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Books > Social sciences > Politics & government > Political activism > Armed conflict
Conveniently structured into five sections, The Routledge Research Companion to Outsourcing Security offers an overview of the different ways in which states have come to rely on private contractors to support interventions. Part One puts into context the evolution of outsourcing in Western states that are actively involved in expeditionary operations as well as the rise of the commercial security sector in Afghanistan. To explain the various theoretical frameworks that students can use to study security/military outsourcing, Part Two outlines the theories behind security outsourcing. Part Three examines the law and ethics surrounding the outsourcing of security by focusing on how states might monitor contractor behaviour, hold them to account and prosecute them where their behaviour warrants such action. The drivers, politics and consequences of outsourcing foreign policy are covered in Part Four, which is divided into two sections: section one is concerned with armed contractors (providing the provision of private security with the main driver being a capability gap on the part of the military/law enforcement agencies), and section two looks at military contractors (supporting military operations right back to antiquity, less controversial politically and often technologically driven). The final Part takes into consideration emerging perspectives, exploring areas such as gender, feminist methodology, maritime security and the impact of private security on the military profession. This book will be of much interest to students of military and security studies, foreign policy and International Relations.
Recent events in Ukraine and Russia and the subsequent incorporation of Crimea into the Russian state, with the support of some circles of inhabitants of the peninsula, have shown that the desire of people to belong to the Western part of Europe should not automatically be assumed. Discussing different perceptions of the Ukrainian-Russian war in neighbouring countries, this book offers an analysis of the conflicts and issues connected with the shifting of the border regions of Russia and Ukraine to show how 'material' and 'psychological' borders are never completely stable ideas. The contributors - historians, sociologists, anthropologists and political scientists from across Europe - use an interdisciplinary and comparative approach to explore the different national and transnational perceptions of a possible future role for Russia.
This book aims to reinvigorate realist international relations theory by developing a catalogue of micro-mechanisms able to explain security policy decision-making. Typically, realism discounts the role of individuals and uses states as the unit of analysis. By examining instead the mental operations of those who act on behalf of the state, a better understanding of security policy formation is attainable. The book demonstrates how realism can be translated from a systemic "grand theory" into a catalogue of psychologically plausible mechanisms applicable to individual decision-makers. This catalogue, here called "Mechanistic Realism", may be employed to investigate the cognitive precursors to security policy. The explanatory power of Mechanistic Realism is demonstrated through a meticulous analysis of what transpired inside the George W. Bush administration, as its members forged a response to the 2001 terrorist attacks. Through the exploration of individual-level data, Mechanistic Realism provides a more comprehensive analysis of the US response. The book concludes that international relations (IR) scholars would benefit analytically by assembling the most pertinent mechanisms into an explanatory toolbox rather than developing and applying grand theories. Mechanistic Realism is a first step in this direction. This book should be of great interest to students of IR, foreign policy, American politics, and security studies in general. .
The breakup of the Soviet Union led to the creation of new states and territorial conflicts of different levels of intensity. Scrutinising the post-Soviet period, this volume offers explanations for both the frequency and the intensity of crises in the region. This book argues that the societies which emerged in the post-Soviet space share characteristic features, and that the instability and conflict-prone nature of the Soviet Union's successor states can be explained by analysing the post-independence history of the region and linking it to the emergence of overlapping economic, political and violent crises (called 'Intersecting Crises Phenomena'). Transformation itself is shown to be a decisive process and, while acknowledging specific national and regional characteristics and differences, the authors demonstrate its shared impact. This comparison across countries and over time presents patterns of crisis and crisis management common to all the successor states. It disentangles the process, highlighting the multifaceted features of post-Soviet crises and draws upon the concept of crisis to determine the tipping points of post-Soviet development. Especially useful for scholars and students dealing with the Soviet successor states, this book should also prove interesting to those researching in the fields of communist and post-communist Studies, Eurasian politics, international relations and peace and conflict studies.
This book examines the links between civil society, religion and politics in the Middle East and North Africa region. The chapters in the volume explore the role of religion in shaping and changing the public sphere in regions that are developing and/or in conflict. They also discuss how these relations are reflected on civil society organizations and the role they are expected to play in transitional periods. This volume: investigates the conceptual dilemmas regarding what is 'civil society' in the Arab world today examines the dynamic roles of civil society organizations and religion in the Middle East and North Africa explores the future of the Arab civil society post-'Arab Spring' events, and how the latter continues to reshape the demand for democracy in the region. A comprehensive study of how the Arab civil society has come into being and its changing roles, this eclectic work will be of interest to scholars and researchers of politics, especially political Islam, international relations, Middle East Studies, African Studies, sociology and social anthropology.
Charles Shephard, a legal officer of the island of Saint Vincent, made no attempt at objectivity in his account of the great 1795 Carib rebellion, this book being dedicated to the British survivors. But having had access to several contemporary diaries and having interviewed survivors, he was able to correct and expand the narratives of Bryan Edwards and Dr Coke, making this work the most detailed account of the overthrow of a unique people.
This book is a collection of essential essays on resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by eminent social psychologist Herbert C. Kelman. Few experts or practitioners know the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as well as Kelman, and for over forty years he has conducted interactive problem-solving workshops at Harvard University and elsewhere, engaging more than one hundred Israeli, Arab and Palestinian political activists, journalists and intellectuals in constructive dialogue. Spanning the years 1978 to 2017, the essays gathered here are still relevant today, and attest to the author's broad empathy for Palestinians and Israelis and his passionate pursuit of a resolution of their conflict based on consistent principles that satisfy the essential psychological needs and minimum political interests of both. The selected essays are not only insightful academic papers, but also serve as snapshots-in-time of the ebb and flow of conflict and peace efforts as well as guideposts for future would-be negotiators and facilitators. This volume will be of much interest to students of Middle Eastern politics, peace and conflict studies, and international relations, and will help would-be negotiators and mediators in practice.
The year 2018 marks the twentieth anniversary of the signing of the Belfast Agreement that initiated an uneasy peace in Northern Ireland after the forty years of the Troubles. The last twenty years, however, has still not been sufficient time to satisfactorily resolve the issue of how to deal with the events of the conflict and the dissonant heritages that both gave rise to it and were, in turn, fuelled by it. With contributions from across the UK and Europe, Heritage after Conflict brings together a range of expertise to examine the work to which heritage is currently being put within Northern Ireland. Questions about the contemporary application of remembering infiltrate every aspect of heritage studies, including built heritages, urban regeneration and planning, tourism, museum provision and intangible cultural heritages. These represent challenges for heritage professionals, who must carefully consider how they might curate and conserve dissonant heritages without exacerbating political tensions that might spark violence. Through a lens of critical heritage studies, contributors to this book locate their work within the wider contexts of post-conflict societies, divided cities and dissonant heritages. Heritage after Conflict should be essential reading for academics, researchers and postgraduate students engaged in the study of the social sciences, history, peace studies, economics, cultural geography, museum heritage and cultural policy, and the creative arts. It should also be of great interest to heritage professionals.
Since decolonization began in the late 1940s, a series of often lengthy and destructive separatist insurgencies have imposed severe financial, economic and human costs upon the states of South Asia. Whereas previous analyses of these conflicts have typically focussed upon the parent state or separatist group as the relevant unit of analysis, this book adopts a broader framework, arguing that separatism cannot be understood in isolation from the concept of state sovereignty. This book explores the motives, tactics, successes and failures of South Asia's separatist movements by deconstructing sovereignty into its constituent components and offers an explanation for why separatism, but not political violence, has recently declined in the region. Taking a comparative explanatory viewpoint, it offers a comprehensive review of relevant explanatory theories dominant in the scholarly literature on separatism and an examination of their application to the South Asian states of India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. As a thought-provoking discussion of statehood and sovereignty, this book will be of interest to students of political theory, comparative politics, international relations and South Asian politics.
From ancient to modern times, sexualised war violence against women was tolerated if not encouraged as a means of reward, propaganda, humiliation, and terror. This was and is in defiance of international laws that have criminalised acts of sexualised war violence since the 18th century. Ad hoc international tribunals have addressed especially war rape since the 15th century. The International Criminal Court (ICC), however, is the first independent, permanent, international criminal court that recognises not only war rape but also sexual slavery and other sexualised crimes as crimes against humanity, war crimes, and acts of genocide in its statute and supporting documents. This book explores how the ICC definitions of rape and forced marriage came about, and addresses the ongoing challenge of how to define war rape and forced marriage in times of armed conflict in a way that adequately reflects women's experiences, as well as the nature of the crimes. In addition to deepening the understanding of the ICC negotiations of war rape and forced marriage, and of the crimes themselves, this volume highlights relevant factors that need to be considered when criminalising acts of sexualised war violence under international law. Sexualised Crimes, Armed Conflict and the Law draws on feminist and constructivist theories and offers a comprehensive theoretical and empirical examination of the definition of rape and forced marriage. It presents the latest state of knowledge on the topic and will be of interest to researchers, academics, policymakers, officials and intergovernmental organisations, and students in the fields of post-conflict law and justice, international law, human rights law, international relations, gender studies, politics, and criminology.
This book examines the adverse impacts of liberal peacebuilding in conflict-affected societies. It introduces 'peace figuration' as a new analytical framework for studying the intentionality, performativity, and consequences of liberal peacebuilding. The work challenges current theories and views and searches for alternative non-conflicted research avenues that are suitable for understanding how peacebuilding intentions are made, how different events shape peace outcomes, and what are the consequences of peacebuilding interventions. Drawing on detailed case studies of peacebuilding in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo and Timor-Leste, the book argues that attempts to build peace often fail to achieve the intended outcomes. A figurational view of peacebuilding interventions shows that post-conflict societies experience multiple episodes of success and failure in an unpredictable trajectory. This book develops a relational sociology of peacebuilding impact, which is crucial for overcoming static measurement of peacebuilding successes or failures. It shows that international interventions can shape peace but, importantly, not always in the shape they intended. This book will be of much interest to students of statebuilding, peacebuilding, war and conflict studies, security studies and IR.
This book offers a new perspective on peace missions in intra-state wars, based on comparative field research. In theoretical terms, this book proposes a new definition of peace operation success based on two crucial elements: the (re)establishment of order and the accomplishment of the mandate. The work presents a new typology for assessing peace operations as failures, partial failures, partial successes, or successes. This focus on 'blurry' outcomes provides a clearer theoretical framework to understand what constitutes successful peace operations. It explains the different outcomes of peace operations (based on the type of success/failure) by outlining the effect(s) of the combination of the key ingredients-strategy and the type of interveners. Empirically, this book tests the saliency of the theoretical framework by examining the peace operations which took place in Somalia, Sierra Leone and Liberia. This book refutes the classification of these three cases as the 'worst' context for 'transitional politics', and demonstrates that peace operations may succeed, partially of totally, in challenging contexts, and that the diverse outcomes are better explained by the type of intervener and the strategy employed than by the type of context. This work shows that, for a peace operation in an intra-state war, the adoption of a deterrence strategy works best for re-establishing order while the involvement of a great power facilitates the accomplishment of the mandate. This book will be of much interest to students of peacekeeping, conflict resolution, civil wars, security studies and IR in general.
This book examines the United States military's use of concepts from non-linear science, such as chaos and complexity theory, in its efforts to theorise information-age warfare. Over the past three decades, the US defence community has shown an increasing interest in learning lessons from the non-linear sciences. Theories, strategies, and doctrines of warfare that have guided the conduct of US forces in recent conflicts have been substantially influenced by ideas borrowed from non-linear science, including manoeuvre warfare, network-centric warfare, and counterinsurgency. This book accounts for the uses that the US military has made of non-linear science by examining the long-standing historical relationship between the natural sciences and Western militaries. It identifies concepts and metaphors borrowed from natural science as a key formative factor behind the development of military theory, strategy, and doctrine. In doing so, Nonlinear Science and Warfare not only improves our understanding of the relationship between military professional identity, professional military education, and changes in technology, but also provides important insights into the evolving nature of conflict in the Information Age. This book will be of much interest to students of strategic studies, military science, US foreign policy, technology and war, and security studies.
This book examines the links between climate change and resource scarcity to violent conflict. Does climate change cause conflicts? This book analyses the economic, political and social conditions under which countries with low levels of freshwater or arable land experience armed conflict. There are strong theoretic arguments linking climate change and scarcity of livelihood resources to conflict. However, empirical accounts are contradictory. Using qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA), this book compares 22 political, economic and social conditions across 30 countries experiencing scarcity of available freshwater or arable land. The results show that there are three types of resource-scarce countries that experience conflicts: (neo)patrimonial states, oil-rich states that are poorly integrated into the global economy and least developed states. In addition, the results reveal that there are two types of resource scarce countries that remain peaceful: non-agrarian countries with either even development between groups or high integration into the global economy with high levels of adaptive capacities. This explains the contradictory results of previous empirical studies and suggests that resource scarcity might contribute to conflict in least developed countries. This book will be of much interest to students of climate change, critical security, peace and conflict studies, and IR in general.
Why has the US so dramatically failed in Afghanistan since 2001? Dominant explanations have ignored the bureaucratic divisions and personality conflicts inside the US state. This book rectifies this weakness in commentary on Afghanistan by exploring the significant role of these divisions in the US's difficulties in the country that meant the battle was virtually lost before it even began. The main objective of the book is to deepen readers understanding of the impact of bureaucratic politics on nation-building in Afghanistan, focusing primarily on the Bush Administration. It rejects the 'rational actor' model, according to which the US functions as a coherent, monolithic agent. Instead, internal divisions within the foreign policy bureaucracy are explored, to build up a picture of the internal tensions and contradictions that bedevilled US nation-building efforts. The book also contributes to the vexed issue of whether or not the US should engage in nation-building at all, and if so under what conditions.
This book examines the ideological and socio-political discourses shaping the remembrance and representation of Britain and the Cyprus conflict of 1974 within Greek Cypriot society. By combining the official with the popular and drawing on an extensive range of oral history interviews, this monograph shows that a suspicion born out of Britain's long (neo-)colonial connection to Cyprus has come to frame the image and understanding of British actions associated with the events, and lasting consequences, of 1974. Indeed, with the island of Cyprus still divided, and the requirement to remember a national imperative, this book has a direct contemporary relevance. However, within the existent literature, while much has been written about the political roots of the Cyprus conflict, no study has yet sought to systematically analyse and understand the influences shaping the history and memory of British actions on Cyprus in 1974. One defined by the existence of 'partitionist' conspiracies, collusive accusations and a series of memory distortions which continue to resonate strongly irrespective of the evidence that is now available. As such, by analysing the influences shaping the image of Britain in 1974, one can begin to understand in ever greater detail the Anglo-Greek Cypriot relationship in a modern context.
`It is really encouraging to see that such a book has been published ... No one can deny that Open University students - and all other interested parties - are given both sides of case.' - Tribune
Addressing the need for an authoritative reference work to make sense of a rapidly growing and ever more complex corpus of literature, Military History is a new title from Routledge's Critical Concepts in Military, Strategic, and Security Studies series. Edited by Jeremy Black ('the most prolific historical scholar of our age'), it is a four-volume collection which brings together the very best scholarship in a one-stop 'mini library' of major works. Black avers that military history is increasingly seen as a global enterprise and Eurocentric/Western perspectives and paradigms often now appear questionable, if not redundant. Moreover, a teleology of warfare leading towards the total warfare of the twentieth century-the two world wars and the Cold War-appears far less convincing, he says, in light of developments since 1990. This kind of re-examination of long-held assumptions about military history has guided the selection of materials, which are organized chronologically, but with abundant cross-referencing to enable users to pursue thematic approaches. The focus is on major works published since 1990, first to centre on current research, questions, and perspectives and, secondly, because earlier literature can be followed through these pieces. Military History is fully indexed and includes a comprehensive introduction, newly written by the editor, which places the collected material in its historical and intellectual context. It is an essential reference work and is destined to be valued by scholars and students as a vital research and pedagogic resource.
China s nuclear arsenal has long been an enigma. The arsenal has historically been small, based almost exclusively on land-based ballistic missiles, maintained at a low level of alert, and married to a no-first-use doctrine all choices that would seem to invite attack in a crisis. Chinese leaders, when they have spoken about nuclear weapons, have articulated ideas that sound odd to the Western ear. Mao Zedong s oft-quoted remark that nuclear weapons are a paper tiger seems to be bluster or madness. China s nuclear forces are now too important to remain a mystery. Yet Westerners continue to disagree about basic factual information concerning one of the world s most important nuclear-weapons states. This Adelphi book documents and explains the evolution of China s nuclear forces in terms of historical, bureaucratic and ideological factors. There is a strategic logic at work, but that logic is mediated through politics, bureaucracy and ideology. The simplest explanation is that Chinese leaders, taken as a whole, have tended to place relatively little emphasis on the sort of technical details that dominated US discussions regarding deterrence. Such profound differences in thinking about nuclear weapons could lead to catastrophic misunderstanding in the event of a military crisis between Beijing and Washington.
This book examines the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands dispute from a foreign policy perspective, focusing on three key stakeholders: China, Japan and the United States. The Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands dispute is a prominent territorial dispute between China and Japan. This book critically assesses that dispute in a pragmatic, policy-oriented manner. The central question of the work focuses on the various military (direct invasion, coercion) and non-military (bilateral negotiations, binding and non-binding third-party options and delaying) foreign policy avenues available to China to pursue its key interests over the disputed islands. To compare and contrast these different options, the book employs a qualitative rational-choice framework. This allows for a critical analysis on the merits and demerits of various options and to anticipate China's potential course of action based on the principle that China is expected to act in a rational manner. This research offers two main contributions. First, it adopts a security-focused approach to complement the economic-focused works on the subject. Second, it critically examines the various foreign policy options as opposed to offering an avenue based on purely theoretical assumptions. While the work concludes that a delaying/status quo approach is rational for all parties involved, it highlights alternative policy avenues that can build on the conclusion of the rational-choice analysis. Through this it seeks to address the possibility of escalation and de-escalation on the East China Sea and highlights the critical role pro-active foreign policy making plays in averting a negative outcome of the dispute. This book will be of much interest to students of Chinese Foreign Policy, Asian Politics, Security Studies and International Relations.
This title was first published in 2001. The security dilemma has long been at the heart of the security studies discipline. Moving beyond this, this book attacks the assumptions of the traditional concept and redefines the security dilemma in a way more useful for examining security policy. By exposing the historical and social contingency of the traditional concept, the book argues that the security dilemma is an important though not a permanently operating feature of international politics. An examination of US policy towards the Soviet Union demonstrates the limits of perceiving the Cold War and challenges the role that American security policy has played in the process of constructing a transatlantic security community.
The law of armed conflict is a key element of the global legal order yet it finds itself in a state of flux created by the changing nature of warfare and the influences of other branches of international law. The Routledge Handbook of the Law of Armed Conflict provides a unique perspective on the field covering all the key aspects of the law as well as identifying developing and often contentious areas of interest. The handbook will feature original pieces by international experts in the field, including academics, staff of relevant NGOs and (former) members of the armed forces. Made up of six parts in order to offer a comprehensive overview of the field, the structure of the handbook is as follows: Part I: Fundamentals Part II: Principle of distinction Part III: Means and methods of warfare Part IV: Special protection regimes Part V: Compliance and enforcement Part VI: Some contemporary issues Throughout the book, attention is paid to non-international conflicts as well as international conflicts with acknowledgement of the differences. The contributors also consider the relationship between the law of armed conflict and human rights law, looking at how the various rules and principles of human rights law interact with specific rules and principles of international humanitarian law in particular circumstances. The Routledge Handbook of the Law of Armed Conflict provides a fresh take on the contemporary laws of war and is written for advanced level students, academics, researchers, NGOs and policy-makers with an interest in the field.
This book is a critical exploration of the war on terror from the prism of armed drones and globalization. It is particularly focused on the United States' use of the drones, and the systemic dysfunctions that globalization has caused to international political economy and national security, creating backlash in which the desirability of globalization is not only increasingly questioned, but the resultant dissension about its desirability appears increasingly militating against the international consensus needed to fight the war on terror. To underline the controversial nature of the "war on terror" and the pragmatic weapon (armed drones) fashioned for its prosecution, some of the elements of this controversy have been interrogated in this book. They include, amongst others, the doubt over whether the war should have been declared in the first place because terrorist attacks hardly meet the United Nations' casus belli - an armed attack. There are critics, as highlighted in this book, who believe that the "war on terror" is not an armed conflict properly so called, and, thus, remains only a "law enforcement issue." The United States and all the states taking part in the war on terror are obligated to observe International Humanitarian Law (IHL). It is within this context of IHL that this book appraises the drone as a weapon of engagement, discussing such issues as "personality" and "signature" strikes as well as the implications of the deployment of spies as drone strikers rather than the Defence Department, the members of the U.S armed forces. This book will be of value to researchers, academics, policymakers, professionals, and students in the fields of security studies, terrorism, the law of armed conflict, international humanitarian law, and international politics.
This title was first published in 2003.France and the Algerian Conflict is a study of the French response to political upheavals in Algeria since 1988. In a very short period of time, Algeria has lived through a fast track democratization process, a coup d'etat and an upsurge of violence bringing the country to the brink of civil war. France's policy towards its ex-colony during this period of political and social hardship has been very tortuous. French leaders, from the Left or the Right, have shifted back and forth from supporting 'conciliation' in Algeria to backing 'eradication'. This book retraces the main events that occurred in Algeria from 1988 to 1995 and analyses the successive policy shifts of the French government both in terms of political discourse and policy means. In particular, it seeks answers to the issue of the French opposition to the Algerian militant Islamic Salvation Front (FIS).
Governance and Security in Jerusalem is the second in a series of three books which collectively present in detail the work of the Jerusalem Old City Initiative, or JOCI, a major Canadian-led Track Two diplomatic effort, undertaken between 2003 and 2014. The aim of the Initiative was to find sustainable governance solutions for the Old City of Jerusalem, arguably the most sensitive and intractable of the final status issues dividing Palestinians and Israelis. This book presents a collection of studies commissioned by the Initiative in aid of its work on the Special Regime. It is split into three parts, Part I provides background papers on governance and security issues; Part II presents Palestinian and Israeli partner perspectives on governance options for a special regime, and the Part III delivers partner perspectives on security studies for a special regime. The studies written by the Israeli and Palestinian partners provide important background and historical context for JOCI's work on security and governance. The position papers, presented in their original form, greatly influenced the development of the Special Regime governance model. Offering a unique insight on a range of governance and security issues in Jerusalem, this book will be of great significance to the policy-making community and students and scholars with an interest in Middle East politics, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the Middle East peace process. |
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