The Other World: Issues and Politics of the Developing World

Now in its eleventh edition, The Other World combines thematic and area studies approaches to explore contemporary global issues. Accessible and interdisciplinary, this textbook offers political, economic, social, and historical analyses of Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa, North Africa and the Middle East, and Asia. The Other World highlights similarities and differences as it recognizes the challenges and opportunities offered by globalization.

New to the eleventh edition:

• A new co-author, Sara Lopus, whose academic training at the intersection of social, agricultural, and environmental problems enhances the interdisciplinary appeal of the book.
• A new concluding chapter on Other World features in Western countries and postcolonialism.
• Revamped sections on “Perspectives on Globalization,” with cases on creative responses to sustainability, sovereignty, and cultural change issues.
• Discussion of new topics including cybersecurity and cyberwarfare, the impact of supply chain bottlenecks, food politics and issues of global obesity, the rise of zoonotic diseases and pandemics such as Covid-19, new regional diplomacy in Middle East, protest and political change in Latin America, refugee flows, the emergence of ageing populations, and many more.

The Other World is the perfect introductory text to the world’s developing regions and their political challenges – a must buy for courses in comparative politics, politics of the developing world; and introduction to international studies.

Craig Arceneaux is Professor of Political Science at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, with expertise in Latin American politics, democratization, and civil-military relations. His most recent publications include Political Struggle in Latin America (Springer 2023) and Democratic Latin America (Routledge 2021). He has contributed to The Other World since its 7th edition, published in 2007.

Anika Leithner is Professor of Political Science at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo. Her research interests include foreign policy, political psychology, European and Middle Eastern politics, and cybersecurity. She specializes in understanding the role of language in politics, primarily in foreign policy decision-making and issue framing.

Sara Lopus is Associate Professor in the Department of Social Sciences at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo. A demographer by training, she performs interdisciplinary research at the intersection of social, agricultural, and environmental problems, with a focus on the Global South.

Benjamin F. Timms is Professor of Geography at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo. His research focuses on political ecology, sustainable development, environmental conservation, and land-use and land-cover change in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Shanruo Zhang is Professor at the Department of Political Science, California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo. Her research interests include theory and methodology of political culture, Chinese and Confucian political culture, discourse analysis, epistemology and methodology of philosophical hermeneutics and Interpretive Social Science and their application in empirical analysis of political culture and political text.