Krisztina Csortea — The Holidays are the perfect time to enjoy a good book, particularly after the year we’ve all had! Here are our top 10 books reviewed in International Affairs in 2021 hand-picked by book reviews editor Krisztina Csortea. …

Yao Song, Guangyu Qiao-Franco and Tianyang Liu — Under the leadership of Xi Jinping, China has attached greater importance to peripheral diplomacy which goes beyond alleviating perceived threats close to China. …

Sebastian Biba — Given the intensifying conflict between the United States and China, how the next German government manages its relationships with these two rival heavyweights is of critical importance. Germany’s approach under outgoing Chancellor Angela Merkel has been to maintain amicable relations with both Washington and Beijing at the same time. However…

Ra Mason and Elizabeth Cobbett — Djibouti’s position, across the Bab al-Mandab from war-torn Yemen and adjacent to a narrow chokepoint at the gateway to the Gulf of Aden, makes it one of the most important strategic locations on the planet. …

Louise Curran, Khalid Nadvi, Sangeeta Khorana — Trade policy has rarely had such a high profile. From the ill-fated Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) to the long-drawn-out Brexit negotiations, trade negotiations have become increasingly subject to public debate. Yet much of the literature focuses on successful agreements, with little attention paid to stalled talks. At the…

Krisztina Csortea — Every issue of International Affairs features a comprehensive book review section which assesses the latest writing in international studies. In this, the latest in our Top 5 Books series, Book Reviews Editor Krisztina Csortea presents her picks from the November 2021 issue. …

Joseph Hills — As both an academic discipline and a subject of public debate, International Relations often rests on shared assumptions that aren’t as solid as they first appear. Drawing on articles from the September 2021 issue, I highlight five myths that, while pervasive in academic and policy discussion, can be misleading. …

Navnita Chadha Behera — Decolonizing the discipline of international relations is imperative both for academics and policy practitioners. Decolonization shows how certain historically privileged ways of understanding international politics produce a disconnect between how scholars and policy-makers make sense of the world and how people globally practice their lives. …

Dewi Fortuna Anwar, Xue Gong, Anna Powles, Rajesh Rajagopalan and Tomohiko Satake — As public debate continues in western capitals about the impact of the AUKUS defense pact on relations between Europe and the United States and their attempts to balance China, an area that remains consistently neglected is the treaty’s impact on regional security and politics in the Indo-Pacific. …