the CTBT too as a device aimed at putting world into NU bind. West, led by the U.S., was however only interested in using the CTBT to deny nuclear weapons status to threshold states, particularly India.

As a self-declared nuclear weapons state, India has, in nuclear doctrine, committed itself to nuclear disarmament. Can there be an international treaty between the declared nuclear weapons states? Can India and Russia come together on the issue? Can they convince China to join? With three Asian nuclear weapons states committing themselves to NFU, U.S. can see economic sense in an international treaty on NFU. Is it possible to create a global public opinion in favor of NU of nuclear weapons? The questions will be answered based on research conduct on the subject.

The aim of this paper is to analyse the recent changes in the role played by Africa as a traditional natural resources supplier for the world economy in a multipolar context. We highlight, on the one hand, how Africa remains a prominent supplier of critical minerals needed for information and communication technologies (ICT), including platinum, vanadium, coltan, chromium, manganese, zirconium, etc., and how the boomerang effect results in Africa also importing electronic waste. On the other hand, we show how the BRICS’ growth model, based on a very intensive use of natural resources acquired through international trade, is now being fuelled by Africa too. BRICS countries (especially China and India) are making foreign direct investments in Africa using their state companies to ensure the supply of natural resources under favourable economic terms. Thus, Africa appears as a disputed territory between the old domination of the advanced capitalist countries and emerging powers like the BRICS. However, this should not mask the fact that the European Union and North America are still the dominant foreign powers in the continent. Finally, we discuss which scenarios are open to further this multipolar moment, particularly in the wake of the great crisis.

The purpose of this paper is to examine processes of Eurasian integration and the veritable ‘culture war’ between Russia and the West over it, while contributing to the theoretical paradigm of geopolitical economy. This paradigm invites us to consider the multiple manifestations of an emerging multipolar world order while scrutinising the extent to which previously popular approaches to the study of international political economy were themselves enmeshed in projects, the architects of which aspired to global hegemony.

The paper employs critical historicism, an approach in which cultural difference is seen as the sedimentation of historically constituted material and ideational processes and which eschews cultural essentialism and orientalising tropes. It is through this lens that Russian state attempts at normalising Eurasian integration processes are examined.

I demonstrate that Russian state organs and officials, as well as ‘political technologists’ attempt to de-politicise processes of Eurasian integration by appealing to both the logic of cultural/civilisational compatibility of affected parties, as well as the logic of economic integration. Such portrayals invite scrutiny; however, it is important that we also consider how Eurasian integration initiatives are the product of a post-Soviet struggle over Eurasian space but represent something more than mere neo-Soviet revisionism.

The paper demonstrates its originality by situating ongoing processes of Eurasian integration within the longer post-Soviet conjuncture and amid processes of international contestation. Moreover, it situates Russian officials and political technologists as active contributors to international debates about the emerging multipolar world order.

Comprehensive nuclear disarmament which has been traditionally regarded as an idealistic and unachievable objective in the foreseeable future is now receiving greater attention from all quarters including major countries, statesmen and international NGOs. In fact, recent initiative for a nuclear-free world came from four well-known US political figures namely George Schultz, Henry Kissinger, Sam Nunn and William Perry. Though the process towards nuclear disarmament seems long, arduous and extremely complicated, it is, no doubt, emerging as the primary mission of the international community. In today’s world many think that a nuclear weapon free world is achievable; an optimism, probably, generated by the end of Cold War politics. However, the objective of this chapter is not to map the contours of global nuclear disarmament but to limit to a discussion on European remedies, if any, for Russian nuclear disarmament.

Despite the multitude of regional-based collaborations in higher education, regionalism theories have received relatively little attention in the literature on higher education. In view of this gap, this chapter seeks to make a case for the study of regionalism and explores how this field could enrich higher education research. This chapter discusses the context of the rise of the regional landscape vis-à-vis the acceleration of globalisation and internationalisation of higher education. It further probes into theoretical and empirical insights, elucidating in particular core regionalism concepts, theories and approaches within the more recent ‘turns’ in regionalism. Empirical cases from regions across the world are presented to help expound on the conceptual points raised.

The threat posed by nuclear weapons to world peace need not be exaggerated. Advancement in science and technology has enabled us to go for a complete annihilation of not only the Homo sapiens but all the species on earth. Should we permit our idiocy entangled with the nuclear weapons to destroy us or should we, the thinking animals, permit our wisdom to outlive the demonic nuclear weapons, is a question that is being asked by sensible people all over the world today. Just public denouncement of weapons of mass destruction is un-utilitarian. Mankind has been hearing such hollow, absurd words ever since the first atomic test. We have been feeding ourselves on a diet of hypocrisy. If it is not that what else is CTBT? Should the world permit demons to chant mantra? Isn’t it time to recognize that the world is governed not by saints but by Satans? (This is because rise and fall of civilizations has taught us that might is still right.) Isn’t it time to understand that only a metamorphosis of the Satans into saints can save the world? If we know that well, we should start thinking how the nuclear Satans could be transformed into nuclear saints and it is only logical that the nuke Satans should take initiative in transforming themselves, which alone would salvage the world. The present study is premised on these assumptions.