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The first of a three-volume series on the interaction of the United States and China in different regions of the world, this book explores the delicate balance of competing foreign interests in this resource-rich and politically tumultuous region. It assesses the different objectives and strategies the United States and China deploy in the region and examines how the two world powers are indirectly competitive with one another for influence in Central Asia. While the United States is focused on maintaining and supporting its military forces in neighboring states, China has its sights on procuring natural resources for its fast-growing economy and preventing the expansion of fundamentalist Islam inside its borders. The book covers important issues such as the creation of international gas pipelines, the challenges of building crucial transcontinental roadways that must pass through countries facing insurgencies, the efforts of the United States and China to encourage and provide better security in the region, and how the Central Asian countries themselves view their role in international politics and the global economy. It also covers key outside powers with influence in the region; Russia, with its historical ties to the many Central Asian countries that used to belong to the USSR, is perhaps the biggest international presence in the area, and other countries on the region's periphery like Iran, Turkey, Pakistan, and India have a stake in the fortunes and future of Central Asia as well.

The U.S. has been the preeminent power in Latin America in terms of military capability, foreign investment, and cultural ties. The growing presence of China in Latin America prompted agricultural and raw material exports of LAC countries. However, with the Chinese economy slowing down, the trade balance has turned against the LAC countries and China’s economic role is seen as a mixed blessing. The split in LAC states on their varying attitudes toward the U.S. complicated the relationship between the LAC region and the outside powers. The Chinese have built on the skepticism and resentment toward the U.S. and have widened the coalition of anti-U.S. states as regimes with related views arose in Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, and Venezuela. This volume looks into key cross-regional trends and critical policy issues involving the changing relationship between China, the U.S., and LAC states. Case studies into recent political and economic developments in Mexico, Venezuela, Brazil, Argentina, the Andes, and the Caribbean provide a more in-depth analysis of the implications of China’s and the U.S.’s evolving interaction with the region.

This volume is the second in a series on U.S.-China relations in regions of the world where neither country is dominant. This book first looks into the economic and political conditions of Southeast Asian countries including Indonesia, Singapore, Vietnam, Malaysia, Thailand, and Myanmar, and then turns as well to their foreign policies toward outside powers like China, the United States, Japan, and India. The authors examine the diverse patterns of behavior of ASEAN members and the widening North-South split on their policy objectives. ASEAN has divided between links to China, a preferred avoidance of commitment by several states, and quiet, informal relations with the United States. In Southeast Asia there are very substantial differences in operating style among the outside powers as well. This split has limited ASEAN’s ability to form consensus on major policy topics. Besides the United States and China, Japan and India are significant players in the region and in affecting ASEAN’s political choices. The European Union is also a vital actor on economic issues but not a key participant in political or security matters. In sum, China’s rising profile in Southeast Asia provides a challenge to the U.S. role as the dominant outside power. Southeast Asia has become a venue where tensions and U.S.-Chinese competition are rising.

Women's participation in parliaments, high courts, and executive offices worldwide has reached record high numbers, but this global increase in women's representation masks significant variation among different democratic political systems. For example, in December of 2009, Rwanda's legislature contained 56 percent women, while the U.S. Congress contained only about 17 percent and the Japanese Diet had only 11 percent. Since 2000, only twenty-seven women have achieved executive office worldwide. This book takes a comprehensive look at women's participation in all aspects of public life in the main democratic political institutions—the executive, the judiciary, the legislature, and within political parties. Moving beyond studies of single countries and institutions, the book presents original data from 159 democratic countries spanning fifty years, providing a comprehensive understanding of women in democracies worldwide. The first book to offer an analysis on all avenues for women's participation for such a lengthy time period, it examines not only the causes of women's representation in the main democratic political institutions but also how women's representation in one institution affects the others. Each chapter contains case studies and examples of the change in women's participation over time from around the world. The book definitively explains the rise, decline, or stagnant levels of women's political participation, considering how representation is contagious across political institutions and gaining a better understanding of what factors affect women's political participation.

A particular dark triumph of modern nationalism has been its ability to persuade citizens to sacrifice their lives for a political vision forged by emotional ties to a common identity. Both men and women can respond to nationalistic calls to fight that portray muscular warriors defending their nation against an easily recognizable enemy. This “us versus them” mentality can be seen in sectarian violence between Hindus and Muslims, Tamils and Sinhalas, Serbs and Kosovars, and Protestants and Catholics. This book takes a comparative look at India and Ireland and the relationship among gender, violence, and nationalism. Exploring key texts and events from 1914 to 2004, it explores how women negotiate “muscular nationalisms” as they seek to be recognized as legitimate nationalists and equal stakeholders in their national struggles. The book argues that the gendered manner in which dominant nationalism has been imagined in most states in the world has had important implications for women's lived experiences. Drawing on a specific intersection of gender and nationalism, the book discusses the manner in which women negotiate a political and social terrain infused with a masculinized dream of nation-building.