Considerable uncertainty surrounds the intentions and aspirations of rising powers, particularly the extent to which they are <italic>status quo</italic> or revisionist. How a new power behaves with some of the weakest members of the international system provides a useful indicator of how it will go on to behave...

In this work, Amrita Narlikar argues that, contrary to common assumption, modern-day politics displays a surprising paradox: poverty - and the powerlessness with which it is associated - has emerged as a political tool and a formidable weapon in international negotiation. The success of poverty...

Douglass North questions the assumptions of ergodicity and economic rationality which came to dominate economics; this paper places the emergence of these notions in historical context. North stresses the role of institutions in dealing with a shift from uncertainties in the physical environment...