Extra Time: World Politics Since 1989

The end of - at any rate, twentieth-century - history poses a challenge to traditional frameworks of political analysis. The most frequent response has been general theories of globalization, which present a newly unified world, differentiated at most by region or major power. Extra Time offers an alternative route, a sampling of the historical situations of a range of nation-states, and attempts to move beyond them. Its first section analyses the recent politics of the three leading continental nations - Germany, France and Italy; the origins and outcomes of the Union they largely created; and the contrasting character of democracy in the United States. The second section moves to four key states outside the Atlantic zone: Russia, Israel, China and Brazil. The final part of the book looks at a range of movements and issues that cross national boundaries, setting agendas of wider scope: the fate of social democracy, the fortunes of regionalism and internationalism, the dynamics of neo-liberalism, terrorism and multi-culturalism. A conclusion reviews the condition of the left in the contemporary world.