The Cold War was the most important feature of the international system in the second half of the twentieth century. The rivalry between the Soviet Union and the United States shaped the contours of conflict and cooperation among states and peoples between 1945 and 1991 and its dynamics permeated almost all corners of the globe. Whether in Baghdad, Bangkok or Brussels, the influence of geopolitical and ideological conflict was unmistakable. The Cold War created rivalries and political faultlines that have continued to shape international relations years after its passing. Sino-American competition has become so intense that many think the world is on the brink of another period of bipolar rivalry.

This chapter presents the outlines of a constructivist understanding of world politics. We begin with a discussion of state identity and explore how identity defines and bounds state actions. To illustrate this concept, we address issues central to the study of world politics: change, governance and security. Overall, our goal is to present a textured, layered understanding of the international realm based on a notion taken for granted in much of IR theory, meaning. Constructivism is the newest but perhaps the most dynamic of the main theories of international relations. Unlike liberalism and realism (see Chapters 2 and 3), which have taken their bearings from developments in economic and political theory, constructivism – like Critical Theory (see Chapter 4) – is rooted in insights from social theory (e.g. Berger and Luckmann 1967; Giddens 1984) and the philosophy of knowledge (Golinski 2005; Hacking 1999; Searle 1995).

What is an international organization? Intergovernmental agreements often create new institutions such as the United Nations which have independent status and some autonomy. This chapter considers how these organizations come into being and how they are studied by scholars of international politics and law. Depending on how one looks at things, an international organization can appear as an actor in world politics, a place where politics happens, or a resource used by others in political fights. These are the roles of actor, forum, and resource. I examine the main scholarly theories that are often applied to understand the function and effects of international organizations in international relations: realism, liberalism, constructivism, and marxism.

In Chapter 9, I move the focus from epistemology to ontology. I ask what kind of objects natural numbers are and show why different types of realist answers are problematic. I then endorse a constructivist account, according to which natural numbers exist as social constructs through our shared number concepts. This account is compatible with the social constructivist views of Cole and Feferman. However, I see my account as an improvement on their work because it provides a strong explanation as to why numbers are widely applicable social constructs. This explanation is based on the important role that proto-arithmetical abilities have both for the way we experience our environment and the development of arithmetic. Finally, I discuss the question of whether natural numbers as social constructs exist primarily as ordinals or cardinals, showing that, although more empirical research is needed, there is no reason to currently believe that natural numbers must be fundamentally ordinal.

Chapter 4 discusses various theories of learning that have an impact on how EC professionals can work with young children. Theories about how children (and, indeed, adults) learn science and the factors that affect learning in young children are described. The relationship between everyday concepts and scientific concepts is distinguished. The place of affective factors in children’s learning is also described. Various case studies are presented to highlight aspects of children’s learning.

This chapter articulates the stakes involved for mainstream scholars and those interested in traditional international political concerns by using a presentist approach to critique the “theoretical programmes” that historically have dominated IR – realism, liberal institutionalism, and constructivism. Doing so provides a widely intelligible example that others can use to guide their own work, even if they have no interest in the particular theoretical architectures used here. Employing these tools makes new things visible, exposes different questions to ask and answer, and enables different ways of understanding what we believe we already know. Each of these examples illustrates how presentism’s approach is not an external critique but one that – if taken seriously – alters key assumptions and conclusions for concepts already considered central to IR’s systemic understanding of global politics. The chapter also draws out implications at the epistemological and ontological levels, defending ideas like temporally contingent epistemologies, ontological nonconsecutivity, and an ontology that fully embraces the present

This book is grounded in empirically evidenced developmental models and linked closely to practical classroom practice. While many classrooms have been resourced with equipment such as base-10 materials, counters, shape kits, mobile devices, dice kits, drawing tools and interactive whiteboard (IWB) technology, and even a laptop trolley in some cases, extensive professional development is required to enable the range of classroom resources to be transformed into teaching tools. The difficulty faced by the teaching profession is in integrating a wide range of teaching approaches and resources to weave a pedagogically sound learning sequence. This book provides mathematics teachers and pre-service teachers with detailed teaching activities that are designed and informed by research-based practices. The aim is to provide you with a sensible and achievable integration of available educational tools, with research-based approaches to mathematical development that provide for the mathematical needs of all learners. It is intended for primary pre-service teachers, and teachers looking for ways to enhance their teaching of primary mathematics, to assist them to design student tasks that are meaningful and to use educationally sound ways to improve their mathematics teaching.

This chapter looks at appropriate early childhood pedagogy, particularly as it applies to the early learning of mathematics. The importance of play and recognition of children’s prior learning is emphasised throughout. Although many of the experiences and learning documented focus on number, we acknowledge that children’s early mathematical learning extends beyond number into areas such as geometry, measurement and spatial awareness.

Evolutionary psychologists have long maintained that humans’ moral sense is essential to their success as a species and part of what makes humans unique among animals. Moral systems have functional roots, helping individual organisms survive, thrive, and pass on their genetic material. It is not despite anarchy but because of anarchy that humans have an ethical sense. Evolutionary theorists identify moral condemnation and binding morality as crucial for the emergence of other-regarding, altruistic behavior that makes liberal morality possible in the first place. When others harm us, or even third parties, we condemn, passing moral judgments and sometimes retaliating; we do not speak evil but speak of evil. Moral condemnation encouraged the development of moral conscience to avoid the outrage of, and often violent group punishment by, those who were wronged. This internalized sense of right and wrong in turn acted as a credible signal of cooperativeness that unwittingly and unconsciously paid material dividends. Group favoritism, also thought to have evolutionary origins, is moral in nature as well. Those early humans who felt obligated to contribute to the collective defense against common threats in an extremely dangerous environment could prosper enough to offset the competing incentives to free-ride within the group.

Chapter 2 positions the book within the interdisciplinary literature on international law and develops its theoretical framework and the concept of intersubjective legalism, borrowing insights from ‘practice’ studies. The research framework builds upon the works of Kratochwil, Brunnée and Toope, and Johnstone, situating the meaning of legal rules within the ‘community of practice’ of international law, which enforces a set of shared understandings about what constitutes sound legal reasoning. Next, Chapter 2 integrates insights from critical legal studies and sociological studies of the juridical field to elucidate the power inequalities shaping interactions inside the community of legal practice. The centrality of expert knowledge as a source of power inside the juridical field suggests a reordering of the traditional perception of international politics: Inside the community of international legal practice states lose their central position, and actors such as judges, legal scholars, and non-governmental organizations gain leverage. The framework presented in Chapter 2 enables the investigation of the politics of the legal field, which take the form of competition over the authority to determine the meaning of legal rules. Finally, this chapter discusses the methods of analysis, namely discourse analysis and interviews.

In a short outline, Ranke’s dictum is being used to question a chronological historiography of a positivst nature. Instead, the book suggests a retrospective cautioning against an apologetic writing of Christian origins. None of the authors of the first millennium intended to write history in the modern sense of ’Ranke’, very few of them made use of the canonical New Testament for making historical claims - quite contrary to our modern and contemporary text books. And it is questionable whether they were ever written and collected to produce such modern narratives. Instead, when authors of the first millennium used sources for evidence, they mainly relied on Jewish authors or non-canonical writings that are rather neglected or disregarded and understudied today, despite the continuous rise of research in these over the past decades.

In Chapter 7 I move onto the case study of Botswana, which in contrast to Somalia and Uganda has experienced structural transformation due in large part to its diamond industry. Industrialization in Botswana has led to a sectoral shift out of agriculture as workers have left rural areas to move to cities and join the modern workforce, thereby leading to a decline in the relative value of rural land. I employ both qualitative and quantitative evidence to show that ethnic fractionalization has declined in Botswana since the mid-twentieth-century and examine parliamentary debates around ethnic identity. Moreover, I show that this shift has happened not because of but largely despite efforts of the Botswanan state, which has both discouraged rural-urban migration and failed to alleviate institutional ethnic inequalities that persist to the present day. Finally, I consider alternative explanations for ethnic homogenization in Botswana and find them all wanting.

With the adoption of the ASEAN Charter in 2008, the ASEAN member states articulated their vision of an economic community. This ambitious vision tracks economic reality around ASEAN. The ASEAN region has recently been one of the most popular destinations for FDI across the globe. Despite a temporary decline due to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, the region’s share of global FDI rose from 11.9 percent to 13.7 percent that year. Against this auspicious background, this book calls for a new framework through which we can conceptually embrace the ontological autonomy of the ASEAN Investment Regime (AIR), beyond an aggregation of the interests of its individual member states. A sociology-led approach, especially constructivism, emphasizes ideational factors, such as culture and norms, that guide state actions from within. The main goal of the book is to explore the manner in which ASEAN’s history and culture has fundamentally shaped its foreign investment policies, leading to outcomes that often depart from the external structure and script of Global Investment Law.