Geopolitical Integrity

Essays on Canada's place in the world order.

Ethical business behavior has an unexpected payoff: it reduces the likelihood of violence. This insight forms the basis of Business, Integrity, and Peace, first published in 2007. Academic and popular interest in the topics of corporate responsibility and 'peace through commerce' has surged. This book demonstrates that the adoption of generally accepted ethical business practices does not require wholesale changes in corporate governance. It does require, however, the development of more reflexive and self-regulating models of corporate decision-making, drawing upon three strands of existing corporate responsibility approaches: the legal, the managerial, and the aesthetic. Fort introduces the concept of Total Integrity Management, providing an integrative framework that transcends disciplinary boundaries to create ethical corporate cultures, which in turn offer the best opportunity for corporations to become instruments of peace. Business, Integrity, and Peace is an important and provocative work that will appeal to academic scholars, business leaders and policy-makers alike.

Why has the PRC been so determined that Taiwan be part of China? Why, since the 1990s, has Beijing been feverishly developing means to prevail in combat with the U.S. over Taiwan's status? Why is Taiwan worth fighting for? To answer, this book focuses on the territorial dimension of the Taiwan issue and highlights arguments made by PRC analysts about the geostrategic significance of Taiwan, rather than emphasizing the political dispute between Beijing and Taipei. It considers Beijing's quest for Taiwan since 1949 against the backdrop of recurring Chinese anxieties about the island's status since the seventeenth century.

Business, Integrity, and Peace, first published in 2007, offers an integrative framework for transforming businesses into instruments of peace.

This book offers a comprehensive, highly informative and interdisciplinary study on territorial integrity and the challenges globalization, self-determination and external interventions present. This study aims at not only to fill an epistemological gap in this regard, but also answer the question of whether International Law is adequately equipped to help states address these challenges. The author argues that the biggest threat that many states are confronted with today is their disintegration rather than their obsolescence, and that International Law has not often been able to prevent that eventuality. In fact, states, when they were not destroyed by war, managed to survive, thanks to the flexibility of territoriality, i.e. their ability to adjust to difficult situations as they arose. It is this understanding of adaptation that urges an increasing number of states today to revive territorial autonomy and restore an original understanding of self-determination in which democracy is a pivotal factor in establishing congruence between the states and their nations. While this move is endorsed by International Law, it is not the case for globalization; for their own sake, proponents of globalization should recognize that the states are irreplaceable as long as they remain the sole providers of protection for their peoples.

Caught between the Ottoman Empire to the west, the Russian sphere of influence in the north, and the British colonial territories in India and the Middle East, Iran at the end of the nineteenth century was a hotly contested strategic battleground. The ruling Qajar Dynasty was led by a young and inexperienced king, and the British were busy extending their reach through unbalanced treaties and resource concessions. Meanwhile, powerful tribal leaders like Sheikh Khaz'al sought to retain their traditional positions and block efforts to unite the country under a strong central government. With the discovery of oil and Britain's need to fuel her war machine in World War I, increased attention on Iran demanded a modernization of her policies and government. Reza Khan, an otherwise unknown soldier, united the armed forces and swept to power, bringing with him the unity and structure needed to take Iran into the emerging modern world. After disposing of the former rulers, he became the new shah, and fought to rebuild his country after centuries of abuse and manipulation by foreign powers. What was at stake was the autonomy of Iran's lifeline, Iran's "Golden State", Khuzestan province, a province with abundant, rich oil and gas reservoirs, natural resources with a strategic importance to the warm waters of the Persian Gulf. The full sovereignty (by others) could have exponentially undermined Iran's position and role on the world stage, both politically and economically, and, even more so, in the turbulent Middle East of today. Events of the time period of this book are very pertinent to the current geopolitical conversation, struggles and developments in the region. This is the story of the dynamic power play for dominance, robust diplomacy, and political rivalries between colonial powers, powerful tribes, and government actors in the Iranian southwest theater. The emergence of a powerful regime in Iran and the superpowers' radical shifts in foreign policy and in the regional engagements in the post World War I, significantly contributed to averting this geopolitical crisis of a historic proportion. It is an extensively researched and definitive history of Iran at the turn of the twentieth century that is required reading for anyone seeking to understand the history of colonialism, oil exploration, and the ongoing political tensions of the Middle East....