This chapter introduces the readers to sustainability transition studies, its key concepts, and how it has been connected to security, defense, and military issues in the past. The ways in which security can play a role in transitions is connected, for example, to how niche innovations develop and expand, how sociotechnical regimes operate, and what kind of landscape pressures are perceived to influence niches and regimes. It is interlinked to the role of states in transitions, and how war and peace are connected to niche expansion. The second purpose of this chapter is to introduce security studies, including some of its key concepts. The chapter will explain what is meant by negative and positive security, reference objects, and securitization.

This chapter concludes the book offering a final analysis of the story of the continuing Kazakh Spring.

In this chapter, I dwell on regime–society – rather than classical state–society – relations and argue that the state and political power (vlast’ in Russian) is represented for many citizens by the authoritarian regime and its main dictator. I contend that to analyse these relations, we need to study how they are understood and practised in a given case. Thus, the chapter represents an in–depth analysis of activists’ and citizens’ perceptions of their positions vis–à–vis the regime, the lack of the rule of law, and conditions of socio–political insecurity. In these conditions, the ‘stability’ of everyday life and the established system of values – economic capital, incentives to normalize corruption, and so on – represent a crucial backbone to regime stability, where coercion is not the prime mechanism available to the elites. The logic of Kazakh Spring and Oyan, Qazaqstan activists is to fight against institutionalized authoritarianism and this system of authoritarian values and perceptions of ‘power’ as something embodied in the figures of autocrats. This shift is a new feature of the protest waves of the Kazakh Spring, and it potentially makes it more viable and sustained.

The introduction provides the contextual and theoretical foundations of the book. It introduces the main argument that the Kazakh Spring is not a movement but a field of political possibilities capable of changing the established political value system. The Kazakh Spring has different actors and ideas connected by the common sense of solidarity and the urge for democratization. The book argues that the Kazakh Spring frames democratization hrough the radical remaking of the rules of the game that define the political in Kazakhstan. This means a consistent demand for the change of formal institutions that the regime has monopolized to sustain its powers and durability, namely, the laws, elections, and bodies of the state such as parliament, local municipal bodies, and public offices, but also free and independent media.

In January 2022, mass protests spread quickly across the whole of Kazakhstan, becoming the largest mass mobilization in the country’s modern history. Prior to these events, Kazakhstan was considered a stable authoritarian regime: President Nursultan Nazarbayev’s thirty-year rule established a system of patronal networks, institutionalized corruption, and authoritarianism that crushed any form of dissent and opposition. What, then, led to this unprecedented mass mobilization, which unified the country’s fourteen regions and three major cities in protest against the regime? This chapter analyses the mass protests through the framework of regime–society relations, arguing that a key failure of the regime built by Nazarbayev is its inability to reconcile the regime’s neoliberal prosperity rhetoric with citizens’ calls for a welfare state. It then explores how a tradition of protests has been developing since 2011 and addresses the structural components of regime (in)stability and how they contributed to violence in the protests.

In this chapter, I contextualize the authoritarian systematization of the political field that made it so inaccessible to non-regime elites and newcomers. I argue that this context negatively influenced the established opposition and the regime elites on the eve of Nazarbayev’s resignation. None of them were ready to react to such drastic changes in the political field. As a result, the established opposition disintegrated following a number of scandals, and the remaining opposition politicians had to move to populist calls to sustain their potential electorate. Within Nazarbayev’s regime, the elites remained stagnant and disoriented; they focused too much on what was happening within the regime itself and did not manage to meet the growing societal discontent and protests. These conditions left newly elected president Tokayev in an uneasy situation where, on the one hand, he had to deal with continual crises; on the other hand, this type of intra-elite concentration within the regime offered a unique opportunity for new, unknown political forces to emerge in the public sphere. This is how the Kazakh Spring was born as an alternative political field of opportunities.

Chapter 3 analyses how evidence has become a central element of the FCTC regime (2005–present). Section 3.1 captures the most important developments since the conclusion of the FCTC in 2003. Section 3.2 provides the theoretical framework of the chapter, focusing on the concept of path dependence in international organisations. Section 3.3 proceeds by showing that the development of the guidelines by the FCTC Conference of the Parties (COP) has been in effect a continuation of the strategy on evidence. Section 3.4 in turn highlights the second facet of the FCTC as an evidence-based regime, that is how the FCTC has mobilised new evidence at the national level. Sections 3.5 and 3.6 reflect on the consequences that the evidence-based approach has had on the outlook of the FCTC regime. Section 3.5 uses in-depth qualitative analysis to demonstrate that the evidence-based approach has reinforced the importance of the expertise of civil society organisations. Finally, Section 3.6 illustrates how the evidence-based approach has started to show its shortcomings in the work of the FCTC COP – particularly in the approach to new products like e-cigarettes (or ENDS) and in the (lack of) development of strategies to foster the implementation of tobacco control measures.

Chapter 3 identifies the numerous strategies the contemporary liberal states have pursued to navigate the cross-pressures engendered by the migration trilemma during the post-Cold War period, and especially since September 11th. Contesting scholarly claims that the liberal states cannot avert unwanted immigration, its main argument is that they have considerably reconciled the tensions inherent in the trilemma by enlisting and coopting non-central state actors at the intersection of human mobility and security. Specifically, they have forged bilateral and multilateral policy agreements and devolved many of their responsibilities for implementing immigration and human mobility policy to international, subnational and private sector actors. In pursuing this multifaceted course, the immigration policies of states have converged, and their burdens in managing their immigration-related responsibilities have been partially alleviated. But in doing so, the liberal norms inspiring their once steadfast commitments to maintaining relatively open borders and safeguarding citizen and immigrant rights have been compromised.

This introduces the topic of multilateral drug control, its contemporary relevance and the areas under examination within the book. It highlights the key themes grouped by three overarching focuses: historical, contemporary-legal and international relations theory. It examines the major debates under way in UN drug control and their direct relation to the historical-legal regulatory discussion encapsulated within the book. It outline existing historiography on international drug control and examines more recent developments. It points to continuing gaps in historiography, international relations, legal and policy literature which this book will fill. In particular it highlights the extensive literature on international legal fragmentation and its relevance for drug control debates. It offers an overview of regime theory and international relations approaches, suggesting a new and emerging framework based on evaluating drug control as a ‘regime complex’ in a similar lineage to climate change and intellectual property regimes, which will be covered in a more breadth in the Conclusion.

This chapter examines the role of the Opium Wars and great power conflict between Britain and China within the context of drug control. Within the Opium Wars, the foundational elements for the coming global drug control system were laid. These included straining bilateral relations between great powers as well as the emergence of nationalist and moralist coalitions of diplomats and missionaries driving ‘reformist’ agendas globally. The first international treaty, the 1912 International Opium Convention, aimed to create reciprocal state responsibilities for limiting the flow of mind-altering drugs. After World War I, the new multilateral drug control system was quickly absorbed by the League of Nations. However, the US’ simultaneous interest in the issue and unwillingness to join the League of Nations proved complicating. Throughout the 1920s and 1930s a whole series of treaties and institutional changes gave the system regulatory shape. The League Opium Advisory Committee, precursor to the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND) ultimately sank. The enforcement and monitoring bodies, survived and fled Geneva for the safety of Washington DC. The chapter concludes with a brief introduction to the main diplomats of the wartime era, most prominently, Harry J. Anslinger.

This chapter lays out a novel framework for conceptualising the water-relevant binding and non-binding instruments of the UNECE environmental conventions as one common normative regional environmental regime – an original contribution. In exploring the idea of a single regime, this chapter seeks to overcome a strictly positivist view of international law and understand the relevance of overlapping and/or non-uniform state membership of the UNECE legal instruments. It explores regionalism and regional approaches to international law and examines the relationship of the UNECE regime to international law and other international institutions. It sets out a framework for determining the UNECE regime’s relationship to general international law and other international water treaties – asking whether the regime lex specialis – a theme returned to throughout the remainder of the book. This chapter sets out a framework for exploring the making, implementation and enforcement of international law in the UNECE regime, which is employed throughout the research. This frame contributes to understanding around systemic integration, mutually supportive interpretation and cross-fertilisation in international environmental law and international law relevant to transboundary freshwater ecosystems.

Chapter 1 offers a critical overview of how the Israeli regime is classified, addressing two fundamental issues in the debate over its suitable classification: the definition of democracy and the parameters of the unit of analysis. In providing a detailed description of the local dispute among students of Israel, it shows that very few local scholars or studies have provided explicit descriptions of the assumptions and premises on which their arguments are based. Rather than seeking to understand the Israeli regime from a theory-driven, comparative perspective and contextualizing it within the field of regimes and democratization, their primary goal appears to be determining whether Israel is, in fact, a democracy. This chapter also examines how Israel is categorized in cross-national regime indexes, demonstrating that such indexes cannot be exploited to bypass the local dispute. In so doing, it exposes the limits of restricting the focus to the classification of the Israel regime, arguing that this debate can never be conclusively resolved. Finally, it lays the foundation for the alternative approach to describing the Israeli case.

Chapter three details methods of statecraft in Bahrain across the Twentieth and Twenty First Century. In particular, the chapter notes several compelling trends. Firstly, the British desire to sail a Middle Course in Bahrain led to reforms designed to ameliorate dissent through indirect and pacific means, yet it also ultimately led to the crystallisation of the Al Khalifa regime. These methods included the civil list, municipal reform, and even the acknowledgement of primogeniture. It also notes that in the 1950s, growing Arab nationalism and a desire to sail this middle course of non-interference meant Britain innovated and improvised techniques of statecraft in order to repress the Higher Executive Committee.Post-Independence diminishing British influence and increasing Saudi ascendency meant that the government eschewed tactics like public-delegation through parliament in favour of methods centred around patronage. This Saudi largesse had the simultaneous effect of binding Bahrain closer to Saudi, resulting in long-term de-democratisation and rentierism. Diminishing British influence upon Independence also seemed to cause a manifestation of both Saudi and Al Khalifa animosity towards political opposition and the Shiʿa.

This chapter focuses on how flow in rivers shapes channel geometry, particularly the width and depth of river channels. It first examines the concepts of at-a-station and downstream hydraulic geometry, which relate width, depth, and velocity of flow to discharge. At-a-station hydraulic geometry largely reflects the influence of channel form on flow, whereas downstream hydraulic geometry reflects changes in channel geometry to accommodate downstream increases in discharge. A distinction is made between hydraulic geometry and channel geometry, where channel-geometry relations are not restricted by flow continuity constraints. Classic hydraulic- and channel-geometry analyses are based mainly on statistical analysis of empirical data. By contrast, rational regime theory uses optimization algorithms along with physical reasoning to examine relations among flow, sediment transport, bank stability, and channel geometry. The final section of the chapter explores approaches to channel geometry that consider dynamic change in geometry over time.

Modern neglect of civic friendship stems from abstract ideals: cosmopolitanism makes it seem narrow and belligerent; capitalism prefers utility purified of friendly feelings. Yet friendly feelings persist: in debates over out-sourcing jobs, Americans value Americans more highly than foreigners; in commercial exchanges, to ignore friendly feelings would violate the first rule of salesmanship. According to Aristotle, feelings grow up around shared utilities such as trade relations, common defense, and the regime, each producing an imperfect friendship by contrast with the perfect friendship based on virtuous character. Liberal democracies have many features of his civic friendship—reciprocity in exchange, agreement about the regime, small associations, private benefactors, and a large middle class to promote equality—without attributing them to Aristotle’s theory. Civic friendship is at work in liberal societies, but our models fail to capture its effects. Besides its normative benefits, studying civic friendship would improve liberal theory’s descriptive accuracy. Instead of exhorting citizens to be friendlier, theorists should empirically study the existing civic friendship.